The Informers - Bret Easton Ellis [46]
I’m in the bathtub taking a bubble bath. The girl has lost a tooth and is nude and sitting on the toilet seat, holding an ice pack from room service (who left several) up to the side of her face. She stands unsteadily and limps over to the mirror and says, “I think the swelling’s gone down.” I pick up a piece of ice that floats in the water and put it in my mouth and chew it, concentrating on how slowly I am chewing. She sits back down on the toilet and sighs.
“Don’t you want to know where I’m from?” she asks.
“No,” I say. “Not really.”
“Nebraska. Lincoln. Nebraska.” A long pause.
“You had a job at the mall, right?” I ask, eyes closed. “But the mall closed down, right? It’s all empty now, huh?”
I can hear her light a cigarette, smell its smoke, then ask, “Have you been there?”
“I’ve been to a mall in Nebraska,” I say.
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s all flat.”
“Flat,” I agree.
“Totally.”
“Totally flat.”
I stare down at torn skin on my chest, at the pink swollen lines that crisscross the skin below, over my nipples and I’m thinking, There goes another photo shoot without a shirt on. I touch the nipples lightly, brush the girl’s hand away when she tries to touch them. Once she’s properly lubricated I slide into her again.
A gram and I’m ready to call Nina at the house up in Malibu. The phone rings eighteen times. She finally answers.
“Hello?”
“Nina?”
“Yeah?”
“It’s me.”
“Oh.” Pause. “Wait a minute.” Another pause.
“Are you there?”
“You sound like you care,” she says.
“Maybe I do, babe.”
“Maybe you don’t, asshole.”
“Jesus.”
“I’m fine,” she says quickly. “Where are you now?”
I close my eyes, lean up against the headboard. “Tokyo. A Hilton.”
“Sounds classy.”
“It is far and away the nicest place I have ever lived.”
“That’s great.”
“You don’t sound too enthusiastic, babe.”
“Yeah?”
“Oh shit. Just let me talk to Kenny.”
“He’s on the beach with Martin.”
“Martin?” I ask, confused. “Who the hell is Martin?”
“Marty, Marty, Marty, Marty—”
“Okay, okay, yeah, Marty. How’s Marty?”
“Marty’s great.”
“Yeah? That’s great, even though I have no idea who he is, but, um, can I talk to Kenny, babe?” I ask. “I mean, can you go out to the beach and get him and not like freak out?”
“Some other time, okay?”
“I would like to talk to my kid.”
“But he doesn’t want to talk to you.”
“Let me talk to my kid, Nina.” I sigh.
“This is pointless,” she says.
“Nina—just go get Kenny.”
“I’m going to hang up on you now, okay, Bryan?”
“Nina, I’ll get my lawyer.”
“Fuck your lawyer, Bryan, just fuck him. I’ve gotta go.”
“Oh Jesus—”
“And it’s not a good idea if you call here too often.”
A long silence because I don’t say anything.
“It is never a good idea if you talk to Kenny, because you scare him,” she says.
“And you don’t?” I ask, appalled. “Medusa?”
“Never call back.” She hangs up.
Sitting in the empty coffee shop (which Roger had “cordoned off” because he was afraid “people would see you”) in the bottom of the Tokyo Hilton, Roger tells me that wa are going to be watching the English Prices eat lunch. Roger is wearing huge black sunglasses and an expensive pair of pajamas, chewing bubble gum.
“Who?” I ask. “Who?”
“The English Prices,” Roger enunciates clearly, again. “New group. MTV discovered them and has made them big.” Pause. “Real big,” he adds grimly. “They’re from Anaheim.”
“Who?” I ask.
“Because-they-were-born-there.” Roger sighs.
“Uh-huh,” I say.
“They want to meet you.”
“But … why?”
“Good question,” Roger says. “But does it really matter to you?”
“Why are they