"Christ," he mutters, "general competence is on the fucking decline."

McDermott clicks back on. "Okay. Now Now where to?" where to?"

"What time is it?" Van Patter asks.

"Ninethirty," both of us answer.

"Wait, what happened to 1969?" I ask van Patter.

"What's this about 1969?" McDermott doesn't have a clue.

"I don't remember," I say.

"Closed. No reservations," Van Patter reminds me.

"Can we get back to 1500?" I ask.

"1500 is now closed closed," McDermott shouts. "The kitchen is closed closed. The restaurant is closed. closed. It's over. We It's over. We have have to go to Kaktus." to go to Kaktus."

Silence.

"Hello? Hello? Are you guys there?" he hollers, losing it.

"Bouncy as a beach ball," Van Patter says.

I laugh.

"If you guys think this is funny," McDermott warns.

"Oh yeah, what? What are you going to do?" I ask.

"Guys, it's just that I am apprehensive about failure in terms of securing a table before, like, well, midnight."

"Are you sure about 1500?" I ask. "That seems really bizarre."

"That suggestion is moot moot!" McDermott screams. "Why, you may ask? Because-they-are-closed! Because-they-are-closed-they- Because-they-are-closed-they-have-stopped-taking-reservations! Are-you-following-this?" Are-you-following-this?"

"Hey, no sweat, babe," Van Patter says coolly. "We'll go to Kaktus.

"We have a reservation there in ten, no, fifteen minutes ago," McDermott says.

"But I canceled them, I thought," I say, taking another Xanax.

"I remade them,'. McDermott says.

"You are indispensable," I tell him in monotone.

"I can be there by ten," McDermott says.

"By the time I stop at my automated teller, I can be there by tenfifteen," Van Patter says slowly, counting the minutes.

"Does anyone have any idea that Jeanette and Evelyn are meeting us at Zeus Bar, where we do not not have a reservation? Has this passed through anyone's mind?" I ask, doubting it. have a reservation? Has this passed through anyone's mind?" I ask, doubting it.

"But Zeus Bar is closed. and besides that we canceled a reservation we didn't even have there," McDermott says, trying to stay calm.

"But I think I told Jeanette and Evelyn to meet us there," I say, bringing my fingers up to my mouth, horrified by this possibility.

After a pause McDermott asks, "Do you want to get into trouble? Are you asking for it or something?"

"My call waiting," I say. "Oh my god. What time is it? My call waiting."

"It's gotta be one of the girls," Van Patten says gleefully.

"Hold on," I croak.

"Good luck," I hear Van Patten say before I click off.

"Hello?" I ask meekly. "You have reached the"

"It's me me," Evelyn shouts, the noise in the background almost drowning her out.

"Oh hi," I say casually. "What's going on?"

"Patrick, what are you doing.at home?"

"Where are are you?" I ask goodnaturedly. you?" I ask goodnaturedly.

"IamatKaktus," she hisses.

"What are you doing there there?" I ask.

"You said you'd meet me here, thatiswhat," she says. "I confirmed your reservations."

"Oh god, I'm sorry," I say. "I forgot to tell you."

"Forgottotellmewhat?"

"To tell you that we aren't" I gulp "going there." I close my eyes.

"Whointhehellis-Jeanette?" she hisses calmly.

"Well, aren't you guys having fun?" I ask, ignoring her question.

"Nowearenot."

"Why not?" I ask. "We'll be there... soon."

"Because this whole thing feels, gee, I don't know... inappropriate inappropriate?" she screams.

"Listen, I'll call you right back." I'm about to pretend to take the number down.

"You won't be able to," Evelyn says, her voice tense and lowered.

"Why not? The phone strike's over," I joke, sort of.

"BecauseJeanetteisbehindmeandwantstouseit," Evelyn says.

I pause for a very long time.

"Patrick?"

"Evelyn. Let it slide. I'm leaving right now. We'll all be there shortly. I promise."

"Oh my god"

I click back to the other line.

"Guys, guys, someone fucked up. I fucked up. You fucked up. I don't know," I say in a total panic.

"What's wrong?" one of them asks.

"Jeanette and Evelyn are at Kaktus," I say.

"Oh boy." Van Patter cracks up.

"You know, guys, it's not beyond my capacity to drive a lead pipe repeatedly into a girl's vagina," I tell Van Patter and McDermott, then add, after a silence I mistake for shock, finally on their parts an acute perception of my cruelty, "but compassionately."

