"Because I... don't" I look around the store quickly to make sure no one is listening; he reaches for my knee, I brush his hand away "find you... sexually attractive," I whisper loudly, staring down at him. "I can't believe I actually said that," I mumble to myself, to no one, and then shake my head, trying to clear it, things reaching a level of confusion that I'm incapable of registering. I tell Luis, "Leave me alone, please," and I start to walk away.

Unable to grasp this request, Luis grabs at the hem of my Armani silkcloth trench coat and, still lying on the floor, cries out, "Please, Patrick, please please don't leave me." don't leave me."

"Listen to me," I tell him, kneeling down, trying to haul Luis up off the floor. But this causes him to shout out something garbled, which turns into a wail that rises and reaches a crescendo that catches the attention of a Barney's security guard standing by the store's front entrance, who starts making his way over.

"Look what you've done," I whisper desperately. "Get up. Get up Get up."

"Is everything okay?" The security guard, a big black guy, is looking down at us.

"Yes, thank you," I say, glaring at Luis. "Everything's fine fine."

"No-o-o-o," Luis wails, racked with sobs.

"Yes," I reiterate, looking up at the guard.

"You sure?" the guard asks.

Smiling professionally, I tell him, "Please just give us a minute. We need some privacy." I turn back to Luis. "Now come on, Luis. Get up. You're slobbering." I look back up at the security guard and mouth, holding up a hand, while nodding, "Just a minute, please."

The security guard nods unsurely and moves hesitantly back to his post.

Still kneeling, I grab Luis by his heaving shoulders and calmly tell him, my voice lowered, as threatening as possible, as if speaking to a child about to be punished, "Listen to me, Luis. If you do not stop crying, you fucking pathetic faggot, faggot, I am going to slit your fucking throat. Are you listening to me?" I slap him lightly on the face a couple of times. "I can't be more emphatic." I am going to slit your fucking throat. Are you listening to me?" I slap him lightly on the face a couple of times. "I can't be more emphatic."

"Oh just kill me," he wails, his eyes closed, nodding his head back and forth, retreating further into incoherence; then he blubbers, "If I can't have you, I don't want to live. I want to die die."

My sanity is in danger of fading, right here in Barney's, and I grab Luis by the collar, scrunching it up in my fist, and pulling his face very close to mine, I whisper, under my breath, "Listen to me, Luis. Are you listening to me? I usually don't warn people, Luis. So-be-thankful-I-am-warning-you."

His rationality shot to hell, making guttural noises, his head bent down shamefully, he offers a response that's barely audible. I grab his hair it's stiff with mousse; I recognize the scent as Cactus, a new brand and yanking his head up, snarling, I spit out, "Listen, you want want to to die? die? I'll do it, Luis. I've done it before and I will fucking I'll do it, Luis. I've done it before and I will fucking gut gut you, you, rip rip your fucking stomach open and cram your intestines down your fucking faggot throat until you your fucking stomach open and cram your intestines down your fucking faggot throat until you choke choke on them." on them."

He's not listening. Still on my haunches, I just stare at him in disbelief.

"Please, Patrick, please. Listen to me, I've figured it all out. I'm quitting P & P, you can too, and, and, and we'll relocate to Arizona, and then"

"Shut up, Luis." I shake him. "Oh my god, just shut up." I quickly stand, brushing myself off, and when I think his outburst has subsided and I'm able to walk away, Luis grabs at my right ankle and tries to hang on as I'm leaving Barney's and I end up dragging him along for six feet before I have to kick him in the face, while smiling helplessly at a couple who are browsing near the sock department. Luis looks up at me, imploring, the beginnings of a small gash forming on his left cheek. The couple move away.

"I love you," he miserably wails. "I love you."

"I'm convinced, convinced, Luis," I shout at him. "You've Luis," I shout at him. "You've convinced convinced me. Now get up." me. Now get up."

Luckily, a salesperson, alarmed by the scene Luis has made, intervenes and helps him up.

A few minutes later, after he's sufficiently calmed down, the two of us are standing just inside Barney's main entrance. He has a handkerchief in one hand, his eyes are shut tightly, a bruise slowly forms, swelling beneath his left eye. He seems composed.

"Just, you know, have the guts to face, uh, reality," I tell him.

