"Yes?" he asks, as if harassed.

I give him a dignified expression before sighing inside. "Reservations at nine..." I gulp. "For two."

"Yeees?" he asks suspiciously, drawing the word out. "Name?" he says, then turns to a passing waiter, eighteen and model handsome, who'd asked, "Where's da ice?" He's glaring and shouting, "Not... now. Okay? How many times do you need to be told?" The waiter shrugs, humbly, and then the maitre d' points off toward the bar, "Da ice ice is over dere!" He turns back to us and I am genuinely frightened. is over dere!" He turns back to us and I am genuinely frightened.

"Name," he commands.

And I'm thinking: Of all the fucking names, why this one? "Um, Schrawtz" oh god "Mr. and Mrs. Schrawtz." My face, I'm sure, is ashen and I say the name mechanically, but the maitre d' is too busy to not buy it and I don't even bother to face Jean, who I'm sure is totally bewildered by my behavior as we're led to the Schrawtzes' table, which I'm sure probably sucks though I'm relieved anyway.

Menus already lie on the table but I'm so nervous the words and even the prices look like hieroglyphics and I'm completely at a loss. A waiter takes our drink order the same one who couldn't locate the ice and I find myself saying things, without listening to Jean, like "Protecting the ozone layer is a really cool idea" and telling knockknock jokes. I smile, fixing it on my face, in another country, and it takes no time at all minutes, really, the waiter doesn't even get a chance to tell us about the specials for me to notice the tall, handsome couple by the podium conferring with the maitre d', and after sighing very deeply, lightheaded, stammering, I mention to Jean, "Something bad is happening."

She looks up from the menu and puts down the iceless drink she's been sipping. "Why? What's wrong?"

The maitre d' is glaring over at us, at me, from across the room as he leads the couple toward our table. If the couple had been short, dumpy, excessively Jewish, I could've kept this table, even without the aid of a fifty, but this couple looks like they've just strolled out of a Ralph Lauren ad, and though Jean and I do too (and so does the rest of the whole goddamn restaurant), the man is wearing a tuxedo and the girl a totally fuckable babe is covered with jewels. This is reality, and as my loathsome brother Sean would say, I have to deal with it. The maitre d' now stands at the table, hands clasped behind his balk, unamused, and after a long pause asks, "Mr. and Mrs... Schrawtz Schrawtz?"

"Yes?" I play it cool.

He just stares. This is accompanied by an abnormal silence. His ponytail, gray and oily, hangs like some kind of malignancy below his collar.

"You know," I finally say, somewhat suavely, "I happen to know the chef."

He continues staring. So, no doubt, does the couple behind him.

After another long pause, for no real reason, I ask, "Is he... in Aspen?"

This is getting nowhere. I sigh and turn to Jean, who looks completely mystified. "Let's go, okay?" She nods dumbly. Humiliated, I take Jean's hand and we get up she slower than I brushing past the maitre d' and the couple, and make our way back through the crowded restaurant and then we're outside and I'm utterly devastated and murmuring robotically to myself "I should have known better I should have known better I should," but Jean skips down the street laughing, pulling me along, and when I finally notice her unexpected mirth, between giggles she lets out "That was so so funny" and then, squeezing my clenched fist, she lets me know "Your sense of humor is so funny" and then, squeezing my clenched fist, she lets me know "Your sense of humor is so spontaneous spontaneous." Shaken, walking stiffly by her side, ignoring her, I ask myself "Where... to... now?" and in seconds come up with an answer Arcadia, toward which I find myself guiding us.

After someone who I think is Hamilton Conway mistakes me for someone named Ted Owen and asks if I can get him into Petty's tonight I tell him, "I'll see what I can do," then turn what's left of my attention to Jean, who sits across from me in the nearempty dining room of Arcadia after he leaves, only five of the restaurant's tables have people at them. I've ordered a J&B on the rocks. Jean's sipping a glass of white wine and talking about how what she really wants to do is "get into merchant banking" and I'm thinking: Dare to dream. Someone else, Frederick Dibble, stops by and congratulates me on the Larson account and then has the nerve to say, "Talk to you later; Saul." But I'm in a daze, millions of miles away, and Jean doesn't notice; she's talking about a new novel she's been reading by some young author its cover, I've seen, slathered with neon; its subject, lofty suffering. Accidentally I think she's talking about something else and I find myself saying, without really looking over at her, "You need a tough skin to survive in this city." She flushes, seems embarrassed and takes another sip of the wine, which is a nice sauvignon blanc.

"You seem distant," she says.

"What?" I ask, blinking.

"I said you seem distant," she says.

