"Marcus," I remind him.

"Marcus. Whatever. I'm not gonna break the rules. I can't do anything about it. It's company rules. I'm not gonna break 'em."

We both lapse into silence. I sigh, look around, considering dragging Evelyn to the third limo, or maybe back to Barker's limo he's a real asshole but no, goddamnit, no, goddamnit, I want I want Owen's. Owen's. Meanwhile the driver sighs to himself, "If the midgets want to sing, let them sing." Meanwhile the driver sighs to himself, "If the midgets want to sing, let them sing."

"Shit," I curse, taking out my gazelleskin wallet. "Here's a hundred." I hand him two fifties.

"Two hundred," he says.

'"This city sucks," I mutter, handing the money over.

"Where do you want to go?" he asks, taking the bills with a sigh, as he starts the limousine.

"Club Chernoble," I say, rushing to the back and opening the door.

"Yes sir sir," he shouts.

I hop in, shutting the door just as the driver peels away from Evelyn's brownstone toward Riverside Drive. Evelyn's sitting next to me while I'm catching my breath, wiping cold sweat off my brow with an Armani handkerchief. When I look over at her, she's on the verge of tears, her lips trembling, silent for once.

"You're startling me. What happened?" I am alarmed. "What... what did I do? The Waldorf salad was good. What else?"

"Oh Patrick," she sighs. "It's... lovely. I don't know what to say."

"Well..." I pause carefully. "I don't... either."

'This," she says, presenting me with a diamond necklace from Tiffany's, Meredith's present from Owen. "Well, help me put it on, darling. You're not the Grinch, honey."

"Uh, Evelyn," I say, then curse under my breath as she turns her back toward me so I can clasp it around her neck. The limousine lurches forward and she falls against me, laughing. then kisses my cheek. "It's lovely, oh I love it... Oops, must have true breath. Sorry, honey. Find me some champagne and pour me a glass."

"But..." I stare helplessly at the glittering necklace. "That's not it."

"What?" Evelyn asks, looking around the limo. "Are there glasses in here? What's not it, honey?"

'"That's not it." I'm speaking in monotone.

"Oh, honey." She smiles. "You have something else for me?"

"No, I mean"

"Come on, you devil," she says, playfully grabbing at my coat pocket. "Come on, what is it?"

"What is what what?" I ask calmly, annoyed.

"You've got something else. Let me guess. A ring to match?" she guesses. "A matching bracelet? A brooch? brooch? So that's itl" She claps her hands. "It's a matching brooch." So that's itl" She claps her hands. "It's a matching brooch."

While I'm trying to push her away from me, holding one of her arms back, the other snakes behind me and grabs something out of my pocket another fortune cookie I lifted from the dead Chinese boy. She stares at it, puzzled for a moment, and says, "Patrick, you're so... romantic," and then, studying the fortune cookie and with less enthusiasm, "so... original."

I'm also staring at the fortune cookie. It's got a lot of blood on it and I shrug and say, as jovially as I can, "Oh, you know me."

"But what's on it?" She holds it up close to her face, peering at it. "What's this... red stuff?"

"That's..." I peer also, pretending to be intrigued by the stains, then I grimace. "That's sweet 'n' sour sauce."

She cracks it open excitedly, then studies the fortune, confused.

"What does it say?" I sigh, fooling around with the radio then scanning the limo for Owen's briefcase, wondering where the champagne could possibly be, the open box from Tiffany's, empty, empty on the floor, suddenly, overwhelmingly, depressing me.

"It says..." She pauses then squints at it closely, rereading it. "It says, The fresh grilled joie gras at Le Cirque is excellent but the lobster salad is only soso The fresh grilled joie gras at Le Cirque is excellent but the lobster salad is only soso."

"That's nice," I murmur, looking for champagne glasses, tapes, anything.

"It really says this, Patrick." She hands me the fortune, a slight smile creeping up on her face that I can make out even in the darkness of the limo. "What could it possibly mean?" she asks slyly.

I take it from her, read it, then look at Evelyn, then back at the fortune, then out the tinted window, at snow flurries swirling around lampposts, around people waiting for buses, beggars staggering directionless down city streets, and I say out loud to myself, "My luck could be worse. It really could."

"Oh honey," she says, throwing her arms around me, hugging my head. "Lunch at Le Cirque? You're the best. You're not the Grinch. I take it back. Thursday? Is Thursday good for you? Oh no. I can't do it Thursday. Herbal wrap. But how's Friday? And do we really want to go to La Cirque? How about"

I push her off me and knock on the divider, rapping my knuckles against it loudly until the driver lowers it. "Sid, I mean Earle, whoever, this isn't the way to Chernoble."