Anguished, he stares out the revolving doors at the warm falling rain and then, with a mournful sigh, turns to me. I'm looking at the rows, the endless rows, of ties, then at the ceiling.

Killing Child at Zoo

A string of days pass. During the nights I've been sleeping in twentyminute intervals. I feel aimless, things look cloudy, my homicidal compulsion, which surfaces, disappears, surfaces, leaves again, lies barely dormant during a quiet lunch at Alex Goes to Camp, where I have the lamb sausage salad with lobster and white beans sprayed with lime and foie gras vinegar. I'm wearing faded jeans, an Armani jacket, and a white, hundred-andfortydollar Comme des Garcons Tshirt. I make a phone call to check my messages. I return some videotapes. I stop at an automated teller. Last night, Jeanette asked me, "Patrick, why do you keep razor blades in your wallet?" The Patty Winters Show The Patty Winters Show this morning was about a boy who fell in love with a box of soap. this morning was about a boy who fell in love with a box of soap.

Unable to maintain a credible public persona, I find myself roaming the zoo in Central Park, restlessly. Drug dealers hang out along the perimeter by the gates and the smell of horse shit from passing carriages drifts over them into the zoo, and the tips of skyscrapers, apartment buildings on Fifth Avenue, the Trump Plaza, the AT&T building, surround the park which surrounds the zoo and heightens its unnaturalness. A black custodian mopping the floor in the men's room asks me to flush the urinal after I use it. "Do it yourself, nigger," I tell him and when he makes a move toward me, the flash of a knifeblade causes him to back off. All the information booths seem closed. A blind man chews, feeds, on a pretzel. Two drunks, faggots, console each other on a bench. Nearby a mother breastfeeds her baby, which awakens something awful in me.

The zoo seems empty, devoid of life. The polar bears look stained and drugged. A crocodile floats morosely in an oily makeshift pond. The puffins stare sadly from their glass cage. Toucans have beaks as sharp as knives. The seals stupidly dive off rocks into swirling black water, barking mindlessly. The zookeepers feed them dead fish. A crowd gathers around the tank, mostly adults, a few accompanied by children. On the seals' tank a plaque warns: COINS CAN KILL IF SWALLOWED, COINS CAN LODGE IN AN ANIMAL'S STOMACH AND CAUSE ULCERS, INFECTIONS AND DEATH. DO NOT THROW COINS IN THE POOL. So what do I do? Toss a handful of change into the tank when none of the zookeepers are watching. It's not the seals I hate it's the audience's enjoyment of them that bothers me. The snowy owl has eyes that look just like mine, especially when it widens them. And while I stand there, staring at it, lowering my sunglasses, something unspoken passes between me and the bird there's this weird kind of tension, a bizarre pressure, that fuels the following, which starts, happens, ends, very quickly.

In the darkness of the penguin habitat Edge of the Icepack is what the zoo pretentiously calls it it's cool, in sharp contrast to the humidity outside. The penguins in the tank glide lazily underwater past the glass walls where spectators crowd in to stare. The penguins on the rocks, not swimming, look dazed, stressed out, tired and bored; they mostly yawn, sometimes stretching. Fake penguin noises, cassettes probably, play over a sound system and someone has turned up the volume because it's so crowded in the room. The penguins are cute, I guess. I spot one that looks like Craig McDermott.

A child, barely five, finishes eating a candy bar. His mother tells him to throw the wrapper away, then resumes talking to another woman, who is with a child around the same age, the three of them staring into the dirty blueness of the penguin habitat. The first child moves toward the trash can, located in a dim corner in the back of the room, that I am now crouching behind. He stands on tiptoes, carefully throwing the wrapper into the trash. I whisper something. The child spots me and just stands there, away from the crowd, slightly scared but also dumbly fascinated. I stare back.

"Would you like... a cookie?" I ask, reaching into my pocket.

He nods his small head, up, then down, slowly, but before he can answer, my sudden lack of care crests in a massive wave of fury and I pull the knife out of my pocket and I stab him, quickly, in the neck.

