Christmas Party
I'm having drinks with Charles Murphy at Rusty's to fortify myself before making an appearance at Evelyn's Christmas party. I'm wearing a four-button double-breasted wool and silk suit, a cotton shirt with a button-down collar by Valentino Couture, a patterned silk tie by Armani and cap-toed leather slipons by Allen-Edmonds. Murphy is wearing a six-button double-breasted wool gabardine suit by Courrèges, a striped cotton shirt with a tab collar and a foulard-patterned silk-crepe tie, both by Hugo Boss. He's on a tirade about the Japanese – "They've bought the Empire State Building and Nell's. Nell's, can you believe it, Bateman?" he exclaims over his second Absolut on the rocks – and it moves something in me, it sets something off, and after leaving Rusty's, while wandering around the Upper West Side, I find myself crouched in the doorway of what used to be Carly Simon's, a very hot J. Akail restaurant that closed last fall, and leaping out at a passing Japanese delivery boy, I knock him off his bicycle and drag him into the doorway, his legs tangled somehow in the Schwinn he was riding which works to my advantage since when I slit his throat – easily, effortlessly – the spasmodic kicking that usually accompanies this routine is blocked by the bike, which he still manages to lift five, six times while he's choking on his own hot blood. I open the cartons of Japanese food and dump their contents over him, but to my surprise instead of sushi and teriyaki and hand rolls and soba noodles, chicken with cashew nuts falls all over his gasping bloodied face and beef chow mein and shrimp fried rice and moo shu pork splatter onto his heaving chest, and this irritating setback – accidentally killing the wrong type of Asian – moves me to check where this order was going – Sally Rubinstein – and with my Mont Blanc pen to write I'm gonna get you too… bitch on the back of it, then place the order over the dead kid's face and shrug apologetically, mumbling "Uh, sorry" and recall that The Patty Winters Show this morning was about Teenage Girls Who Trade Sex for Crack I spent two hours at the gym today and can now complete two hundred abdominal crunches in less than three minutes. Near Evelyn's brownstone I hand a freezing bum one of the fortune cookies I took from the delivery boy and he stuffs it, fortune and all, into his mouth, nodding thanks. "Fucking slob," I mutter loud enough for him to hear. As I turn the corner and head for Evelyn's, I notice the police lines are still up around the brownstone where her neighbor Victoria Bell was decapitated. Four limousines are parked in front, one still running.
I'm late. The living room and dining room are already crowded with people I don't really want to talk to. Tall, full blue spruces covered with white twinkling lights stand on either side of the fireplace. Old Christmas songs from the sixties sung by the Ronettes are on the CD player. A bartender in a tuxedo pours champagne and eggnog, mixes Manhattans and martinis, opens bottles of Calera Jensen pinot noir and a Chappellet chardonnay. Twenty-year-old ports line a makeshift bar between vases of poinsettias. A long folding table has been covered with a red tablecloth and is jammed with pans and plates and bowls of roasted hazelnuts and lobster and oyster bisques and celery root soup with apples and Beluga caviar on toast points and creamed onions and roast goose with chestnut stung and caviar in puff pastry and vegetable tarts with tapenade, roast duck and roast rack of veal with shallots and gnocchi gratin and vegetable strudel and Waldorf salad and scallops and bruschetta with mascarpone and white truffles and green chili soufflé and roast partridge with sage, potatoes and onion and cranberry sauce, mincemeat pies and chocolate truffles and lemon soufflé tarts and pecan tarte Tatin. Candles have been lit everywhere, all of them in sterling silver Tiffany candleholders. And though I cannot be positive that I'm not hallucinating, there seem to be midgets dressed in green and red elf suits and felt hats walking around with trays of appetizers. I pretend not to have noticed and head straight for the bar where I gulp down a glass of not-bad champagne then move over to Donald Petersen, and as with most of the men here, someone has tied paper antlers to his head. On the other side of the room Maria and Darwin Hutton's five-year-old daughter, Cassandra, is wearing a seven-hundred-dollar velvet dress and petticoat by Nancy Halser. After finishing a second glass of champagne I move to martinis – Absolut doubles – and after I've calmed down sufficiently I take a closer look around the room, but the midgets are still there.
"Too much red," I mutter to myself, trancing out. "It's makin' me nervous."
"Hey McCloy," Petersen says. "What do you say?"
I snap out of it and automatically ask, "Is this the British cast recording of Les Misérables or not?"
"Hey, have a holly jolly Christmas." He points a finger at me, drunk.
"So what is this music?" I ask, thoroughly annoyed. "And by the way, sir, deck the halls with boughs of holly."
"Bill Septor," he says, shrugging. "I think Septor or Skeptor."
"Why doesn't she put on some Talking Heads for Christ sakes," I complain bitterly.
Courtney is standing on the other side of the room, holding a champagne glass and ignoring me completely.
"Or Les Miz," he suggests.
"American or British cast recording?" My eyes narrowing, I'm testing him.
"Er, British," he says as a dwarf hands us each a plate of Waldorf salad.
"Definitely," I murmur, staring at the dwarf as he waddles away.
Suddenly Evelyn rushes up to us wearing a sable jacket and velvet pants by Ralph Lauren and in one hand she's holding a piece of mistletoe, which she places above my head, and in the other a candy cane.
"Mistletoe alert!" she shrieks, kissing me dryly on the cheek. "Merry Xmas, Patrick. Merry Xmas, Jimmy."
"Merry… Xmas," I say, unable to push her away since I've got a martini in one hand and a Waldorf salad in the other.
"You're late, honey," she says.
"I'm not late," I say, barely protesting.
"Oh yes you are," she says in singsong.
"I've been here the entire time," I say, dismissing her. "You just didn't see me."
"Oh, stop scowling. You're such a Grinch." She turns to Petersen. "Did you know Patrick's the Grinch?"
"Bah humbug," I sigh, staring over at Courtney.
"Hell, we all know McCloy's the Grinch," Petersen bellows drunkenly. "How ya doin', Mr. Grinch?"
"And what does Mr. Grinch want for Christmas?" Evelyn asks in a baby's voice. "Has Mr. Grinchie been a good boy this year?"
I sigh. "The Grinch wants a Burberry raincoat, a Ralph Lauren cashmere sweater, a new Rolex, a car stereo–"
Evelyn stops sucking on the candy cane to interrupt. "But you don't have a car, honey."
"I want one anyway." I sigh again. "The Grinch wants a car stereo anyway."
"How's the Waldorf salad?" Evelyn asks worriedly. "Do you think it tastes all right?"
"Delicious," I murmur, craning my neck, spotting someone, suddenly impressed. "Hey, you didn't tell me Laurence Tisch was invited to this party."
She turns around. "What are you talking about?"
"Why," I ask, "is Laurence Tisch passing around a tray of canapes?"
"Oh god, Patrick, that's not Laurence Tisch," she says. "That's one of the Christmas elves."
"One of the what? You mean the midgets."
'They're elves," she stresses. "Santa's helpers. God, what a sourpuss. Look at them. They're adorable. That one over there is Rudolph, the one passing out candy canes is Blitzen. The other one is Donner–"
"Wait a minute, Evelyn, wait," I say, closing my eyes, holding up the hand with the Waldorf salad in it. I'm sweating, déjà vu, but why? Have I met these elves somewhere? Forget about it. "I… those are the names of reindeer. Not elves. Blitzen was a reindeer."