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.I smile at the maître d' and after shaking his hand I make a run for the closing elevator but I'm too late and I cry out, pounding a fist against the doors, cursing.Composing myself, I notice the maître d' conferring with a waiter, the two of them looking my way questioningly, and so I straighten up, smile shyly and wave at them.Luis strides over calmly, still grinning, flushed, and I just stand there and let him walk up to me.He says nothing."What… is… it?" I finally hiss."Where are you going?" he whispers, bewildered."I… I've gotta…" Stumped, I look around the crowded dining room, then back at Luis's quivering, yearning face."I've gotta return some videotapes," I say, jabbing at the elevator button, then, my patience shot, I start to walk away and head back toward my table."Patrick," he calls out.I whirl around."What?"He mouths "I'll call you" with this expression on his face that lets me know, that assures me, my "secret" is safe with him."Oh my god," I practically gag, and shaking visibly I sit back at our table, completely defeated, my gloves still on, and gulp down the rest of a watery J&B on the rocks.As soon as I've seated myself Van Patten asks, "Hey Bateman, what's the right way to wear a tie bar or clasp?""While a tie holder is by no means required businesswear, it adds to a clean, neat overall appearance.But the accessory shouldn't dominate the tie.Choose a simple gold bar or a small clip and place it at the lower end of the tie at a downward forty-five-degree angle."Killing DogCourtney calls, too wasted on Elavil to meet me for a coherent dinner at Cranes, the new Kitty Oates Sanders restaurant in Gramercy Park where Jean, my secretary, made reservations for us last week, and I'm nonplussed.Even though it got excellent reviews (one in New York magazine; the other in The Nation) I don't complain or persuade Courtney to change her mind since I have two files I should go over and The Patty Winters Show I taped this morning hasn't been watched yet.It's sixty minutes about women who've had mastectomies, which at seven-thirty, over breakfast, before the office, I couldn't bear to sit through, but after today – hanging out at the office, where the air-conditioning broke down, a tedious lunch with Cunningham at Odeon, my fucking Chinese cleaners unable to get bloodstains out of another Soprani jacket, four videotapes overdue that ended up costing me a fortune, a twenty-minute wait at the Stairmasters – I've adapted; these events have toughened me and I'm prepared to deal with this particular topic.Two thousand abdominal crunches and thirty minutes of rope jumping in the living room, the Wurlitzer jukebox blasting "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" over and over, even though I worked out in the gym today for close to two hours.After this I get dressed to pick up groceries at D'Agostino's: blue jeans by Armani, a white Polo shirt, an Armani sport coat, no tie, hair slicked back with Thompson mousse; since it's drizzling, a pair of black waterproof lace-ups by Manolo Blahnik; three knives and two guns carried in a black Epi leather attaché case ($3,200) by Louis Vuitton; because it's cold and I don't want to fuck up my manicure, a pair of Armani deerskin gloves.Finally, a belted trench coat in black leather by Cianfranco Ferré that cost four thousand dollars.Though it's only a short walk to D'Agostino's, I put on a CD Walkman anyway, with the long version of Bon Jovi's "Wanted Dead or Alive" already in it.I grab an Etro wood-handled paisley umbrella from Bergdorf Goodman, three hundred dollars on sale, off a newly installed umbrella rack in the closet near the entranceway and I'm out the door.After the office I worked out at Xclusive and once home made obscene phone calls to young Dalton girls, the numbers I chose coming from the register I stole a copy of from the administration office when I broke in last Thursday night."I'm a corporate raider," I whispered lasciviously into the cordless phone."I orchestrate hostile takeovers.What do you think of that?" and I would pause before making sucking noises, freakish piglike grunts, and then ask, "Huh, bitch?" Most of the time I could tell they were frightened and this pleased me greatly, enabled me to maintain a strong, pulsing erection for the duration of the phone calls, until one of the girls, Hilary Wallace, asked, unfazed, "Dad, is that you?" and whatever enthusiasm I'd built up plummeted
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