Bewildered, he backs into the trash can, gurgling like an infant, unable to scream or cry out because of the blood that starts spurting out of the wound in his throat. Though I'd like to watch this child die, I push him down behind the garbage can, then casually mingle in with the rest of the crowd and touch the shoulder of a pretty girl, and smiling I point to a penguin preparing to make a dive. Behind me, if one were to look closely, one could see the child's feet kicking in back of the trash can. I keep an eye on the child's mother, who after a while notices her son's absence and starts scanning the crowd. I touch the girl's shoulder again, and she smiles at me and shrugs apologetically, but I can't figure out why.

When the mother finally notices him she doesn't scream because she can see only his feet and assumes that he's playfully hiding from her. At first she seems relieved that she's spotted him and moving toward the trash can she coos, "Are you playing hide-and-seek, honey?" But from where I stand, behind the pretty girl, who I've already found out is foreign, a tourist, I can see the exact moment when the expression on the mother's face changes into fear, and slinging her purse over her shoulder she pulls the trash can away, revealing a face completely covered in red blood and the child's having trouble blinking its eyes because of this, grabbing at his throat, now kicking weakly. The mother makes a sound that I cannot describe something high-pitched that turns into screaming.

After she falls to the floor beside the body, a few people turning around, I find myself shouting out, my voice heavy with emotion, "I'm a doctor, move back, I'm a doctor," and I kneel beside the mother before an interested crowd gathers around us and I pry her arms off the child, who is now on his back struggling vainly for breath, the blood coming evenly but in dying arcs out of his neck and onto his Polo shirt, which is drenched with it. And I have a vague awareness during the minutes I hold the child's head, reverently, careful not to bloody myself, that if someone makes a phone call or if a real doctor is at hand, there's a good chance the child can be saved. But this doesn't happen. Instead I hold it, mindlessly, while the mother homely, Jewishlooking, overweight, pitifully trying to appear stylish in designer jeans and an unsightly leaf-patterned black wool sweater shrieks do something, do something, do something, do something, do something, do something, the two of us ignoring the chaos, the people who start screaming around us, concentrating only on the dying child. the two of us ignoring the chaos, the people who start screaming around us, concentrating only on the dying child.

Though I am satisfied at first by my actions, I'm suddenly jolted with a mournful despair at how useless, how extraordinarily painless, it is to take a child's life. This thing before me, small and twisted and bloody, has no real history, no worthwhile past, nothing is really lost. It's so much worse (and more pleasurable) taking the life of someone who has hit his or her prime, who has the beginnings of a full history, a spouse, a network of friends, a career, whose death will upset far more people whose capacity for grief is limitless than a child's would, perhaps ruin many more lives than just the meaningless, puny death of this boy. I'm automatically seized with an almost overwhelming desire to knife the boy's mother too, who is in hysterics, but all I can do is slap her face harshly and shout for her to calm down. For this I'm given no disapproving looks. I'm dimly aware of light coming into the room, of a door being opened somewhere, of the presence of zoo officials, a security guard, someone one of the tourists? taking flash pictures, the penguins freaking out in the tank behind us, slamming themselves against the glass in a panic. A cop pushes me away, even though I tell him I'm a physician. Someone drags the boy outside, lays him on the ground and removes his shirt. The boy gasps, dies. The mother has to be restrained.

I feel empty, hardly here at all, but even the arrival of the police seems an insufficient reason to move and I stand with the crowd outside the penguin habitat, with dozens of others, taking a long time to slowly blend in and then back away, until finally I'm walking down Fifth Avenue, surprised by how little blood has stained my jacket, and I stop in a bookstore and buy a book and then at a Dove Bar stand on the corner of Fiftysixth Street, where I buy a Dove Bar a coconut one and I imagine a hole, widening in the sun, and for some reason this breaks the tension I started feeling when I first noticed the snowy owl's eyes and then when it recurred after the boy was dragged out of the penguin habitat and I walked away, my hands soaked with blood, uncaught.

