American Psycho

  He looks away from the numbers and then straight at me. “It was called Cocktail,” he says softly.

  “Pardon?” I say, confused.

  He clears his throat and says, “Cocktail. Not Bartender. The film was called Cocktail.”

  A long pause follows; just the sound of cables moving the elevator up higher into the building competes with the silence, obvious and heavy between us.

  “Oh yeah … Right,” I say, as if the title just dawned on me. “Cocktail. Oh yeah, that’s right,” I say. “Great, Bateman, what are you thinking about?” I shake my head as if to clear it and then, to patch things up, hold out my hand. “Hi. Pat Bateman.”

  Cruise tentatively shakes it.

  “So,” I go. “You like living in this building?”

  He waits a long time before answering, “I guess.”

  “It’s great,” I say. “Isn’t it?”

  He nods, not looking at me, and I press the button for my floor again, an almost involuntary reaction. We stand there in silence.

  “So … Cocktail,” I say, after a while. “That’s the name.”

  He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even nod, but now he’s looking at me strangely and he lowers his sunglasses and says, with a slight grimace, “Uh … your nose is bleeding.”

  I stand there rock still for a moment, before understanding that I have to do something about this, so I pretend to be suitably embarrassed, quizzically touch my nose then bring out my Polo handkerchief—already spotted brown—and wipe the blood away from my nostrils, overall handling it sort of well. “Must be the altitude.” I laugh. “We’re up so high.”

  He nods, says nothing, looks up at the numbers.

  The elevator stops at my floor and when the doors open I tell Tom, “I’m a big fan. It’s really good to finally meet you.”

  “Oh yeah, right.” Cruise smiles that famous grin and jabs at the Close Door button.

  The girl I’m going out with tonight, Patricia Worrell—blond, model, dropped out of Sweet Briar recently after only one semester—has left two messages on the answering machine, letting me know how incredibly important it is that I call her. While loosening my Matisse-inspired blue silk tie from Bill Robinson I dial her number and walk across the apartment, cordless phone in hand, to flip on the air-conditioning.

  She answers on the third ring. “Hello?”

  “Patricia. Hi. It’s Pat Bateman.”

  “Oh hi,” she says. “Listen, I’m on the other line. Can I call you back?”

  “Well …,” I say.

  “Look, it’s my health club,” she says. “They’ve screwed up my account. I’ll call you back in a sec.”

  “Yeah,” I say and hang up.

  I go into the bedroom and take off what I was wearing today: a herringbone wool suit with pleated trousers by Giorgio Correggiari, a cotton oxford shirt by Ralph Lauren, a knit tie from Paul Stuart and suede shoes from Cole-Haan. I slip on a pair of sixty-dollar boxer shorts I bought at Barney’s and do some stretching exercises, holding the phone, waiting for Patricia to call back. After ten minutes of stretching, the phone rings and I wait six rings to answer it.

  “Hi,” she says. “It’s me, Patricia.”

  “Could you hold on? I’ve got another call.”

  “Oh sure,” she says.

  I put her on hold for two minutes, then get back on the line. “Hi,” I say. “Sorry.”

  “That’s okay.”

  “So. Dinner,” I say. “Stop by my place around eight?”

  “Well, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” she says slowly.

  “Oh no,” I moan. “What is it?”

  “Well, see, it’s like this,” she begins. “There’s this concert at Radio City and—”

  “No, no, no,” I tell her adamantly. “No music.”

  “But my ex-boyfriend, this keyboardist from Sarah Lawrence, he’s in the backup band and—” She stops, as if she has already decided to protest my decision.

  “No. Uh-uh, Patricia,” I tell her firmly, thinking to myself: Damnit, why this problem, why tonight?

  “Oh Patrick,” she whines into the phone. “It’ll be so much fun.”

  I am now fairly sure that the odds of having sex with Patricia this evening are quite good, but not if we attend a concert in which an ex-boyfriend (there is no such thing with Patricia) is in the backup band.

  “I don’t like concerts,” I tell her, walking into the kitchen. I open the refrigerator and take out a liter of Evian. “I don’t like concerts,” I say again. “I don’t like ‘live’ music.”

  “But this one isn’t like the others.” She lamely adds, “We have good seats.”