"No," I sigh. "I'm still my same kooky self."

"That's good." She smiles am I dreaming this? relieved.

"So listen," I say, trying to focus in on her, "what do you really want to do with your life?" Then, remembering how she was droning on about a career in merchant banking, I add, "Just briefly, you know, summarize." Then I add, "And don't tell me you enjoy working with children, okay?"

"Well, I'd like to travel," she says. "And maybe go back to school, but I really don't know..." She pauses thoughtfully and announces, sincerely, "I'm at a point in my life where there seems to be a lot of possibilities, but I'm so... I don't know... unsure."

"I think it's also important for people to realize their limitations." Then, out of the blue I ask, "Do you have a boyfriend?"

She smiles shyly, blushes, and then says, "No. Not really."

"Interesting," I murmur. I've opened my menu and I'm studying tonight's prix fixe dinner.

"Are you you seeing anyone?" she ventures timidly. "I mean, seriously?" seeing anyone?" she ventures timidly. "I mean, seriously?"

I decide on the pilot fish with tulips and cinnamon, evading the question by sighing, "I just want to have a meaningful relationship with someone special," and before she's allowed to respond I ask her what she's going to order.

"I think the mahimahi," she says and then, squinting at the menu, "with ginger."

"I'm having the pilot fish," I say. "I'm developing a taste for them. For... pilot fish," I say, nodding.

Later, after a mediocre dinner, a bottle of expensive California cabernet sauvignon and a crime brulee that we share, I order a glass of fiftydollar port and Jean sips a decaffeinated espresso and when she asks where the restaurant got its name, I tell her, and I don't make anything ridiculous up though I'm tempted, just to see if she'd believe it anyway. Sitting across from Jean right now in the darkness of Arcadia, it's very easy to believe that she would swallow any kind of misinformation I push her way the crush she has on me rendering her powerless and I find this lack of defense oddly unerotic. I could even explain my proapartheid stance and have her find reasons why she too should share them and invest large sums of money in racist corporations tha "Arcadia was an ancient region in Peloponnesus, Greece; which was founded in 370 Bs.C., and it was completely surrounded by mountains. Its chief city was... Megalopolis, which was also the center of political activity and the capital of the Arcadian confederacy..." I take a sip of the port, which is thick, strong, expensive. "It was destroyed during the Greek war of independence..." I pause again. "Pan was worshiped originally in Arcadia. Do you know who Pan was?"

Never taking her eyes off me, she nods.

"His revels were very similar to those of Bacchus," I tell her. "He frolicked with nymphs at night but he also liked to... frighten travelers during the day... Hence the word panic panic." Blah blah blah. I'm amused that I've retained this knowledge and I look up from the port I've been staring thoughtfully into and smile at her. She's silent for a long time, confused, unsure of how to respond, but eventually she looks deeply into my eyes and says, haltingly, leaning across the table, "That's... so... interesting," which is all that comes out of her mouth, is all she has to say.

Eleven thirtyfour. We stand on the sidewalk in front of Jean's apartment on the Upper East Side. Her doorman eyes us warily and fills me with a nameless dread, his gaze piercing me from the lobby. A curtain of stars, miles of them, are scattered, glowing, across the sky and their multitude humbles me, which I have a hard time tolerating. She shrugs and nods after I say something about forms of anxiety. It's as if her mind is having a hard time communicating with her mouth, as if she is searching for a rational analysis of who I am, which is, of course, an impossibility: there... is... no... key.

"Dinner was wonderful," she says. "Thank you very much."

"Actually, the food was mediocre, but you're welcome." I shrug.

"Do you want to come up for a drink?" she asks too casually, and even though I'm critical of her approach it doesn't necessarily mean that I don't want to go up but something stops me, something quells the bloodlust: the doorman? the way the lobby is lit? her lipstick? Plus I'm beginning to think that pornography is so much less complicated than actual sex, and because of this lack of complication, so much more pleasurable.

"Do you have any peyote?" I ask.

She pauses, confused. "What?"

"Just a joke," I say, then, "Listen, I want to watch David Letterman David Letterman so. . ." I pause, unsure as to why I'm lingering. "I should go." so. . ." I pause, unsure as to why I'm lingering. "I should go."

"You can watch it..." She stops, then suggests, "at my place."

I pause before asking, "Do you have cable?"

"Yes." She nods. "I have cable."

Stuck, I pause again, then pretend to mull it over. "No, it's okay. I like to watch it... without cable."

She offers a sad, perplexed glance. "What?"

"I have to return some videotapes," I explain in a rush.

She pauses. "Now? It's" she checks her witch "almost midnight.