Girls

My appearances in the office the last month or so have been sporadic to say the least. All I seem to want to do now is work out, lifting weights, mostly, and secure reservations at new restaurants I've already been to, then cancel them. My apartment reeks of rotten fruit, though actually the smell is caused by what I scooped out of Christie's head and poured into a Marco glass bowl that sits on a counter near the entranceway. The head itself lies covered with brain pulp, hollow and eyeless, in the corner of the living room beneath the piano and I plan to use it as a jacko'lantern on Halloween. Because of the stench I decide to use Paul Owen's apartment for a little tryst I have planned for tonight. I've had the premises scanned for surveillance devices; disappointingly, there were none. Someone I talk to through my lawyer tells me that Donald Kimball, the private investigator, has heard that Owen really is is in London, that someone spotted him twice in the lobby of Claridge's, once each at a tailor on Savile Row and at a trendy new restaurant in Chelsea. Kimball flew over two nights ago, which means no one is keeping watch over the apartment anymore, and the keys I stole from Owen still function so I was able to bring the tools (a power drill, a bottle of acid, the nail gun, knives, a Bic lighter) over there after lunch. I hire two escort girls from a reputable if somewhat sleazy private establishment I've never used before, charging them on Owen's gold American Express card which, I suppose because everyone thinks Owen is now in London, no one has put a trace on, though there is one on his platinum AmEx. in London, that someone spotted him twice in the lobby of Claridge's, once each at a tailor on Savile Row and at a trendy new restaurant in Chelsea. Kimball flew over two nights ago, which means no one is keeping watch over the apartment anymore, and the keys I stole from Owen still function so I was able to bring the tools (a power drill, a bottle of acid, the nail gun, knives, a Bic lighter) over there after lunch. I hire two escort girls from a reputable if somewhat sleazy private establishment I've never used before, charging them on Owen's gold American Express card which, I suppose because everyone thinks Owen is now in London, no one has put a trace on, though there is one on his platinum AmEx. The Patty Winters Show The Patty Winters Show today was ironically, I thought about Princess Di's beauty tips. today was ironically, I thought about Princess Di's beauty tips.

Midnight. The conversation I have with the two girls, both very young, blond hardbodies with big tits, is brief, since I'm having a difficult time containing my disordered self.

"You live in a palace, mister," one of the girls, Torri, says in a baby's voice, awed by Owen's ridiculouslooking condo. "It's a real palace."

Annoyed, I shoot her a glance. "It's not that that nice." nice."

While making drinks from Owen's wellstocked bar, I mention to both of them that I work on Wall Street, at Pierce & Pierce. Neither seems particularly interested. Again, I find myself hearing a voice one of theirs asking if that's a shoe store. Tiffany flips through an issue of GQ GQ that's three months old, sitting on the black leather couch beneath the strip of faux-cowhide paneling, and she's looking confused, like she doesn't understand something, anything. I'm thinking, Pray, you bitch, just pray, and then I have to admit to myself what a turnon it is encouraging these girls to debase themselves in front of me for what amounts to pocket change. I also mention, after pouring them another drink, that I went to Harvard, and then I ask, after a pause, "Ever hear of it?" that's three months old, sitting on the black leather couch beneath the strip of faux-cowhide paneling, and she's looking confused, like she doesn't understand something, anything. I'm thinking, Pray, you bitch, just pray, and then I have to admit to myself what a turnon it is encouraging these girls to debase themselves in front of me for what amounts to pocket change. I also mention, after pouring them another drink, that I went to Harvard, and then I ask, after a pause, "Ever hear of it?"

I'm shocked when Torri answers, "I had a business acquaintance who said he went there." She shrugs dumbly.

"A client?" I ask, interested.

"Well," she starts nervously. "Let's just say a business acquaintance."

"Was this a pimp?" I ask then the weird part happens.