  “Listen. There’s no need to argue,” I say. “If you want to go, go.”

  “But I thought we were going to be together,” she says, straining for emotion. “I thought we were going to have dinner,” and then, almost definitely an afterthought, “Be together. The two of us.”

  “I know, I know,” I say. “Listen, we should all be allowed to do exactly what we want to do. I want you to do what you want to do.”

  She pauses and tries a new angle. “This music is so beautiful, so … I know it sounds corny, but it’s … glorious. The band is one of the best you’ll ever see. They’re funny and wonderful and the music is so great and, oh gosh, I just want you to see them so badly. We’ll have a great time, I guarantee it,” she says with dripping earnestness.

  “No, no, you go,” I say. “You have a good time.”

  “Patrick,” she says. “I have two tickets.”

  “No. I don’t like concerts,” I say. “Live music bugs me.”

  “Well,” she says and her voice sounds genuinely tinged with maybe real disappointment, “I’ll feel bad that you’re not there with me.”

  “I say go and have a good time.” I unscrew the cap off the Evian bottle, timing my next move. “Don’t worry. I’ll just go to Dorsia alone then. It’s okay.”

  There is a very long pause that I am able to translate into: Uh-huh, right, now see if you want to go to that lousy fucking concert. I take a large gulp of Evian, waiting for her to tell me what time she’ll be over.

  “Dorsia?” she asks and then, suspiciously, “You have reservations there? I mean for us?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Eight-thirty.”

  “Well …” She emits a little laugh and then, faltering, “It was … well, what I mean is, I’ve seen them. I just wanted you to see them.”

  “Listen. What are you doing?” I ask. “If you’re not coming I have to call someone else. Do you have Emily Hamilton’s number?”

  “Oh now now, Patrick, don’t be … rash.” She giggles nervously. “They are playing two more nights so I can see them tomorrow. Listen, calm down, okay?”

  “Okay,” I say. “I’m calm.”

  “Now what time should I be over?” Restaurant Whore asks.

  “I said eight,” I tell her, disgusted.

  “That’s fine,” she says and then in a seductive whisper, “See you at eight.” She lingers on the phone as if she expects me to say something else, as if maybe I should congratulate her for making the correct decision, but I hardly have time to deal with this so I abruptly hang up.

  The instant after I hang up on Patricia I dash across the room and grab the Zagat guide and flip through it until I find Dorsia. With trembling fingers I dial the number. Busy. Panicked, I put the phone on Constant Redial and for the next five minutes nothing but a busy signal, faithful and ominous, repeats itself across the line. Finally a ring and in the seconds before there’s an answer I experience that rarest of occurrences—an adrenaline rush.

  “Dorsia,” someone answers, sex not easily identifiable, made androgynous by the wall-of-sound noise in the background. “Please hold.”

  It sounds slightly less noisy than a packed football stadium and it takes every ounce of courage I can muster to stay on the line and not hang up. I’m on hold for five minutes, my palm sweaty, sore from clenching the cordl
ess phone so tightly, a fraction of me realizing the futility of this effort, another part hopeful, another fraction pissed off that I didn’t make the reservations earlier or get Jean to. The voice comes back on the line and says gruffly, “Dorsia.”

  I clear my throat. “Um, yes, I know it’s a little late but is it possible to reserve a table for two at eight-thirty or nine perhaps?” I’m asking this with both eyes shut tight.

  There is a pause—the crowd in the background a surging, deafening mass—and with real hope coursing through me I open my eyes, realizing that the maître d’, god love him, is probably looking through the reservation book for a cancellation—but then he starts giggling, low at first but it builds to a high-pitched crescendo of laughter which is abruptly cut off when he slams down the receiver.

  Stunned, feverish, feeling empty, I contemplate the next move, the only sound the dial tone buzzing noisily from the receiver. Gather my bearings, count to six, reopen the Zagat guide and steadily regain my concentration against the almost overwhelming panic about securing an eight-thirty reservation somewhere if not as trendy as Dorsia then at least in the next-best league. I eventually get a reservation at Barcadia for two at nine, and that only because of a cancellation, and though Patricia will probably be disappointed she might actually like Barcadia—the tables are well spaced, the lighting is dim and flattering, the food Nouvelle Southwestern—and if she doesn’t, what is the bitch going to do, sue me?