"We all know about your your lead pipe, Bateman," McDermott says. "Stop bragging." lead pipe, Bateman," McDermott says. "Stop bragging."

"Is he like trying to tell us he has a big dick?" Van Patter asks Craig.

"Gee, I'm not sure," McDermott says. "Is that what you're trying to tell us, Bateman?"

I pause before answering. "It's... well, no, not exactly." My call waiting buzzes.

"Fine, I'm officially jealous," McDermott wisecracks. "Now where? Christ, what time is it?" where? Christ, what time is it?"

"It doesn't really matter. My mind has already gone numb."

I'm so hungry now that I'm eating oat bran cereal out of a box.

My call waiting buzzes again.

"Maybe we can get some drugs."

"Call Hamlin."

"Jesus, you can't walk into a bathroom in this city without coming out with a gram, so don't worry."

"Anyone hear about Bell South's cellular deal?"

"Spuds McKenzie is on The Patty Winters Show The Patty Winters Show tomorrow. tomorrow.

Girl

On a Wednesday night another girl, who I meet at M.K. and I plan to torture and film. This one remains nameless to me and she sits on the couch in the living room of my apartment. A bottle of champagne, Cristal, half empty, sits on the glass table. I punch in tunes, numbers that light up the Wurlitzer. She finally asks, "What's that... smell in here?" and I answer, under my breath, "A dead... rat," and then I'm opening the windows, the sliding glass door that leads out to the terrace, even though it's a chilly night, midautumn, and she's dressed scantily, but she has another glass of the Cristal and it seems to warm her enough so that she is able to ask me what I do for a living. I tell her that I went to Harvard then started working on Wall Street, at Pierce & Pierce, after I graduated from business school there, and when she asks, either confused or jokingly, "What's that?" I swallow and with my back to her, straightening the new Onica, find the strength to force out, "A... shoe store." I did a line of cocaine I found in my medicine cabinet when we first came back to my place, and the Cristal takes the edge off it, but only slightly: The Patty Winters Show The Patty Winters Show this morning was about a machine that lets people talk to the dead. This girl is wearing a wool barathea jacket and skirt, a silk georgette blouse, agate and ivory earrings by Stephen Dweck, a silk jacquard torsolette vest, all from... where? Charivari, I'm guessing. this morning was about a machine that lets people talk to the dead. This girl is wearing a wool barathea jacket and skirt, a silk georgette blouse, agate and ivory earrings by Stephen Dweck, a silk jacquard torsolette vest, all from... where? Charivari, I'm guessing.

In the bedroom she's naked and oiled and sucking my dick and I'm standing over her and then I'm slapping her in the face with it, grabbing her hair with my hand, calling her a "fucking whore bitch," and this turns her on even more and while lamely sucking my cock she starts fingering her clit and when she's asking me "Do you like this?" while licking at the balls, I'm answering "yap, yap" and breathing hard. Her breasts are high and full and firm, both nipples very stiff, and while she's choking on my cock while I'm fucking her mouth roughly with it, I reach down to squeeze them and then while I'm fucking her, after ramming a dildo up her ass and keeping it there with a strap, I'm scratching at her tits, until she warns me to stop. Earlier in the evening I was having dinner with Jeanette at a new Northern Italian restaurant near Central Park on the Upper East Side that was very expensive. Earlier in the evening I was wearing a suit tailored by Edward Sexton and thinking sadly about my family's house in Newport. Earlier in the night after dropping Jeanette off I stopped at M.K. for a fundraiser that had something to do with Dan Quayle, who even I I don't like. At M.K. the girl I'm fucking came on to me, hard, upstairs on a couch while I was waiting to play pool. "Oh god," she's saying. Excited, I slap her, then lightly punch her in the mouth, then kiss it, biting her lips. Fear, dread, confusion overwhelm her. The strap breaks and the dildo slides out of her ass while she tries to push me off. I roll away and pretend to let her escape and then, while she's gathering her clothes, muttering about what a "crazy fucking bastard" I am, I leap out at her, jackallike, literally foaming at the mouth. She cries, apologizing, sobbing hysterically, begging for me not to hurt her, in tears, covering her breasts, now shamefully. But even her sobs fail to arouse me. I feel little gratification when I Mace her, less when I knock her head against the wall four or five times, until she loses consciousness, leaving a small stain, hair stuck to it. After she drops to the floor I head for the bathroom and cut another line of the mediocre coke I scored at Nells or Au Bar the other night. I can hear a phone ringing, an answering machine picking up the call. I'm bent low, over a mirror, ignoring the message, not even bothering to screen it. don't like. At M.K. the girl I'm fucking came on to me, hard, upstairs on a couch while I was waiting to play pool. "Oh god," she's saying. Excited, I slap her, then lightly punch her in the mouth, then kiss it, biting her lips. Fear, dread, confusion overwhelm her. The strap breaks and the dildo slides out of her ass while she tries to push me off. I roll away and pretend to let her escape and then, while she's gathering her clothes, muttering about what a "crazy fucking bastard" I am, I leap out at her, jackallike, literally foaming at the mouth. She cries, apologizing, sobbing hysterically, begging for me not to hurt her, in tears, covering her breasts, now shamefully. But even her sobs fail to arouse me. I feel little gratification when I Mace her, less when I knock her head against the wall four or five times, until she loses consciousness, leaving a small stain, hair stuck to it. After she drops to the floor I head for the bathroom and cut another line of the mediocre coke I scored at Nells or Au Bar the other night. I can hear a phone ringing, an answering machine picking up the call. I'm bent low, over a mirror, ignoring the message, not even bothering to screen it.