"Well" she stalls again before continuing "let's just call him a business acquaintance." She sips from her glass. "He said said he went to Harvard, but... I didn't believe him." She looks over at Tiffany, then back at me. Our mutual silence encourages her to keep talking and she continues haltingly. "He had, like, this monkey. And I would have to watch this monkey in... his apartment." She stops, starts, continues in monotone, occasionally gulping. "I'd want to watch TV all day, 'cause there was nothing else to do while the guy was out... and while I tried to keep an eye on the monkey. But there was... something wrong with this monkey." She stops and takes a deep breath. "The monkey would only watch..." Again she stops, takes in the room, a quizzical expression creasing her face as if she's not sure she should be telling us this story; if we, me and the other bitch, should be privy to this information. And I brace myself for something shocking, something revelatory, a connection. "It would only watch..." She sighs, then in a sudden rush admits, " he went to Harvard, but... I didn't believe him." She looks over at Tiffany, then back at me. Our mutual silence encourages her to keep talking and she continues haltingly. "He had, like, this monkey. And I would have to watch this monkey in... his apartment." She stops, starts, continues in monotone, occasionally gulping. "I'd want to watch TV all day, 'cause there was nothing else to do while the guy was out... and while I tried to keep an eye on the monkey. But there was... something wrong with this monkey." She stops and takes a deep breath. "The monkey would only watch..." Again she stops, takes in the room, a quizzical expression creasing her face as if she's not sure she should be telling us this story; if we, me and the other bitch, should be privy to this information. And I brace myself for something shocking, something revelatory, a connection. "It would only watch..." She sighs, then in a sudden rush admits, "The Opnah Winfrey Show and that's all it would watch. The guy had tapes and tapes of it and he had made all of them for this monkey" now she looks over at me, imploringly, as if she's losing her mind here, right now, in Owen's apartment and wants me to, what, verify it? "with the commercials edited out. One time I tried to... turn the channel, turn one of the tapes off... if I wanted to watch a soap instead or something... but" she finishes her drink and rolling her eyes, obviously upset by this story, continues bravely "the monkey would ss-screech at me and it would only calm down when Oprah was on." She swallows, clears her throat, looks like she's going to cry but doesn't. "And you know, you try to turn the channel and that ddamn monkey would try to scratch you," she concludes bitterly and hugs herself, shivering, uselessly trying to warm herself. and that's all it would watch. The guy had tapes and tapes of it and he had made all of them for this monkey" now she looks over at me, imploringly, as if she's losing her mind here, right now, in Owen's apartment and wants me to, what, verify it? "with the commercials edited out. One time I tried to... turn the channel, turn one of the tapes off... if I wanted to watch a soap instead or something... but" she finishes her drink and rolling her eyes, obviously upset by this story, continues bravely "the monkey would ss-screech at me and it would only calm down when Oprah was on." She swallows, clears her throat, looks like she's going to cry but doesn't. "And you know, you try to turn the channel and that ddamn monkey would try to scratch you," she concludes bitterly and hugs herself, shivering, uselessly trying to warm herself.

Silence. Arctic, frigid, utter silence. The light burning over us in the apartment is cold and electric. Standing there, I look at Torri then at the other girl, Tiffany, who looks queasy.

I finally say something, stumbling over my own words. "I don't care... whether you've led a... decent life... or not."

Sex happens a hardcore montage. After I shave Torri's pussy she lies on her back on Paul's futon and spreads her legs while I finger her and suck it off, sometimes licking her asshole. Then Tiffany sucks my cock her tongue is hot and wet and she keeps flicking it over the head, irritating me while I call her a nasty whore, a bitch. Fucking one of them with a condom while the other sucks my balls, lapping at them, I stare at the Angelic silkscreen print hanging over the bed and I'm thinking about pools of blood, geysers of the stuff. Sometimes it's very quiet in the room except for the wet sounds my cock makes slipping in and out of one of the girls' vaginas. Tiffany and I take turns eating Torri's hairless cunt and asshole. The two of them come, yelling simultaneously, in a sixtynine position. Once their cunts are wet enough I bring out a dildo and let the two of them play with it. Torri spreads her legs and fingers her own slit while Tiffany fucks her with the huge, greased dildo, Torri urging Tiffany to fuck her cunt harder with it, until finally, gasping, she comes.

Again I make the two of them eat each other out but it starts failing to turn me on all I can think about is blood and what their blood will look like and though Torri knows what to do, how to eat pussy, it doesn't subdue me and I push her away from Tiffany's cunt and start licking and biting at the pink, soft, wet cuntness while Torri spreads her ass and sits on Tiffany's face while fingering her own slit. Tiffany hungrily tongues her pussy, wet and glistening, and Torri reaches down and squeezes Tiffany's big, firm tits. I'm biting hard, gnawing at Tiffany's cunt, and she starts tensing up. "Relax," I say soothingly. She starts squealing, trying to pull away, and finally she screams as my teeth rip into her flesh. Torri thinks Tiffany is coming and grinds her own cunt harder onto Tiffany's mouth, smothering her screams, but when I look up at Torri, blood covering my face, meat and pubic hair hanging from my mouth, blood pumping from Tiffany's torn cunt onto the comforter, I can feel her sudden rush of horror. I use Mace to blind both of them momentarily and then I knock them unconscious with the butt of the nail gun.

