American Psycho Read online

  McDermott appears behind me and pulls at my shoulder. “Does Price know about a VIP room that we don’t?” He looks worried.

  Outside Tunnel now, I’m high but really tired and my mouth tastes surprisingly like NutraSweet, even after drinking two more Stolis and half a J&B. Twelve-thirty and we watch limousines try to make left turns onto the West Side Highway. The three of us, Van Patten, McDermott and myself, discuss the possibilities of finding this new club called Nekenieh. I’m not really high, just sort of drunk.

  “Lunch?” I ask them, yawning. “Tomorrow?”

  “Can’t,” McDermott says. “Haircut at the Pierre.”

  “What about breakfast?” I suggest.

  “Nope,” Van Patten says. “Gio’s. Manicure.”

  “That reminds me,” I say, inspecting a hand. “I need one too.”

  “How about dinner?” McDermott asks me.

  “I’ve got a date,” I say. “Shit.”

  “What about you?” McDermott asks Van Patten.

  “No can do,” Van Patten says. “I’ve got to go to Sunmakers. Then private workout.”

  Office

  In the elevator Frederick Dibble tells me about an item, or some other gossip column, about Ivana Trump and then about this new Italian-Thai place on the Upper East Side that he went to last night with Emily Hamilton and starts raving about this great fusilli shiitake dish. I have taken out a gold Cross pen to write down the name of the restaurant in my address book. Dibble is wearing a subtly striped double-breasted wool suit by Canali Milano, a cotton shirt by Bill Blass, a mini-glen-plaid woven silk tie by Bill Blass Signature and he’s holding a Missoni Uomo raincoat. He has a good-looking, expensive haircut and I stare at it, admiringly, while he starts humming along to the Muzak station—a version of what could be “Sympathy for the Devil”—that plays throughout all the elevators in the building our offices are in. I’m about to ask Dibble if he watched The Patty Winters Show this morning—the topic was Autism—but he gets out on the floor before mine and repeats the name of the restaurant, “Thaidialano,” and then “See you, Marcus” and steps out of the elevator. The doors shut. I am wearing a mini-houndstooth-check wool suit with pleated trousers by Hugo Boss, a silk tie, also by Hugo Boss, a cotton broadcloth shirt by Joseph Abboud and shoes from Brooks Brothers. I flossed too hard this morning and I can still taste the coppery residue of swallowed blood in the back of my throat. I used Listerine afterwards and my mouth feels like it’s on fire but I manage a smile to no one as I step out of the elevator, brushing past a hung-over Wittenborn, swinging my new black leather attaché case from Bottega Veneta.

  My secretary, Jean, who is in love with me and who I will probably end up marrying, sits at her desk and this morning, to get my attention as usual, is wearing something improbably expensive and completely inappropriate: a Chanel cashmere cardigan, a cashmere crewneck and a cashmere scarf, faux-pearl earrings, wool-crepe pants from Barney’s. I pull my Walkman off from around my neck as I approach her desk. She looks up and smiles shyly.

  “Late?” she asks.

  “Aerobics class.” I play it cool. “Sorry. Any messages?”

  “Ricky Hendricks has to cancel today,” she says. “He didn’t say what it was he is canceling or why.”

  “I occasionally box with Ricky at the Harvard Club,” I explain. “Anyone else?”

  “And … Spencer wants to meet you for a drink at Fluties Pier 17,” she says, smiling.

  “When?” I ask.

  “After six.”

  “Negative,” I tell her as I walk into my office. “Cancel it.”

  She gets up from behind her desk and follows me in. “Oh? And what should I say?” she asks, amused.

  “Just … say … no,” I tell her, taking my Armani overcoat off and hanging it on the Alex Loeb coatrack I bought at Bloomingdale’s.

  “Just … say … no?” she repeats.

  “Did you see The Patty Winters Show this morning?” I ask. “On Autism?”

  “No.” She smiles as if somehow charmed by my addiction to The Patty Winters Show. “How was it?”