"Yes it is, Mr. Bateman"

"Hey!"

"I mean Mr. Halberstam. Halberstam. Avenue C, right?" He coughs politely. Avenue C, right?" He coughs politely.

"I suppose," I say, staring out the window. "I don't recognize anything.

"Avenue C?" Evelyn looks up from marveling at the necklace Paul Owen bought Meredith. "What's Avenue C? C as in... Cartier, I take it?"

"It's hip," I assure her. "It's totally hip."

"Have you been there?" she asks.

"Millions of times," I mutter.

"Chernoble? No, not not Chernoble, " she whines. "Honey, it's Chernoble, " she whines. "Honey, it's Christmas Christmas."

"What in the hell does that that mean?" I ask. mean?" I ask.

"Limo driver, oh limo driver..." Evelyn leans forward, balancing herself on my knees. "Limo driver, we're going to the Rainbow Room. Driver, to the Rainbow Room, please."

I push her back and lean forward. "Ignore her. Chernoble. ASAP." I press the button and the divider goes back up.

"Oh Patrick. It's Christmas Christmas," she whines.

"You keep saying that as if it means means something," I say, staring right at her. something," I say, staring right at her.

"But it's Christmas Christmas," she whines again.

"I can't stand stand the Rainbow Room," I say, adamant. the Rainbow Room," I say, adamant.

"Oh why not, not, Patrick?" she whines. "They have the Patrick?" she whines. "They have the best best Waldorf salad in town at the Rainbow Room. Did you like mine? Did you like my Waldorf salad, honey?" Waldorf salad in town at the Rainbow Room. Did you like mine? Did you like my Waldorf salad, honey?"

"Oh my god," I whisper, covering my face with both heads.

"Honestly. Did you?" she asks. "The only thing I really worried about was that that and the chestnut stuffing..." She pauses. "Well, because the chestnut stuffing was... well, gross, you know" and the chestnut stuffing..." She pauses. "Well, because the chestnut stuffing was... well, gross, you know"

"I don't want to go to the Rainbow Room," I interrupt, my hands still covering my face, "because I can't score drugs there."

"Oh..." She looks me over, disapprovingly. "Tsk, tsk, tsk. Drugs, Patrick? What kind of, ahem, drugs are we talking about?"

"Drugs, Evelyn. Cocaine. Drugs Drugs. I want to do some cocaine tonight. Do you understand?" I sit up and glare at her.

"Patrick," she says, shaking her head, as if she's lost faith in me.

"I can see you're confused," I point out.

"I just don't want any part of it," she says.

"You don't have to do any of it," I tell her. "Maybe you're not even invited to do any of it."

"I just don't understand why you have to ruin this time of year for me," she says.

"Think of it as... frost. frost. As Christmas frost. As expensive Christmas As Christmas frost. As expensive Christmas frost frost," I say, "Well...," she says, lighting up. "It's kind of exciting to slum, isn't it?"

"Thirty bucks at the door apiece apiece is not exactly slumming, Evelyn." Then I ask, suspiciously, "Why wasn't Donald Trump invited to your party?" is not exactly slumming, Evelyn." Then I ask, suspiciously, "Why wasn't Donald Trump invited to your party?"

"Not Donald Trump again, again," Evelyn moans. "Oh god. Is that why you were acting like such a buffoon? This obsession has got got to end!" she practically shouts. "That's why you were acting like such an ass!" to end!" she practically shouts. "That's why you were acting like such an ass!"

"It was the Waldorf salad, Evelyn," I say, teeth clenched. "It was the Waldorf salad that was making me act like an ass!"

"Oh my god. You mean it, too!" She throws her head back in despair. "I knew it, I knew it."

"But you didn't even make it!" I scream. "It was catered catered!"

"Oh god," she wails. "I can't believe it."

The limousine pulls up in front of Club Chernoble, where a crowd ten deep waits standing outside the ropes in the snow. Evelyn and I get out, and using Evelyn, much to her chagrin, as a blocker, I push my way through the crowd and luckily spot someone who looks exactly like Jonathan Leatherdale, about to be let in, and really shoving Evelyn, who's still holding on to her Christmas present, I call out to him, "Jonathan, hey Leatherdale," and suddenly, predictably, the whole crowd starts shouting, "Jonathan, hey Jonathan." He spots me as he turns around and calls out, "Hey Baxter!" and winks, giving me the thumbs-up sign, but it's not to me, it's to someone else. Evelyn and I pretend we're with his party anyway. The doorman closes the ropes on us, asks, "You two come in that limo?" He looks over at the curb and motions with his head.