Torri awakens to find herself tied up, bent over the side of the bed, on her back, her face covered with blood because I've cut her lips off with a pair of nail scissors. Tiffany is tied up with six pairs of Paul's suspenders on the other side of the bed, moaning with fear, totally immobilized by the monster of reality. I want her to watch what I'm going to do to Torri and she's propped up in a way that makes this unavoidable. As usual, in an attempt to understand these girls I'm filming their deaths. With Torri and Tiffany I use a Minox LX ultraminiature camera that takes 9.5mm film, has a 15mm f/3.5 lens, an exposure meter and a builtin neutral density filter and sits on a tripod. I've put a CD of the Traveling Wilburys into a portable CD player that sits on the headboard above the bed, to mute any screams.

I start by skinning Torri a little, making incisions with a steak knife and ripping bits of flesh from her legs and stomach while she screams in vain, begging for mercy in a high thin voice, and I'm hoping that she realizes her punishment will end up being relatively light compared to what I've planned for the other one. I keep spraying Torri with Mace and then I try to cut off her fingers with nail scissors and finally I pour acid onto her belly and genitals, but none of this comes close to killing her, so I resort to stabbing her in the throat and eventually the blade of the knife breaks off in what's left of her neck, stuck on bone, and I stop. While Tiffany watches, finally I saw the entire head off torrents of blood splash against the walls, even the ceiling and holding the head up, like a prize, I take my cock, purple with stiffness, and lowering Torri's head to my lap I push it into her bloodied mouth and start fucking it, until I come, exploding into it. Afterwards I'm so hard I can even walk around the bloodsoaked room carrying the head, which feels warm and weightless, on my dick. This is amusing for a while but I need to rest so I remove the head, placing it in Paul's oak and teak armoire, and then I'm sitting in a chair, naked, covered with blood, watching HBO on Owen's TV, drinking a Corona, complaining out loud, wondering why Owen doesn't have Cinemax.

Later now I'm telling Tiffany, "I'll let you go, shhh...," and I'm stroking her face, which is slick, owing to tears and Mace, gently, and it burns me that she actually looks up hopefully for a moment before she sees the lit match I'm holding in my hand that I've torn from a matchbook I picked up in the bar at Palio's where I was having drinks with Robert Farrell and Robert Prechter last Friday, and I lower it to her eyes, which she instinctively closes, singeing both eyelashes and brows, then I finally use a Bic lighter and hold it up to both sockets, making sure they stay open with my fingers, burning my thumb and pinkie in the process, until the eyeballs burst. While she's still conscious I roll her over, and spreading her ass cheeks, I nail a dildo that I've tied to a board deep into her rectum, using the nail gun. Then, turning her over again, her body weak with fear, I cut all the flesh off around her mouth and using the power drill with a detachable, massive head I widen that hole while she shakes, protesting, and once I'm satisfied with the size of the hole I've created, her mouth open as wide as possible, a reddish-black tunnel of twisted tongue and loosened teeth, I force my hand down, deep into her throat, until it disappears up to my wrist all the while her head shakes uncontrollably, but she can't bite down since the power drill ripped her teeth out of her gums and grab at the veins lodged there like tubes and I loosen them with my fingers and when I've gotten a good grip on them violently yank them out through her open mouth, pulling until the neck caves in, disappears, the skin tightens and splits though there's little blood. Most of the neck's innards, including the jugular, hang out of her mouth and her whole body starts twitching, like a roach on its back, shaking spasmodically, her melted eyes running down her face mixing with the tears and Mace, and then quickly, not wanting to waste time, I turn off the lights and in the dark before she dies I rip open her stomach with my bare hands. I can't tell what I'm doing with them but it's making wet snapping sounds and my hands are hot and covered with something.

The aftermath. No fear, no confusion. Unable to linger since there are things to be done today: return videotapes, work out at the gym, a new British musical on Broadway I promised Jeanette I'd take her to, a dinner reservation to be made somewhere. What's left of both bodies is in early rigor mortis. Part of Tiffany's body I think it's her even though I'm having a hard time telling the two apart has sunken in and her ribs jut out, most broken in half, from what's left of her stomach, both breasts having been pierced by them. A head has been nailed to the wall, fingers lie scattered or arranged in some kind of circle around the CD player. One of the bodies, the one on the floor, has been defecated on and seems to be covered with teeth marks where I had bitten into it, savagely. With the blood from one of the corpses' stomachs that I dip my hand into, I scrawl, in dripping red letters above the fauxcowhide paneling in the living room, the words I AM BACK and below it a scary drawing which looks like this

Rat

The following are delivered midOctober.

