"My dog was a sex maniac and very, very depressed. His name was Max the Jew and he was very, very depressed."

"Well, I guess that's why, y'know, he drank the paint, right?"

"Could be. It could also be the fact that ABC canceled `My So- Called Life.'" He pauses. "It's all sort of up in the air."

"Have you ever heard the phrase `earn your ten percent'?" I'm asking, washing my hands. "Have you seen your mother, baby, standing in the shadows?"

"The center cannot hold, my friend," Bill drones on.

"Hey Bill-what if there's no center? Huh?" I ask, thoroughly pissed off.

"I'll pursue that." Pause. "But right now I am quietly seething that Firhoozi thinks the starfish is hip, so I must go. We will speak as soon as it's feasibly possible."

"Bill, I've gotta run too, but listen, can we talk tomorrow?" I flip frantically through my daybook. "Um, like at either three-twenty-five or, um, like... four or four-fifteen... or, maybe even at, oh shit, six-ten?"

"Between lunch and midnight I'm collecting art with the cast of 'Friends.'"

"That's pretty ultra-arrogant, Bill."

"Dagby, I must go. Firhoozi wants a profile shot sans starfish."

"Hey Bill, wait a minute. I just want to know if you're pushing me for Flatliners II. And my name's not Dagby."

"If you are not Dagby, then who is this?" he asks vacantly. "Who am I now speaking with if not Dagby?"

"It's me. Victor Ward. I'm opening like the biggest club in New York tomorrow night."

Pause, then, "No... "

"I modeled for Paul Smith. I did a Calvin Klein ad."

Pause, then, "No..." I can hear him slouching, repositioning himself.

"I'm the guy who everyone thought David Geffen was dating but wasn't."

"That's really not enough."

"I date Chloe Byrnes," I'm shouting. "Chloe Byrnes, like, the super-model?"

"I've heard of her but not you, Dagby."

"Jesus, Bill, I'm on the cover of YouthQuake magazine this month. Your Halcion dosage needs trimming, bud."

"I'm not even thinking about you at this exact moment."

"Hey," I shout. "To save my life I dumped ICM for you guys."

"Listen, Dagby, or whoever this is, I can't really hear you since I'm on Mulholland now and I'm under a... big long tunnel." Pause. "Can't you hear the static?"

"But I just called you, Bill, at your office. You told me Firhoozi Zahidi was shooting you in your office. Let me talk to Firhoozi."

A long pause, then disdainfully Bill says, "You think you're so clever."

29

It's so diabolically crowded outside Bowery Bar that I have to climb over a stalled limo parked crookedly at the curb to even start pushing through the crowd while paparazzi who couldn't get in try desperately to snap my photo, calling out my name as I follow Liam Neeson, Carol Alt and Spike Lee up to Chad and Anton, who help pull us inside, where the opening riffs of Matthew Sweet's "Sick of Myself" start booming. The bar is mobbed, white boys with dreadlocks, black girls wearing Nirvana T-shirts, grungy homeboys, gym queens with buzz cuts, mohair, neon, Janice Dickerson, bodyguards and their models from the shows today looking hot but exhausted, fleece and neoprene and pigtails and silicone and Brent Fraser as well as Brendan Fraser and pom-poms and chenille sleeves and falconer gloves and everyone's smoochy. I wave over at Pell and Vivien, who are drinking Cosmopolitans with Marcus-who's wearing an English barrister's wig-and this really cool lesbian, Egg, who's wearing an Imperial margarine crown, and she's sitting next to two people dressed like two of the Banana Splits, which two I couldn't possibly tell. It's a kitsch-is-cool kind of night and there are tons of chic admirers.

While scanning the dining room for Chloe (which I realize a little too slowly is totally useless since she's always in one of the three big A booths), I notice Richard Johnson from "Page Six" next to me, also scanning the room, along with Mick and Anne Jones, and I sidle up to him and offer a high five.

"Hey Dick," I shout over the din. "I need to ask you about something, por favor."

"Sure, Victor," Richard says. "But I'm looking for Jenny Shimuzu and Scott Bakula."

"Hey, Jenny lives in my building and she's supercool and very fond of Haagen-Dazs frozen yogurt bars, preferably pina colada, not to mention a good friend. But hey, man, have you heard about a photograph that's gonna run in like the News tomorrow?"