I'm still tranced out on Montgomery's card – the classy coloring, the thickness, the lettering, the print – and I suddenly raise a fist as if to strike out at Craig and scream, my voice booming, "No one wants the fucking red snapper pizza! A pizza should be yeasty and slightly bready and have a cheesy crust! The crusts here are too fucking thin because the shithead chef who cooks here overbakes everything! The pizza is dried out and brittle!" Red-faced, I slam my Bellini down on the table and when I look up our appetizers have arrived. A hardbody waitress stands looking down at me with this strange, glazed expression. I wipe a hand over my face, genially smiling up at her. She stands there looking at me as if I were some kind of monster – she actually looks scared – and I glance over at Price – for what? guidance? – and he mouths "Cigars" and pats his coat pocket.
McDermott quietly says, "I don't think they're brittle."
"Honey," I say, ignoring McDermott, taking an arm and pulling her toward me. She flinches but I smile and she lets me pull her closer. "Now we're all going to eat a nice big meal here–" I start to explain.
"But this isn't what I ordered," Van Patten says, looking at his plate. "I wanted the mussel sausage."
"Shut up." I shoot him a glance then calmly turn toward the hardbody, grinning like an idiot, but a handsome idiot. "Now listen, we are good customers here and we're probably going to order some fine brandy, cognac, who knows, and we want to relax and bask in this" – I gesture with my arm – "atmosphere. Now" – with the other hand I pull out my gazelleskin wallet – "we would like to enjoy some fine Cuban cigars afterwards and we don't want to be bothered by some loutish–"
"Loutish." McDermott nods to Van Patten and Price.
"Loutish and inconsiderate patrons or tourists who are inevitably going to complain about our innocuous little habit… So" – I press what I hope is fifty into a small-boned hand – "if you could make sure we aren't bothered while we do, we would gratefully appreciate it." I rub the hand, closing it into a fist over the bill. "And if anyone complains, well…" I pause, then warn menacingly, "Kick 'em out."
She nods mutely and backs away with this dazed, confused look on her face.
"And," Price adds, smiling, "if another round of Bellinis comes within a twenty-foot radius of this table we are going to set the maître d' on fire. So, you know, warn him."
After a long silence during which we contemplate our appetizers, Van Patten speaks up. "Bateman?"
"Yes?" I fork a piece of monkfish, push it into some of the golden caviar, then place the fork back down.
"You are pure prep perfection," he purrs.
Price spots another waitress approaching with a tray of four champagne flutes filled with pale pinkish liquid and says, "Oh for Christ sakes, this is getting ridiculous…" She sets them down, however, at the table next to us, for the four babes.
"She is hot, " Van Patten says, ignoring his scallop sausage.
"Hardbody." McDermott nods in agreement. "Definitely."
"I'm not impressed," Price sniffs. "Look at her knees."
While the hardbody stands there we check her out, and though her knees do support long, tan legs, I can't help noticing that one knee is, admittedly, bigger than the other one. The left knee is knobbier, almost imperceptibly thicker than the right knee and this unnoticeable flaw now seems overwhelming and we all lose interest. Van Patten is looking at his appetizer, stunned, and then he looks at McDermott and says, "That isn't what you ordered either. That's sushi, not sashimi."
"Jesus," McDermott sighs. "You don't come here for the food anyway."
Some guy who looks exactly like Christopher Lauder comes over to the table and says, patting me on the shoulder, "Hey Hamilton, nice tan," before walking into the men's room.
"Nice tan, Hamilton," Price mimics, tossing tapas onto my bread plate.
"Oh gosh," I say, "hope I'm not blushin'."
"Actually, where do you go, Bateman?" Van Patten asks. "For a tan."
"Yeah, Bateman. Where do you go?" McDermott seems genuinely intrigued.
"Read my lips," I say, "a tanning salon," then irritably, "like everyone else."
"I have," Van Patten says, pausing for maximum impact, "a tanning bed at… home," and then he takes a large bite out of his scallop sausage.
"Oh bullshit," I say, cringing.
"It's true," McDermott confirms, his mouth full. "I've seen it."
"That is fucking outrageous," I say.
"Why the hell is it fucking outrageous?" Price asks, pushing tapas around his plate with a fork.
"Do you know how expensive a fucking tanning salon membership is?" Van Patten asks me. "A membership for a year?"
"You're crazy," I mutter.
"Look, guys," Van Patten says. "Bateman's indignant."
Suddenly a busboy appears at our table and without asking if we're finished removes our mostly uneaten appetizers. None of us complain except for McDermott, who asks, "Did he just take our appetizers away?" and then laughs uncomprehendingly. But when he sees no one else laughing he stops.
"He took them away because the portions are so small he probably thought we were finished," Price says tiredly.
"I just think that's crazy about the tanning bed," I tell Van Patten, though secretly I think it would be a hip luxury except I really have no room for one in my apartment. There are things one could do with it besides getting a tan.
"Who is Paul Owen with?" I hear McDermott asking Price.
"Some weasel from Kicker Peabody," Price says distractedly. "He knew McCoy."
"Then why is he sitting with those dweebs from Drexel?" McDermott asks. "Isn't that Spencer Wynn?"
"Are you freebasing or what?" Price asks. "'That's not Spencer Wynn."
I look over at Paul Owen, sitting in a booth with three other guys – one of whom could be Jeff Duvall, suspenders, slicked-back hair, horn-rimmed glasses, all of them drinking champagne – and I lazily wonder about how Owen got the Fisher account. It makes me not hungry but our meals arrive almost immediately after our appetizers are taken away and we begin to eat. McDermott undoes his suspenders. Price calls him a slob. I feel paralyzed but manage to turn away from Owen and stare at my plate (the potpie a yellow hexagon, strips of smoked salmon circling it, squiggles of pea-green tomatillo sauce artfully surrounding the dish) and then I gaze at the waiting crowd. They seem hostile, drunk on complimentary Bellinis perhaps, tired of waiting hours for shitty tables near the open kitchen even though they had reservations. Van Patten interrupts the silence at our table by slamming his fork down and pushing his chair back.
"What's wrong?" I say, looking up from my plate, a fork poised over it, but my hand will not move; it's as if it appreciated the plate's setup too much, as if my hand had a mind of its own and refused to break up its design. I sigh and put the fork down, hopeless.
"Shit. I have to tape this movie on cable for Mandy." He wipes his mouth with a napkin, stands up. "I'll be back."
"Have her do it, idiot," Price says. "What are you, demented?"
"She's in Boston, seeing her dentist." Van Patten shrugs, pussywhipped.
"What in the hell are you going to do?" My voice wavers. I'm still thinking about Van Patten's card. "Call up HBO?"
"No;" he says. "I have a touch-tone phone hooked up to program a Videonics VCR programmer I bought at Hammacher Schlemmer." He walks away pulling his suspenders up.