An audio receiver, the Pioneer VSX9300S, which features an integrated Dolby Prologic Surround Sound processor with digital delay, plus a fullfunction infrared remote control that masters up to 154 programmed functions from any other brand's remote and generates 125 watts of front speaker power as well as 30 watts in back.

An analog cassette deck by Akai, the GX950B, which comes complete with manual bias, Dolby recording level controls, a builtin calibrated tone generator and a spoterase editing system enabling one to mark the beginning and end points of a certain musical passage, which can then be erased with a single push of a button. The threehead design features a self-enclosed tape unit, resulting in minimized interference, and its noisereduction setup is fortified with Dolby HXPro while its frontpanel controls are activated by a fullfunction wireless remote.

A multidisc CD player by Sony, the MDP700, which spins both audios and videos anything from threeinch digital audio singles to twelveinch video discs. It contains a stillframe slowmotion multispeed visual/audio laser that incorporates four-timesover sampling and a dualmotor system that helps ensure consistent disc rotation while the discprotect system helps prevent the discs from warping. An automatic music sensor system lets you make up to ninetynine track selections while an auto chapter search allows you to scan up to seventynine segments of a video disc. Included is a tenkey remote control joyshuttle dial (for framebyframe search) and a memory stop. This also has two sets of goldplated AV jacks for topnotch connections.

A highperformance cassette deck, the DX5000 from NEC, which combines digital special effects with excellent hifi, and a connected fourhead VHSHQ unit, which comes equipped with a twentyoneday eightevent programmer, MTS decoding and 140 cableready channels. An added bonus: a fiftyfunction unified remote control lets me zap out TV commercials.

Included in the Sony CCDV200 8mm camcorder is a sevencolor wipe, a character generator, an edit switch that's also capable of timelapse recording, which allows me to, say, record a decomposing body at fifteensecond intervals or tape a small dog as it lies in convulsions, poisoned. The audio has builtin digital stereo record/playback, while the zoom lens has fourlux minimum illumination and six variable shutter speeds.

A new TV monitor with a twentyseveninch screen, the CX2788 from Toshiba, has a builtin MTS decoder, a CCD comb filter, programmable channel scan, a superVHS connection, seven watts per channel of power, with an additional ten watts dedicated to drive a subwoofer for extra lowfrequency oomph, and a Carver Sonic Holographing sound system that produces a unique stereo 3D sound effect.

Pioneer's LDST disc player with wireless remote and the Sony MDP700 multidisc player with digital effects and universalwirelessremote programming (one for the bedroom, one for the living room), which play all sizes and formats of audio and video discs eightinch and twelveinch laser discs, fiveinch CD video discs and three and fiveinch compact discs in two autoload drawers. The LDW1 from Pioneer holds two fullsized discs and plays both sides sequentially with only a severalsecond lag per side during the changeover so you don't have to change or flip the discs. It also has digital sound, wireless remote and a programmable memory. Yamaha's CDV16oo multidisc player handles all disc formats and has a fifteenselection randomaccess memory and a wireless remote.

A pair of Threshold monoblock amplifiers that cost close to $15,000 are also delivered. And for the bedroom, a bleached oak cupboard to store one of the new televisions arrives on Monday. A tailored cottonupholstered sofa framed by eighteenth-century Italian bronze and marble busts on contemporary painted wood pedestals arrives on Tuesday. A new bed headboard (white cotton covered with beige brass nail trim) also arrives on Tuesday. A new Frank Stella print for the bathroom arrives on Wednesday along with a new Superdeluxe black suede armchair. The Onica, which I'm selling, is being replaced by a new one: a huge portrait of a graphic equalizer done in chrome and pastels.