  I worked out heavily at the gym after leaving the office today but the tension has returned, so I do ninety abdominal crunches, a hundred and fifty push-ups, and then I run in place for twenty minutes while listening to the new Huey Lewis CD. I take a hot shower and afterwards use a new facial scrub by Caswell-Massey and a body wash by Greune, then a body moisturizer by Lubriderm and a Neutrogena facial cream. I debate between two outfits. One is a wool-crepe suit by Bill Robinson I bought at Saks with this cotton jacquard shirt from Charivari and an Armani tie. Or a wool and cashmere sport coat with blue plaid, a cotton shirt and pleated wool trousers by Alexander Julian, with a polka-dot silk tie by Bill Blass. The Julian might be a little too warm for May but if Patricia’s wearing this outfit by Karl Lagerfeld that I think she’s going to, then maybe I will go with the Julian, because it would go well with her suit. The shoes are crocodile loafers by A. Testoni.

  A bottle of Scharffenberger is on ice in a Spiros spun-aluminum bowl which is in a Christine Van der Hurd etched-glass champagne cooler which sits on a Cristofle silver-plated bar tray. The Scharffenberger isn’t bad—it’s not Cristal, but why waste Cristal on this bimbo? She probably wouldn’t be able to tell the difference anyway. I have a glass of it while waiting for her, occasionally rearranging the Steuben animals on the glass-top coffee table by Turchin, or sometimes I flip through the last hardcover book I bought, something by Garrison Keillor. Patricia is late.

  While waiting on the couch in the living room, the Wurlitzer jukebox playing “Cherish” by the Lovin’ Spoonful, I come to the conclusion that Patricia is safe tonight, that I am not going to unexpectedly pull a knife out and use it on her just for the sake of doing so, that I am not going to get any pleasure watching her bleed from slits I’ve made by cutting her throat or slicing her neck open or gouging her eyes out. She’s lucky, even though there is no real reasoning behind the luck. It could be that she’s safe because her wealth, her family’s wealth, protects her tonight, or it could be that it’s simply my choice. Maybe the glass of Scharffenberger has deadened my impulse or maybe it’s simply that I don’t want to ruin this particular Alexander Julian suit by having the bitch spray her blood all over it. Whatever happens, the useless fact remains: Patricia will stay alive, and this victory requires no skill, no leaps of the imagination, no ingenuity on anyone’s part. This is simply how the world, my world, moves.

  She arrives thirty minutes late and I tell the doorman to let her up even though I meet her outside my door while I’m locking it. She isn’t wearing the Karl Lagerfeld suit I expected, but she looks pretty decent anyway: a silk gazar blouse with rhinestone cuff links by Louis Dell’Olio and a pair of embroidered velvet pants from Saks, crystal earrings by Wendy Gell for Anne Klein and gold sling-back pumps. I wait until we’re in the cab heading midtown to tell her about not going to Dorsia and then I apologize profusely, mention something about disconnected phone lines, a fire, a vengeful maître d’. She gives a little gasp when I drop the news, ignores the apologies and turns away from me to glare out the window. I try to placate her by describing how trendy, how luxurious the restaurant we’re going to is, explaining its pasta with fennel and banana, its sorbets, but she only shakes her head and then I’m reduced to telling her, oh Christ, about how Barcadia has gotten much more expensive even than Dorsia, but she is relentless. Her eyes, I swear, intermittently tear.

  She doesn’t say anything until we’re seated at a mediocre table near the back section of the main dining room and that’s only to order a Bellini. For dinner I order the shad-roe ravioli with apple compote as an appetizer and the meat loaf with chèvre and quail-stock sauce for an entrée. She orders the red snapper with violets and pine nuts and for an appetizer a peanut butter soup with smoked duck and mashed squash which sounds strange but is actually quite good. New York magazine called it a “playful but mysterious little dish” and I repeat this to Patricia, who lights a cigarette while ignoring my lit match, sulkily slumped in her seat, exhaling smoke directly into my face, occasionally shooting furious looks at me which I politely ignore, being the gentleman that I can be. Once our plates arrive I just stare at my dinner—the meat loaf dark red triangles topped by chèvre which has been tinted pink by pomegranate juice, squiggles of thick tan quail stock circling the beef, and mango slices dotting the rim of the wide black plate—for a long time, a little confused, before deciding to eat it, hesitantly picking up my fork.