"Well, yeah," I say, considerably detached.

"Well, I guess... it's good night then," she says.

What kind of books does Jean read? Titles race through my mind: How to Make a Man Fall in Love with You. How to Keep a Man in Lone with You Forever. How to Close a Deal: Get Married. How to Be Married One Year from Today. Supplicant. How to Make a Man Fall in Love with You. How to Keep a Man in Lone with You Forever. How to Close a Deal: Get Married. How to Be Married One Year from Today. Supplicant. In my overcoat pocket I finger the ostrich condom case from Luc Benoit I bought last week but, er, no. In my overcoat pocket I finger the ostrich condom case from Luc Benoit I bought last week but, er, no.

After awkwardly shaking hands she asks, still holding mine, "Really? You don't have cable?"

And though it has been in no way a romantic evening, she embraces me and this time emanates a warmth I'm not familiar with. I am so used to imagining everything happening the way it occurs in movies, visualizing things falling somehow into the shape of events on a screen, that I almost hear the swelling of an orchestra, can almost hallucinate the camera panning low around us, fireworks bursting in slow motion overhead, the seventymillimeter image of her lips parting and the subsequent murmur of "I want want you" in Dolby sound. But my embrace is frozen and I realize, at first distantly and they with greater clarity, that the havoc raging inside me is gradually subsiding and she is kissing me on the mouth and this jars me back into some kind of reality and I lightly push her away. She glances up at me fearfully. you" in Dolby sound. But my embrace is frozen and I realize, at first distantly and they with greater clarity, that the havoc raging inside me is gradually subsiding and she is kissing me on the mouth and this jars me back into some kind of reality and I lightly push her away. She glances up at me fearfully.

"Listen, I've got to go," I say, checking my Rolex. "I don't want to miss... Stupid Pet Tricks."

"Okay," she says, composing herself. "Bye."

"Night," I say.

We both head off in our separate directions, but suddenly she calls out something.

I turn around.

"Don't forget you have a breakfast meeting with Frederick Bennet and Charles Rust at '21,'" she says from the door, which the doorman is holding open for her.

"Thanks," I call out, waving. "It slipped my mind completely."

She waves back, disappearing into the lobby.

On my way over to Park Avenue to find a cab I pass an ugly, homeless bum a member of the genetic underclass and when he softly pleads for change, for "anything," I notice the Barnes & Noble book bag that sits next to him on the steps of the church he's begging on and I can't help but smirk, out loud, "Oh right, like you read...," and then, in the back of the cab on the way across town to my apartment, I imagine running around Central Park on a cool spring afternoon with Jean, laughing, holding hands. We buy balloons, we let them go.

Detective

May slides into June which slides into July which creeps toward August. Because of the heat I've had intense dreams the last four nights about vivisection and I'm doing nothing now, vegetating in my office with a sickening headache and a Walkman with a soothing Kenny G CD playing in it, but the bright midmorning sunlight floods the room, piercing my skull, causing my hangover to throb, and because of this, there's no workout this morning. Listening to the music I notice the second light on my phone blinking off and on, which means that Jean is buzzing me. I sigh and carefully remove the Walkman.

"What is it?" I ask in monotone.

"Um, Patrick?" she begins.

"Yees, Jean?" I ask condescendingly, spacing the two words out.

"Patrick, a Mr. Donald Kimball is here to see you," she says nervously.

"Who?" I snap, distracted.

She emits a small sigh of worry, then, as if asking, lowers her voice. "Detective Donald Kimball?" Donald Kimball?"

I pause, staring out the window into sky, then at my monitor, then at the headless woman I've been doodling on the back cover of this week's Sports Illustrated Sports Illustrated, and I run my hand over the glossy finish of the magazine once, twice, before tearing the cover off and crumpling it up. Finally I start. "Tell him..." Then, mulling it over, rethinking my options, I stop and begin again. "Tell him I'm at lunch."

Jean pauses, then whispers. "Patrick... I think he knows you're here." During my protracted silence, she adds, still hushed, "It's tenthirty."

I sigh, stalling again, and in a contained panic tell Jean, "Send him in, I guess."

I stand up, walk over to the Jodi mirror that hangs next to the George Stubbs painting and check my hair, running an oxhorn comb through it, then, calmly, I pick up one of my cordless phones and, preparing myself for a tense scene, pretend to be talking with John Akers, and I start enunciating clearly into the phone before the detective enters the office.