Later, predictably, she's tied to the floor, naked, on her back, both feet, both hands, tied to makeshift posts that are connected to boards which are weighted down with metal. The hands are shot full of nails and her legs are spread as wide as possible. A pillow props her ass up and cheese, Brie, has been smeared across her open cunt, some of it even pushed up into the vaginal cavity. She's barely gained consciousness and when she sees me, standing over her, naked, I can imagine that my virtual absence of humanity fills her with mindbending horror. I've situated the body in front of the new Toshiba television set and in the VCR is an old tape and appearing on the screen is the last girl I filmed. I'm wearing a Joseph Abboud suit, a tie by Paul Stuart, shoes by J. Crew, a vest by someone Italian and I'm kneeling on the floor beside a corpse, eating the girl's brain, gobbling it down, spreading Grey Poupon over hunks of the pink, fleshy meat.

"Can you see?" I ask the girl not on the television set. "Can you see this? Are you watching?" I whisper.

I try using the power drill on her, forcing it into her mouth, but she's conscious enough, has strength, to close her teeth, clamping them down, and even though the drill goes through the teeth quickly, it fails to interest me and so I hold her head up, blood dribbling from her mouth, and make her watch the rest of the tape and while she's looking at the girl on the screen bleed from almost every possible orifice, I'm hoping she realizes that this would have happened to her no matter what. That she would have ended up lying here, on the floor in my apartment, hands nailed to posts, cheese and broken glass pushed up into her cunt, her head cracked and bleeding purple, no matter what other choice she might have made; that if she had gone to Nell's or Indochine or Mars or Au Bar instead of M.K., if she had simply not taken the cab with me to the Upper West Side, that this all would have happened anyway. I would have found her. I would have found her. This is the way the earth works. I decide not to bother with the camera tonight. This is the way the earth works. I decide not to bother with the camera tonight.

I'm trying to ease one of the hollow plastic tubes from the dismantled Habitrail system up into her vagina, forcing the vaginal lips around one end of it, and even with most of it greased with olive oil, it's not fitting in properly. During this, the jukebox plays Frankie Valli singing "The Worst That Could Happen" and I'm grimly lipsyncing to it, while pushing the Habitrail tube up into this bitch's cunt. I finally have to resort to pouring acid around the outside of the pussy so that the flesh can give way to the greased end of the Habitrail and soon enough it slides in, easily. "I hope this hurts you," I say.

The rat hurls itself against the glass cage as I move it from the kitchen into the living room. It refused to eat what was left of the other rat I had bought it to play with last week, that now lies dead, rotting in a corner of the cage. (For the last five days I've purposefully starved it.) I set the glass cage down next to the girl and maybe because of the scent of the cheese the rat seems to go insane, first running in circles, mewling, then trying to heave its body, weak with hunger, over the side of the cage. The rat doesn't need any prodding and the bent coat hanger I was going to use remains untouched by my side and with the girl still conscious, the thing moves effortlessly on newfound energy, racing up the tube until half of its body disappears, and then after a minute its rat body shaking while it feeds all of it vanishes, except for the tail, and I yank the Habitrail tube out of the girl, trapping the rodent. Soon even the tail disappears. The noises the girl is making are, for the most part, incomprehensible.