"Yes." Evelyn and I both nod eagerly.

"You're in," he says, lifting the ropes.

We walk in and I lay out sixty dollars; not a single drink ticket. The club is predictably dark except for the flashing strobe lights, and even with them, all I can really see is dry ice pumping out of a fog machine and one hardbody dancing to INXS's "New Sensation," which blasts out of speakers at a pitch that vibrates the body. I tell Evelyn to go to the bar and get us two glasses of champagne. "Oh of course," she shouts back, heading tentatively toward one thin white strip of neon, the only light illuminating what might be a place where alcohol is served. In the meantime I score a gram from someone who looks like Mike Donaldson, and after debating for ten minutes while checking out this hardbody whether I should ditch Evelyn or not, she comes up with two flutes half full of champagne, indignant, sadfaced. "It's Korbel," she shouts. "Let's leave leave." I shake my head negative and shout back, "Let's go to the rest rooms." She follows.

The one bathroom at Chernoble is unisex. Two other couples are already there, one of them in the only stall. The other couple is, like us, impatiently waiting for the stall to empty. The girl is wearing a silk jersey halter top, a silk chiffon skirt and silk slingbacks, all by Ralph Lauren. Her boyfriend is wearing a suit tailored by, I think, William Fioravanti or Vincent Nicolosi or Scali some wop. Both are holding champagne glasses: his, full; hers, empty. It's quiet except for the sniffling and muted laughter coming from the stall, and the bathroom's door is thick enough to block out the music except for the deep thumping drumbeat. The guy taps his foot expectantly. The girl keeps sighing and tossing her hair over her shoulder in these strangely enticing jerky head movements; then she looks over at Evelyn and me and whispers something to her boyfriend. Finally, after she whispers something to him again, he nods and they leave.

"Thank god god," I whisper, fingering the gram in my pocket; then, to Evelyn, "Why are you so quiet?"

"The Waldorf salad," she murmurs, not looking at me. "Damnit."

There's a click, the door to the stall opens and a young couple the guy wearing a doublebreasted wool cavalry twill suit, cotton shirt and silk tie, all by Givenchy, the girl wearing a silk taffeta dress with ostrich hem by Geoffrey Beene, vermeil earrings by Stephen Dweck Moderne and Chanel grosgrain dance shoes walks out, discreetly wiping each other's noses, staring at themselves in the mirror before leaving the rest room, and just as Evelyn and I are about to walk into the stall they've vacated, the first couple rushes back in and attempts to overtake it.

"Excuse me," I say, my arm outstretched, blocking the entrance. " me," I say, my arm outstretched, blocking the entrance. "You left. It's, uh, our turn, you know?" left. It's, uh, our turn, you know?"

"Uh, no, I don't think so," the guy says mildly.

"Patrick," Evelyn whispers behind me. "Let them... you know."

"Wait. No. It's our our turn," I say. turn," I say.

"Yeah, but we we were waiting first." were waiting first."

"Listen, I don't want want to start a fight" to start a fight"

"But you are are," the girlfriend says, bored yet still managing a sneer.

"Oh my," Evelyn murmurs behind me, looking over my shoulder.

"Listen, we should just do it here," the girl, who I wouldn't mind fucking, spits out.

"What a bitch bitch," I murmur, shaking my head.

"Listen," the guy says, relenting. "While we're arguing about this, one of us could be in in there." there."

"Yeah," I say. "Us."

"Oh Christ," the girl says, hands on hips, then to Evelyn and me, "I can't believe who they're letting in now."

"You are a bitch," I murmur, disbelieving. "Your attitude are a bitch," I murmur, disbelieving. "Your attitude sucks sucks, you know that?"

Evelyn gasps and squeezes my shoulder. "Patrick."

The guy has already started snorting his coke, spooning the powder out of a brown vial, inhaling then laughing after each hit, leaning against the door.

"Your girlfriend's a total total bitch," I tell the guy. bitch," I tell the guy.

"Patrick," Evelyn says. "Stop it."

"She's a bitch," I say, pointing at her.

"Patrick, apologize," Evelyn says.

The guy goes into hysterics, his head thrown back, sniffing in loudly, then he doubles up and tries to catch his breath.

"Oh my god god," Evelyn says, appalled. "Why are you laughing? Defend Defend her." her."

"Why?" the guy asks, then shrugs, both nostrils ringed with white powder. "He's right right."