  I pick up this morning’s Wall Street Journal and scan the front page—all of it one ink-stained senseless typeset blur. “I think I was hallucinating while watching it. I don’t know. I can’t be sure. I don’t remember,” I murmur, placing the Journal back down and then, picking up today’s Financial Times, “I really don’t know.” She just stands there waiting for instructions. I sigh and place my hands together, sitting down at the Palazzetti glass-top desk, the halogen lamps on both sides already burning. “Okay, Jean,” I start. “I need reservations for three at Camols at twelve-thirty and if not there, try Crayons. All right?”

  “Yes sir,” she says in a joky tone and then turns to leave.

  “Oh wait,” I say, remembering something. “And I need reservations for two at Arcadia at eight tonight.”

  She turns around, her face falling slightly but still smiling. “Oh, something … romantic?”

  “No, silly. Forget it,” I tell her. “I’ll make them. Thanks.”

  “I’ll do it,” she says.

  “No. No,” I say, waving her off. “Be a doll and just get me a Perrier, okay?”

  “You look nice today,” she says before leaving.

  She’s right, but I’m not saying anything—just staring across the office at the George Stubbs painting that hangs on the wall, wondering if I should move it, thinking maybe it’s too close to the Aiwa AM/FM stereo receiver and the dual cassette recorder and the semiautomatic belt-drive turntable, the graphic equalizer, the matching bookshelf speakers, all in twilight blue to match the color scheme of the office. The Stubbs painting should probably go over the life-size Doberman that’s in the corner ($700 at Beauty and the Beast in Trump Tower) or maybe it would look better over the Pacrizinni antique table that sits next to the Doberman. I get up and move all these sporting magazines from the forties—they cost me thirty bucks apiece—that I bought at Funchies, Bunkers, Gaks and Gleeks, and then I lift the Stubbs painting off the wall and balance it on the table then sit back at my desk and fiddle with the pencils I keep in a vintage German beer stein I got from Man-tiques. The Stubbs looks good in either place. A reproduction Black Forest umbrella stand ($675 at Hubert des Forges) sits in another corner without, I’m just noticing, any umbrellas in it.

  I put a Paul Butterfield tape in the cassette player, sit back at the desk and flip through last week’s Sports Illustrated, but can’t concentrate. I keep thinking about that damn tanning bed Van Patten has and I’m moved to pick up the phone and buzz Jean.

  “Yes?” she answers.

  “Jean. Listen, keep your eyes open for a tanning bed, okay?”

  “What?” she asks—incredulously, I’m sure, but she’s still probably smiling.

  “You know. A tanning bed,” I repeat casually. “For a … tan.”

  “Okay …,” she says hesitantly. “Anything else?”

  “And, oh shit, yeah. Remind me to return the videotapes I rented last night back to the store.” I start to open and close the sterling silver cigar holder that sits by the phone.

  “Anything else?” she asks, and then, flirtatiously, “How about that Perrier?”

  “Yeah. That sounds good. And Jean?”

  “Yes,” she says, and I’m relieved by her patience.

  “You don’t think I’m crazy?” I ask. “I mean for wanting a tanning bed?”

  There’s a pause and then, “Well, it is a little unusual,” she admits, and I can tell she is choosing her words very carefully. “But no, of course not. I mean how else are you going to keep up that devilishly handsome skin tone?”

  “Good girl,” I say before hanging up. I have a great secretary.

  She comes into the office five minutes later with the Perrier, a wedge of lime and the Ransom file, which she did not need to bring, and I am vaguely touched by her almost total devotion to me. I can’t help but be flattered.

  “You have a table at Camols at tw
elve-thirty,” she announces as she pours the Perrier into a glass tumbler. “Nonsmoking section.”

  “Don’t wear that outfit again,” I say, looking her over quickly. “Thanks for the Ransom file.”

  “Um …” She stalls, about to hand me the Perrier, and asks, “What? I didn’t hear you,” before setting the drink on my desk.

  “I said,” and I repeat myself calmly, grinning, “do not wear that outfit again. Wear a dress. A skirt or something.”

  She stands there only a little stunned, and after she looks down at herself, she smiles like some kind of cretin. “You don’t like this, I take it,” she says humbly.

  “Come on,” I say, sipping my Perrier. “You’re prettier than that.”

  “Thanks, Patrick,” she says sarcastically, though I bet tomorrow she’ll be wearing a dress. The phone on her desk rings. I tell her I’m not here. She turns to leave.