I'm talking to the delivery guys from Park Avenue Sound Shop about HDTV, which isn't available yet, when one of the new black AT&T cordless phones rings. I tip them, then answer it. My lawyer, Ronald, is on the other end. I'm listening to him, nodding, showing the delivery guys out of the apartment. Then I say, "The bill is three hundred dollars, Ronald. We only had coffee." A long pause, during which I hear a bizarre sloshing sound coming from the bathroom. Walking cautiously toward it, cordless phone still in hand, I tell Ronald, "But yes... Wait... But I am... But we only had espresso." Then I'm peering into the bathroom.

Perched on the seat of the toilet is a large wet rat that has I'm assuming come up out of it. It sits on the rim of the toilet bowl, shaking itself dry, before it jumps, tentatively, to the floor. It's a massive rodent and it lurches, then scrambles, across the tile, out of the bathroom's other entrance and into the kitchen, where I follow it toward the leftover pizza bag from Le Madri that for some reason sits on the floor on top of yesterday's New York Times New York Times near the garbage pail from Zona, and the rat, lured by the smell, takes the bag in its mouth and shakes its head furiously, like a dog would, trying to get at the leekgoat cheesetruffle pizza, making squealing sounds of hunger. I'm on a lot of Halcion at this point so the rat doesn't bother me as much as, I suppose, it should. near the garbage pail from Zona, and the rat, lured by the smell, takes the bag in its mouth and shakes its head furiously, like a dog would, trying to get at the leekgoat cheesetruffle pizza, making squealing sounds of hunger. I'm on a lot of Halcion at this point so the rat doesn't bother me as much as, I suppose, it should.

To catch the rat I buy an extralarge mousetrap at a hardware store on Amsterdam. I also decide to spend the night at my family's suite in the Carlyle. The only cheese I have in the apartment is a wedge of Brie in the refrigerator and before leaving I place the entire slice it's a really big rat along with a sundried tomato and a sprinkling of dill, delicately on the trap, setting it. But when I come back the following morning, because of the rat's size, the trap hasn't killed it. The rat just lies there, stuck, squeaking, thrashing its tail, which is a horrible, oily, translucent pink, as long as a pencil and twice as thick, and it makes a slapping sound every time it hits against the white oak floor. Using a dustpan which it takes me over a fucking hour to find I corner the injured rat just as it frees itself from the trap and I pick the thing up, sending it into a panic, making it squeal even louder, hissing at me, baring its sharp, yellow rat fangs, and dump it into a Bergdorf Goodman hatbox. But then the thing claws its way out and I have to keep it in the sink, a board, heavy with unused cookbooks, covering it, and even then it almost escapes, while I sit in the kitchen thinking of ways to torture girls with this animal (unsurprisingly I come up with a lot), making a list that includes, unrelated to the rat, cutting open both breasts and deflating them, along with stringing barbed wire tightly around their heads.

Another Night

McDermott and I are supposed to have dinner tonight at 1500 and he calls me around sixthirty, forty minutes before our actual reservation (he couldn't get us in at any other time, except for sixten or nine, which is when the restaurant closes it serves Californian cuisine and its seating times are an affectation carried over from that state), and though I'm in the middle of flossing my teeth, all of my cordless phones lie by the sink in the bathroom and I'm able to pick the right one up on the second ring. So far I'm wearing black Armani trousers, a white Armani shirt, a red sad black Armani tie. McDermott lets me know that Hamlin wants to come with us. I'm hungry. There's a pause.

"So?" I ask, straightening my tie. "Okay."

"So?" McDermott sighs. "Hamlin doesn't want to go to 1500."

"Why not?" I turn off the tap in the sink.

"He was there there last night." last night."

"So... what are you you, McDermott, trying to tell me?"

'"That we're going going someplace else," he says. someplace else," he says.

"Where?" I ask cautiously.

"Alex Goes to Camp is where Ham Hamlin suggested," he says.

"Hold on. I'm Plaxing." After swishing the antiplaque formula around in my mouth and inspecting my hairline in the mirror, I spit out the Plax. "Veto. Bypass. I I went went there there last week." last week."

"I know. know. So did I," McDermott says. "Besides, it's cheap. So where do we go instead?" So did I," McDermott says. "Besides, it's cheap. So where do we go instead?"

"Didn't Hamlin have a fucking backup?" I growl, irritated.

"Er, no." no."

"Call him back and get one," I say, walking out of the bathroom. "I seem to have misplaced my Zagat."