"Now, John..." I clear my throat. "You've got to wear clothes in proportion to your physique," I begin, talking to nobody. "There are definitely dos dos and and don'ts, don'ts, good buddy, of wearing a boldstriped shirt. A boldstriped shirt calls for solid colored or discreetly patterned suits and ties...." good buddy, of wearing a boldstriped shirt. A boldstriped shirt calls for solid colored or discreetly patterned suits and ties...."

The door to the office opens and I wave in the detective, who is surprisingly young, maybe my age, wearing a linen Armani suit not unlike mine, though his is slightly disheveled in a hip way, which worries me. I offer a reassuring smile.

"And a shirt with a high yarn count means it's more durable than one that doesn't... Yes, I know... But to determine this you've got to examine the material's weave weave..." I point to the Mark Schrager chrome and teak chair on the opposite side of my desk, silently urging him to sit.

"Tightly woven fabric is created not only by using a lot of yarn but by using yarn of highquality fibers, both long and thin, which... yes... which are... which fabricate a close weave as opposed to short and stubbly fibers, like those found in tweed. And loosely woven woven fabrics such as knits are extremely delicate and should be treated with great care..." Because of the detective's arrival, it seems unlikely that this will be a good day and I eye him warily as he takes the seat and crosses his legs in a way that fills me with a nameless dread. I realize I've been quiet too long when he turns around to see if I'm off the phone. fabrics such as knits are extremely delicate and should be treated with great care..." Because of the detective's arrival, it seems unlikely that this will be a good day and I eye him warily as he takes the seat and crosses his legs in a way that fills me with a nameless dread. I realize I've been quiet too long when he turns around to see if I'm off the phone.

"Right, and... Yes, John, right. And... yes, always tip the stylist fifteen percent..." I pause. "No, the owner of the salon shouldn't be tipped... . " I shrug at the detective hopelessly, rolling my eyes. He nods, smiles understandingly and recrosses his legs. Nice socks. Jesus. "The girl who washes the hair? It depends. I'd say adollar or two..." I laugh. "Depends on what she looks like..." I laugh harder. "And yeah, what else she washes..." I pause again, then say, "Listen, John, I've got to go. T. Boone Pickens just walked in..." I pause, grinning like an idiot, then laugh. "Just joking..." Another pause. "No, don't tip the owner of the salon." I laugh once more, then, finally, "Okay, John... right, got it." I hang up the phone, push its antenna down and then, uselessly stressing my normality, say, "Sorry about that."

"No, I'm I'm sorry," he says, genuinely apologetic. "I should've made an appointment." Gesturing toward the cordless phone I'm placing back in its recharging cradle, he asks, "Was that, uh, anything important?" sorry," he says, genuinely apologetic. "I should've made an appointment." Gesturing toward the cordless phone I'm placing back in its recharging cradle, he asks, "Was that, uh, anything important?"

"Oh that?" I ask, moving toward my desk, sinking into my chair. 'Just mulling over business problems. Examining opportunities... Exchanging rumors... Spreading gossip." We both laugh. The ice breaks.

"Hi," he says, sitting up, holding out his hand. "I'm Donald Kimball."

"Hi. Pat Bateman." I take it, squeezing it firmly. "Nice to meet you."

"I'm sorry," he says, "to barge in on you like this, but I was supposed to talk to Luis Carruthers and he wasn't in and... well, you're here, so..." He smiles, shrugs. "I know how busy you guys can get." He averts his eyes from the three copies of Sports Illustrated Sports Illustrated that lie open atop my desk, covering it, along with the Walkman. I notice them too, then close all three issues and slip them into the desk's top drawer along with the still-running Walkman. that lie open atop my desk, covering it, along with the Walkman. I notice them too, then close all three issues and slip them into the desk's top drawer along with the still-running Walkman.

"So," I start, trying to come off as friendly and conversational as possible. "What's the topic of discussion?"

"Well," he starts. "I've been hired by Meredith Powell to investigate the disappearance of Paul Owen."

I nod thoughtfully before asking, "You're not with the FBI or anything, are you?"

"No, no," he says. "Nothing like that. I'm just a private investigator."

"Ah, I see... Yes." I nod again, still not relieved. "Paul's disappearance... Yes."

"So it's nothing that that official," he confides. "I just have some basic questions. About Paul Owen. About yourself" official," he confides. "I just have some basic questions. About Paul Owen. About yourself"

"Coffee?" I ask suddenly.

As if unsure, he says, "No, I'm okay."

"Perrier? San Pellegrino?" I offer.

"No, I'm okay," he says again, opening a small black notebook he's taken out of his pocket along with a gold Cross pen.

I buzz Jean.

"Yes, Patrick?"

"Jean can you bring Mr..." I stop, look up.

He looks up too. "Kimball."