  “And high heels,” I mention. “I like high heels.”

  She shakes her head good-naturedly as she exits, shutting my door behind her. I take out a Panasonic pocket watch with a three-inch diagonal color TV and an AM/FM radio and try to find something to watch, hopefully Jeopardy!, before turning to my computer terminal.

  Health Club

  The health club I belong to, Xclusive, is private and located four blocks from my apartment on the Upper West Side. In the two years since I signed up as a member, it has been remodeled three times and though they carry the latest weight machines (Nautilus, Universal, Keiser) they have a vast array of free weights which I like to use also. The club has ten courts for tennis and racquetball, aerobics classes, four aerobic dance studios, two swimming pools, Lifecycles, a Gravitron machine, rowing machines, treadmills, cross-country skiing machines, one-on-one training, cardiovascular evaluations, personalized programs, massage, sauna and steam rooms, a sun deck, tanning booths and a café with a juice bar, all of it designed by J. J. Vogel, who designed the new Norman Prager club, Petty’s. Membership runs five thousand dollars annually.

  It was cool this morning but seems warmer after I leave the office and I’m wearing a six-button double-breasted chalk-striped suit by Ralph Lauren with a spread-collar pencil-striped Sea Island cotton shirt with French cuffs, also by Polo, and I remove the clothes, gratefully, in the air-conditioned locker room, then slip into a pair of crow-black cotton and Lycra shorts with a white waistband and side stripes and a cotton and Lycra tank top, both by Wilkes, which can be folded so tightly that I can actually carry them in my briefcase. After getting dressed and putting my Walkman on, clipping its body to the Lycra shorts and placing the phones over my ears, a Stephen Bishop/Christopher Cross compilation tape Todd Hunter made for me, I check myself in the mirror before entering the gym and, dissatisfied, go back to my briefcase for some mousse to slick my hair back and then I use a moisturizer and, for a small blemish I notice under my lower lip, a dab of Clinique Touch-Stick. Satisfied, I turn the Walkman on, the volume up, and leave the locker room.

  Cheryl, this dumpy chick who is in love with me, sits at her desk up front signing people in, reading one of the gossip columns in the Post, and she brightens up noticeably when she sees me approaching. She says hello but I move past her quickly, barely registering her presence since there’s no line at the Stairmaster, for which usually one has to wait twenty minutes. With the Stairmaster you work the body’s largest muscle group (between the pelvis and knees) and you can end up burning more calories per minute than by doing any other aerobic activity, except maybe Nordic skiing.

  I should probably be stretching first but if I do that I’ll have to wait in line—already some faggot is behind me, probably checking out my back, ass, leg muscles. No hardbodies at the gym today. Only faggots from the West Side, probably unemployed actors, waiters by night, and Muldwyn Butner of Sachs, who I went to Exeter with, over at the biceps curl machine. Butner is wearing a pair of knee-length nylon and Lycra shorts with checkerboard inserts and a cotton and Lycra tank top and leather Reeboks. I finish twenty minutes on the Stairmaster and let the overmuscled, bleached-blond, middle-aged faggot behind me use it and I commence with stretching exercises. While I stretch, The Patty Winters Show I watched this morning comes back to me. The topic was Big Breasts and there was a woman on it who had a breast reduction since she thought her tits were too big—the dumb bitch. I immediately called McDermott who was also watching it and we both ridiculed the woman through the rest of the segment. I do about fifteen minutes of stretching before heading off to the Nautilus machines.

  I used to have a personal trainer whom Luis Carruthers had recommended but he came on to me last fall and I decided to develop my own fitness program which incorporates both aerobic exercises and training. With weights I alternate between free weights and weight machines that use hydraulic, pneumatic or electromechanical resistance. Most of the machines are very efficient since computerized keypads allow one to make adjustments in weight resistance without getting up. The positive aspects of the machines include minimizing muscle soreness and reducing any chance of injury. But I also like the versatility and freedom that free weights offer and the many variations in lifting that I can’t get on the machines.