I can already tell that it's going to be a characteristically useless, senseless death, but then I'm used to the horror. It seems distilled, even now it fails to upset or bother me. I'm not mourning, and to prove it to myself, after a minute or two of watching the rat move under her lower belly, making sure the girl is still conscious, shaking her head in pain, her eyes wide with terror and confusion, I use a chain saw and in a matter of seconds cut the girl in two with it. The whirring teeth go through skin and muscle and sinew and bone so fast that she stays alive long enough to watch me pull her legs away from her body her actual thighs, thighs, what's left of her mutilated vagina and hold them up in front of me, spouting blood, like trophies almost. Her eyes stay open for a minute, desperate and unfocused, then close, and finally, before she dies, I force a knife uselessly up her nose until it slides out of the flesh on her forehead, and then I hack the bone off her chin. She has only half a mouth left and I fuck it once, then twice, three times in all. Not caring whether she's still breathing or not I gouge her eyes out, finally using my fingers. The rat emerges headfirst somehow it turned itself around inside the cavity and it's stained with purple blood (I also notice where the chain saw took off about half of its tail) and I feed it extra Brie until I feel I have to stomp it to death, which I do. Later the girl's femur and left jawbone lie in the oven, baking, and tufts of pubic hair fill a Steuben crystal ashtray, and when I light them they burn very quickly. what's left of her mutilated vagina and hold them up in front of me, spouting blood, like trophies almost. Her eyes stay open for a minute, desperate and unfocused, then close, and finally, before she dies, I force a knife uselessly up her nose until it slides out of the flesh on her forehead, and then I hack the bone off her chin. She has only half a mouth left and I fuck it once, then twice, three times in all. Not caring whether she's still breathing or not I gouge her eyes out, finally using my fingers. The rat emerges headfirst somehow it turned itself around inside the cavity and it's stained with purple blood (I also notice where the chain saw took off about half of its tail) and I feed it extra Brie until I feel I have to stomp it to death, which I do. Later the girl's femur and left jawbone lie in the oven, baking, and tufts of pubic hair fill a Steuben crystal ashtray, and when I light them they burn very quickly.

At Another New Restaurant

For a limited period of time I'm capable of being halfway cheerful and outgoing, so I accept Evelyn's invitation to dinner during the first week of November at Luke, a new superchic nouvelle Chinese restaurant that also serves, oddly enough, Creole cuisine. We have a good table (I reserved under Wintergreen's name the simplest of triumphs) and I feel anchored, calm, even with Evelyn sitting across from me prattling on about a very large Faberge egg she thought she saw at the Pierre, rolling around the lobby of its own accord or something like that. The office Halloween party was at the Royalton last week and I went as a mass murderer, complete with a sign painted on my back that read MASS MURDERER (which was decidedly lighter than the sandwich board I had constructed earlier that day that read DRILLER KILLER), and beneath those two words I had written in blood Yep, that's me Yep, that's me and the suit was also covered with blood, some of it fake, most of it real. In one fist I clenched a hank of Victoria Bell's hair, and pinned next to my boutonniere (a small white rose) was a finger bone I'd boiled the flesh off of. As elaborate as my costume was, Craig McDermott still managed to win first place in the competition. He came as Ivan Boesky, which I thought was unfair since a lot of people thought I'd gone as Michael Milken last year. and the suit was also covered with blood, some of it fake, most of it real. In one fist I clenched a hank of Victoria Bell's hair, and pinned next to my boutonniere (a small white rose) was a finger bone I'd boiled the flesh off of. As elaborate as my costume was, Craig McDermott still managed to win first place in the competition. He came as Ivan Boesky, which I thought was unfair since a lot of people thought I'd gone as Michael Milken last year. The Patty Winters Show The Patty Winters Show this morning was about Home Abortion Kits. this morning was about Home Abortion Kits.

The first five minutes after being seated are fine, then the drink I ordered touches the table and I instinctively reach for it, but I find myself cringing every time Evelyn opens her mouth. I notice that Saul Steinberg is eating here tonight, but refuse to mention this to Evelyn.

"A toast?" I suggest.

"Oh? To what?" she murmurs uninterestedly, craning her neck, looking around the stark, dimly lit, very white room.

"Freedom?" I ask tiredly.