  Even though dinner lasts only ninety minutes it feels as if we have been sitting in Barcadia for a week, and though I have no desire to visit Tunnel afterwards it seems appropriate punishment for Patricia’s behavior. The bill comes to $320—less than I expected, actually—and I put it on my platinum AmEx. In the cab heading downtown, my eyes locked on the meter, our driver tries to make conversation with Patricia who completely ignores him while checking her makeup in a Gucci compact, adding lipstick to an already heavily colored mouth. There was a baseball game on tonight that I think I forgot to videotape so I won’t be able to watch it when I get home but I remember that I bought two magazines after work today and I can always spend an hour or so poring over those. I check my Rolex and realize that if we have one drink, maybe two, I’ll get home in time for Late Night with David Letterman. Though physically Patricia is appealing and I wouldn’t mind having sex with her body, the idea of treating her gently, of being a kind date, of apologizing for this evening, for not being able to get into Dorsia (even though Barcadia is twice as expensive for Christ sakes), rubs me the wrong way. The bitch is probably pissed we don’t have a limo.

  The cab stops outside Tunnel. I pay the fare and leave the driver a decent tip and hold the door open for Patricia who ignores my hand when I try to help her step out of the cab. No one stands outside the ropes tonight. In fact the only person on Twenty-fourth Street is a bum who sits by a Dumpster, writhing in pain, moaning for change or food, and we pass quickly by him as one of the three doormen who stand behind the ropes lets us in, another one patting me on the back saying, “How are you, Mr. McCullough?” I nod, opening the door for Patricia, and before following her in say, “Fine, uh, Jim,” and I shake his hand.

  Once inside, after paying fifty dollars for the two of us, I head immediately to the bar without really caring if Patricia follows. I order a J&B on the rocks. She wants a Perrier, no lime, and orders this herself. After I down half the drink, leaning against the bar and checking the hardbody waitress out, something suddenly seems out of place; it’s not the lighting or INXS singing “New Sensation” or the hardbody behind the bar. It’s something e
lse. When I slowly turn around to take in the rest of the club I’m confronted by space that is completely deserted. Patricia and myself are the only two customers in the entire club. We are, except for the occasional hardbody, literally the only two people in Tunnel. “New Sensation” becomes “The Devil Inside” and the music is full blast but it feels less loud because there isn’t a crowd reacting to it, and the dance floor looks vast when empty.

  I move away from the bar and decide to check out the club’s other areas, expecting Patricia to follow but she doesn’t. No one guards the stairs that lead to the basement and as I step down them the music from upstairs changes, melds itself into Belinda Carlisle singing “I Feel Free.” The basement has one couple in it who look like Sam and Ilene Sanford but it’s darker down here, warmer, and I could be wrong. I move past them as they stand by the bar drinking champagne and head over toward this extremely well-dressed Mexican-looking guy sitting on a couch. He’s wearing a double-breasted wool jacket and matching trousers by Mario Valentino, a cotton T-shirt by Agnes B. and leather slip-ons (no socks) by Susan Bennis Warren Edwards, and he’s with a good-looking muscular Eurotrash chick—dirty blond, big tits, tan, no makeup, smoking Merit Ultra Lights—who has on a cotton gown with a zebra print by Patrick Kelly and silk and rhinestone high-heeled pumps.

  I ask the guy if his name is Ricardo.

  He nods. “Sure.”

  I ask for a gram, tell him Madison sent me. I pull my wallet out and hand over a fifty and two twenties. He asks the Eurotrash chick for her purse. She hands him a velvet bag by Anne Moore. Ricardo reaches in and hands me a tiny folded envelope. Before I leave, the Eurotrash girl tells me she likes my gazelleskin wallet. I tell her I would like to tit-fuck her and then maybe cut her arms off, but the music, George Michael singing “Faith,” is too loud and she can’t hear me.

  Back upstairs I find Patricia where I left her, alone at the bar, nursing a Perrier.

  “Listen, Patrick,” she says, her attitude relenting. “I just want you to know that I’m—”