  On the leg machines I do five sets of ten repetitions. For the back I also do five sets of ten repetitions. On the stomach crunch machine I’ve gotten so I can do six sets of fifteen and on the biceps curl machine I do seven sets of ten. Before moving to the free weights I spend twenty minutes on the exercise bike while reading the new issue of Money magazine. Over at the free weights I do three sets of fifteen repetitions of leg extensions, leg curls and leg presses, then three sets and twenty repetitions of barbell curls, then three sets and twenty repetitions of bent-over lateral raises for the rear deltoids and three sets and twenty repetitions of latissimus pulldowns, pulley rows, dead lifts and bent-over barbell rows. For the chest I do three sets and twenty reps of incline-bench presses. For the front deltoids I also do three sets of lateral raises and seated dumbbell presses. Finally, for the triceps I do three sets and twenty reps of cable pushdowns and close-grip bench presses. After more stretching exercises to cool down I take a quick hot shower and then head to the video store where I return two tapes I rented on Monday, She-Male Reformatory and Body Double, but I rerent Body Double because I want to watch it again tonight even though I know I won’t have enough time to masturbate over the scene where the woman is getting drilled to death by a power drill since I have a date with Courtney at seven-thirty at Café Luxembourg.

  Date

  Heading home from working out at Xclusive, and after an intense shiatsu massage, I stop at a newsstand near my building, scanning the Adults Only rack with my Walkman still on, the soothing strains of Pachelbel’s Canon somehow complementing the harshly lit, laminated photographs in the magazines I flip through. I buy Lesbian Vibrator Bitches and Cunt on Cunt along with the current Sports Illustrated and the new issue of Esquire, even though I subscribe to them and both have already arrived in the mail. I wait until the stand is empty to make my purchase. The vendor says something, motions toward his hook nose, while handing me the magazines along with my change. I lower the volume and lift one of the Walkman’s earphones up and ask, “What?” He touches his nose again and in a thick, nearly impenetrable accent says, I think, “Nose uise bleding.” I put my Bottega Veneta briefcase down and lift a finger up to my face. It comes away red, wet with blood. I reach into my Hugo Boss overcoat and bring out a Polo handkerchief and wipe the blood away, nod my thanks, slip my Wayfarer aviator sunglasses back on and leave. Fucking Iranian.

  In the lobby of my building I stop at the front desk and try to get the attention of a black Hispanic doorman I don’t recognize. He’s on the phone to his wife or his dealer or some crack addict and stares at me as he nods, the phone cradled in the premature folds of his neck. When it dawns on him that I want to ask something, he sighs, rolls his eyes up and tells whoever is on the line to hold on. “Yeah whatchooneed?” he mumbles.

  “Yes,” I begin, m
y tone as gentle and polite as I can possibly muster. “Could you please tell the superintendent that I have a crack in my ceiling and …” I stop.

  He’s looking at me as if I have overstepped some kind of unspoken boundary and I’m beginning to wonder what word confused him: certainly not crack, so what was it? Superintendent? Ceiling? Maybe even please?

  “Whatchoomean?” He sighs thickly, slumped back, still staring at me.

  I look down at the marble floor and also sigh and tell him, “Look. I don’t know. Just tell the superintendent it’s Bateman … in Ten I.” When I bring my head back up to see if any of this has registered I’m greeted by the expressionless mask of the doorman’s heavy, stupid face. I am a ghost to this man, I’m thinking. I am something unreal, something not quite tangible, yet still an obstacle of sorts and he nods, gets back on the phone, resumes speaking in a dialect totally alien to me.

  I collect my mail—Polo catalog, American Express bill, June Playboy, invitation to an office party at a new club called Bedlam—then walk to the elevator, step in while inspecting the Ralph Lauren brochure and press the button for my floor and then the Close Door button, but someone gets in right before the doors shut and instinctively I turn to say hello. It’s the actor Tom Cruise, who lives in the penthouse, and as a courtesy, without asking him, I press the PH button and he nods thank you and keeps his eyes fixed on the numbers lighting up above the door in rapid succession. He is much shorter in person and he’s wearing the same pair of black Wayfarers I have on. He’s dressed in blue jeans, a white T-shirt, an Armani jacket.

  To break the noticeably uncomfortable silence, I clear my throat and say, “I thought you were very fine in Bartender. I thought it was quite a good movie, and Top Gun too. I really thought that was good.”