American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis
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 faux-cowhide 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 mid-October.
An audio receiver, the Pioneer VSX-9300S, which features an integrated Dolby Prologic Surround Sound processor with digital delay, plus a full-function 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 GX-950B, which comes complete with manual bias, Dolby recording level controls, a built-in calibrated tone generator and a spot-erase 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 three-head design features a self-enclosed tape unit, resulting in minimized interference, and its noise-reduction setup is fortified with Dolby HX-Pro while its front-panel controls are activated by a full-function wireless remote.
A multidisc CD player by Sony, the MDP-700, which spins both audios and videos—anything from three-inch digital audio singles to twelve-inch video discs. It contains a still-frame slowmotion multispeed visual/audio laser that incorporates four-times-over sampling and a dual-motor system that helps ensure consistent disc rotation while the disc-protect system helps prevent the discs from warping. An automatic music sensor system lets you make up to ninety-nine track selections while an auto chapter search allows you to scan up to seventy-nine segments of a video disc. Included is a ten-key remote control joy-shuttle dial (for frame-by-frame search) and a memory stop. This also has two sets of gold-plated A-V jacks for topnotch connections.
A high-performance cassette deck, the DX-5000 from NEC, which combines digital special effects with excellent hi-fi, and a connected four-head VHS-HQ unit, which comes equipped with a twenty-one-day eight-event programmer, MTS decoding and 140 cable-ready channels. An added bonus: a fifty-function unified remote control lets me zap out TV commercials.
Included in the Sony CCD-V200 8mm camcorder is a seven-color wipe, a character generator, an edit switch that’s also capable of time-lapse recording, which allows me to, say, record a decomposing body at fifteen-second intervals or tape a small dog as it lies in convulsions, poisoned. The audio has built-in digital stereo record/playback, while the zoom lens has four-lux minimum illumination and six variable shutter speeds.
A new TV monitor with a twenty-seven-inch screen, the CX-2788 from Toshiba, has a built-in MTS decoder, a CCD comb filter, programmable channel scan, a super-VHS connection, seven watts per channel of power, with an additional ten watts dedicated to drive a subwoofer for extra low-frequency oomph, and a Carver Sonic Holographing sound system that produces a unique stereo 3-D sound effect.
Pioneer’s LD-ST disc player with wireless remote and the Sony MDP-700 multidisc player with digital effects and universal-wireless-remote programming (one for the bedroom, one for the living room), which play all sizes and formats of audio and video discs—eight-inch and twelve-inch laser discs, five-inch CD video discs and three- and five-inch compact discs—in two autoload drawers. The LD-Wi from Pioneer holds two full-sized discs and plays both sides sequentially with only a several-second 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 CDV-1600 multidisc player handles all disc formats and has a fifteen-selection random-access 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 cotton-upholstered 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 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 leek-goat cheese-truffle 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 extra-large 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 sun-dried 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 six-thirty, forty minutes before our actual reservation (he couldn’t get us in at any other time, except for six-ten 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 f
“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 last night.”
“So … what are you, McDermott, trying to tell me?”
“That we’re going someplace else,” he says.
“Where?” I ask cautiously.
“Alex Goes to Camp is where 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 went there last week.”
“I know. 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.”
“Call him back and get one,” I say, walking out of the bathroom. “I seem to have misplaced my Zagat.”
“Do you want to hold or should I call you back?” he asks.
“Call me back, bozo.” We hang up.
Minutes pass. The phone rings. I don’t bother screening it. It’s McDermott again.
“Well?” I ask.
“Hamlin doesn’t have a backup and he wants to invite Luis Carruthers and what I want to know is, does this mean Courtney’s coming?” McDermott asks.
“Luis cannot come,” I say.
“Why not?”
“He just can’t.” I ask, “Why does he want Luis to come?”
There’s a pause. “Hold on,” McDermott says. “He’s on the other line. I’ll ask him.”
“Who?” A flash of panic. “Luis?”
“Hamlin.”
While holding I move into the kitchen, over to the refrigerator, and take out a bottle of Perrier. I’m looking for a glass when I hear a click.
“Listen,” I say when McDermott gets back on the line. “I don’t want to see Luis or Courtney so, you know, dissuade them or something. Use your charm. Be charming.”
“Hamlin has to have dinner with a client from Texas and—”
I cut him off. “Wait, this has nothing to do with Luis. Let Hamlin take the fag out himself.”
“Hamlin wants Carruthers to come because Hamlin is supposed to be dealing with the Panasonic case, but Carruthers knows a lot more about it and that’s why he wants Carruthers to come,” McDermott explains.
I pause while taking this in. “If Luis comes I’ll kill him. I swear to god I’ll kill him. I’ll fucking kill him.”
“Jeez, Bateman,” McDermott murmurs, concerned. “You’re a real humanitarian. A sage.”
“No. Just …” I start, confused, irritated. “Just … sensible.”
“I just want to know if Luis comes does this mean that Courtney will come too?” he wonders again.
“Tell Hamlin to invite—oh shit, I don’t know.” I stop. “Tell Hamlin to have dinner with the Texas guy alone.” I stop again, realizing something. “Wait a minute. Does this mean Hamlin will … take us out? I mean pay for it, since it’s a business dinner?”
