"But I already…" I stop and look down at my sorbet, troubled. "I already ordered this grapefruit sorbet." Gloomily I point at the dish, confused. "I don't want any ice cream."
"For Christ sakes, Bateman, Jagger is here. Mick. Jerry. You know," Francesca says, talking to the booth but constantly scanning the room. Daisy's expression hasn't changed once all evening. "What a y-u-p-p-i-e," she spells to the blond girl, then Francesca's eyes land on my sorbet. I pull it toward me protectively.
"Oh yeah," I say. " 'Just another night, just another night with you…' " I sing, sort of. "I know who he is."
"You look thin, Daisy, you're making me sick. Anyway, this is Alison Poole, who is also too thin and makes me sick," Francesca says, lightly slapping my hands covering the sorbet, pulling the dish back toward her. "And this is Daisy Milton and Patrick–"
"We've met," Alison says, glaring at me.
"Hi, Alison. Pat Bateman," I say, holding out my hand.
"We've met," she says again, glaring harder.
"Uh… we have?" I ask.
Francesca screams, "God, look at that profile of Bateman's. Totally Roman. And those lashes!" she shrieks.
Daisy smiles approvingly. I play it cool, ignoring them.
I recognize Alison as a girl I did last spring while at the Kentucky Derby with Evelyn and her parents. I remember she screamed when I tried to push my entire arm, gloved and slathered with Vaseline, toothpaste, anything I could find, up into her vagina. She was drunk, wasted on coke, and I had tied her up with wire, slapped duct tape all over her mouth, her face, her breasts. Francesca has given me head before. I don't remember the place, or when, but she's given me head and liked it. I suddenly remember, painfully, that I would have liked to see Alison bleed to death that afternoon last spring but something stopped me. She was so high – "oh my god," she kept moaning during those hours, blood bubbling out of her nose – she never wept. Maybe that was the problem; maybe that was what saved her. I won a lot of money that weekend on a horse called Indecent Exposure.
"Well… Hi." I smile weakly but soon regain my confidence. Alison would never have told anyone that story. Not a soul could've possibly heard about that lovely, horrible afternoon. I grin at her in the darkness of Nell's. "Yeah, I remember you. You were a real…" I pause, then growl, "manhandler."
She says nothing, just looks at me like I'm the opposite of civilization or something.
"Jesus. Is Taylor sleeping or just dead?" Francesca asks while gobbling up what's left of my sorbet. "Oh my God, did anyone read Page Six today? I was in it, so was Daisy. And Taffy too."
Alison gets up without looking over at me. "I'm going to find Skip downstairs and dance." She walks away.
McDermott comes back and gives Alison, who's squeezing past him, the once-over before taking the seat next to mine.
"Any luck?" I ask.
"No dice," he says, wiping his nose. He lifts my drink to his face and sniffs it, then takes a sip and lights one of Daisy's cigarettes. He looks back at me while lighting it and introduces himself to Francesca before looking back at me. "Don't look so, you know, astounded, Bateman. It happens."
I pause, staring at him, before asking, "Are you, uh, like, shitting me, McDermott?"
"No," he says. "No luck."
I pause again, then look down at my lap and sigh. "Look, McDermott, I've pulled this act before. I know what you're doing."
"I fucked her." He sniffs again, pointing at some girl in one of the booths up front. McDermott's sweating profusely and reeks of Xeryus.
"You did? Wow. Now listen to me," I say, then notice something out of the corner of my eye. "Francesca…"
"What?" She looks up, a dribble of sorbet running down her chin.
"You're eating my sorbet?" I point at the dish.
She swallows, glaring at me. "Lighten up, Bateman. What do you want from me, you gorgeous stud? An AIDS test? Oh my god, speaking of which, that guy over there, Krafft? Yep. No loss."
The guy Francesca pointed out is sitting in a booth near the stage where the jazz band plays. His hair is slicked back over a very boyish face and he's wearing a suit with pleated trousers and a silk shirt with light gray polka dots by Comme des Garçons Homme and sipping a martini and it's not difficult to imagine him in someone's bedroom tonight, lying, probably to the girl he's sitting with: blonde, big tits, wearing a metal-studded dress by Giorgio di Sant'Angelo.
"Should we tell her?" someone asks.
"Oh no," Daisy says. "Don't. She looks like a real bitch."
"Listen to me, McDermott." I lean in toward him. "You have drugs. I can see it in your eyes. Not to mention that fucking sniffing."
"Nope. Negatif. Not tonight, honey." He wags his head.
Applause for the jazz band – the whole table claps, even Taylor, whom Francesca has inadvertently woken up, and I turn away from McDermott, heavily pissed, and bring my hands together like everyone else. Caron and Libby walk upto the table and Libby says, "Caron's got to go to Atlanta tomorrow. Vogue shoot. We have to leave." Someone gets the check and McDermott puts it on his gold AmEx card, which conclusively proves that he's high on coke since he's a famous tight-wad.
Outside it's muggy and there's a faint drizzle, almost like a mist, lightning but no thunder. I trail McDermott, hoping to confront him, almost bumping into someone in a wheelchair who I remember rolling up to the ropes when we first arrived and the guy's still sitting there, wheels moving up then backing away, up then back on the pavement, totally ignored by the doormen.
"McDermott," I call. "What are you doing? Give me your drugs."
He turns, facing me, and breaks into this weird jig, twirling around, then just as abruptly he stops and walks over to a black woman and child who are sitting in the doorway of the closed deli next to Nell's and predictably she's begging for food, a predictable cardboard sign at her feet. It's hard to tell if the kid, six or seven, is black or not, even if it's really hers, since the light outside Nells is too bright, really unflattering, and tends to make everyone's skin look the same yellowish, washed-out color.
"What are they doing?" I.ibby says, staring, transfixed. "Don't they know they need to stand closer to the ropes?"
"Libby, come on," Caron says, pulling her toward two taxis at the curb.
"McDermott?" I ask. "What in the hell are you doing?"
McDermott's eyes are glazed over and he's waving a dollar bill in front of the woman's face and she starts sobbing, pathetically trying to grab at it, but of course, typically, he doesn't give it to her. Instead he ignites the bill with matches from Canal Bar and relights the half-smoked cigar clenched between his straight white teeth – probably caps, the jerk.
"How… gentrifying of you, McDermott," I tell him.
Daisy is leaning against a white Mercedes parked next to the curb. Another Mercedes, this one a limo, black, is double-parked next to the white one. There's more lightning. An ambulance screams down Fourteenth Street. McDermott walks by Daisy and kisses her hand before hopping in the second cab.
I'm left standing in front of the crying black woman, Daisy staring.
"Jesus," I mutter, then, "Here…" I hand the black woman a book of matches from Lutèce before realizing the mistake, then find a book of matches from Tavern on the Green and toss them at the kid and pluck the other matchbook from her dirty, scabbed fingers.
"Jesus," I mutter again, walking over to Daisy.