“You know, sometimes I think you’re very smart, Bateman,” McDermott says. “Other times …”
“Oh shit, what the hell am I saying?” I ask myself out loud, annoyed. “You and I can have a goddamn business dinner together. Jesus. I’m not going. That’s it. I’m not going.”
“Not even if Luis doesn’t come?” he asks.
“No. Nope.”
“Why not?” he whines. “We have reservations at 1500.”
“I … have to … watch The Cosby Show.”
“Oh tape it for Christ sakes, you ass.”
“Wait.” I’ve realized something else. “Do you think Hamlin will”—I pause awkwardly—“have some drugs, perhaps … for the Texan?”
“What does Bateman think?” McDermott asks, the jaded asshole.
“Hmmm. I’m thinking about it. I’m thinking about this.”
After a pause McDermott says “Tick-tock, tick-tock” in singsong. “We’re getting nowhere. Of course Hamlin is going to be carrying.”
“Get Hamlin, have him … get him on three-way,” I sputter, checking my Rolex. “Hurry. Maybe we can talk him into 1500.”
“Okay,” McDermott says. “Hold on.”
There are four clicking noises and then I hear Hamlin saying, “Bateman, is it okay to wear argyle socks with a business suit?” He’s attempting a joke but it fails to amuse me.
Sighing inwardly, my eyes closed, I answer, impatient, “Not really, Hamlin. They’re too sporty. They interfere with a business image. You can wear them with casual suits. Tweeds, whatever. Now Hamlin?”
“Bateman?” And then he says, “Thank you.”
“Luis cannot come,” I tell him. “And you’re welcome.”
“No prob,” he says. “The Texan’s not coming anyway.”
“Why not?” I ask.
“Hay letsyall go to See Bee Jee Bees I har that’s pretty new wave. Lifestyle difference,” Hamlin explains. “The Texan is not accepted until Monday. I quickly, and quite nimbly I might add, rearranged my hectic schedule. A sick father. A forest fire. An excuse.”
“How does that take care of Luis?” I ask suspiciously.
“Luis is having dinner with the Texan tonight, which saves me a whole lotta trouble, pardner. I’m seeing him at Smith and Wollensky on Monday,” Hamlin says, pleased with himself. “So everything is A-okay.”
“Wait,” McDermott asks tentatively, “does this mean that Courtney isn’t coming?”
“We have missed or are going to miss our reservations at 1500,” I point out. “Besides, Hamlin, you went there last night, huh?”
“Yeah,” he says. “It’s got passable carpaccio. Decent wren. Okay sorbets. But let’s go somewhere else and, uh, then go on the search for the, uh, perfect body. Gentlemen?”
“Sounds good,” I say, amused that Hamlin, for once, has the right idea. “But what is Cindy going to say about this?”
“Cindy has to go to a charity thing at the Plaza, something—”
“That’s the Trump Plaza,” I note absently, while finally opening the Perrier bottle.
“Yeah, the Trump Plaza,” he says. “Something about trees near the library. Money for trees or a bush of some kind,” he says, unsure. “Plants? Beats me.”
“So where to?” McDermott asks.
“Who cancels 1500?” I ask.
“You do,” McDermott says.
“Oh McDermott,” I moan, “just do it.”
“Wait,” Hamlin says. “Let’s decide where we’re going first.”
“Agreed.” McDermott, the parliamentarian.
“I am fanatically opposed to anywhere not on the Upper West or Upper East side of this city,” I say.
“Bellini’s?” Hamlin suggests.
“Nope. Can’t smoke cigars there,” McDermott and I say at the same time.
“Cross that one out,” Hamlin says. “Gandango?” he suggests.
“Possibility, possibility,” I murmur, mulling it over. “Trump eats there.”
“Zeus Bar?” one of them asks.
“Make a reservation,” says the other.
“Wait,” I tell them, “I’m thinking.”
“Bateman …,” Hamlin warns.
“I’m toying with the idea,” I say.
“Bateman …”
“Wait. Let me toy for a minute.”
“I’m really too irritated to be dealing with this right now,” McDermott says.
“Why don’t we just forget this shit and bash some Japs,” Hamlin suggests. “Then find the perfect body.”
“Not a bad idea, actually.” I shrug. “
“What do you want to do, Bateman?” McDermott asks.
Thinking about it, thousands of miles away, I answer, “I want to …”
“Yes …?” they both ask expectantly.
“I want to … pulverize a woman’s face with a large, heavy brick.”
“Besides that,” Hamlin moans impatiently.
“Okay, fine,” I say, snapping out of it. “Zeus Bar.”
“You sure? Right? Zeus Bar?” Hamlin concludes, he hopes.
“Guys. I am finding myself increasingly incapable of dealing with this at all,” McDermott says. “Zeus Bar. That’s final.”
“Hold on,” Hamlin says. “I’ll call and make a reservation.” He clicks off, leaving McDermott and myself on hold. It’s silent for a long time before either one of us says anything.
“You know,” I finally say. “It will probably be impossible to get a reservation there.”
“Maybe we should go to M.K. The Texan would probably like to go to M.K.,” Craig says.
“But, McDermott, the Texan isn’t coming,” I point out.
“I can’t go to M.K. anyway,” he says, not listening, and he doesn’t mention why.