Imperial Bedrooms - By Bret Easton Ellis Page 0,7

in front of the Doheny Plaza.

Something has changed since I was here seven hours ago. I call the doorman while staring at the desk in my office. The computer is on. It wasn't when I left. I'm staring at the stack of paper next to the computer. When the doorman answers I'm staring at a small knife used to open envelopes that was placed on the stack of paper. It was in a drawer when I headed out to the premiere. I hang the phone up without saying anything. Moving around the condo I ask, "Is anyone here?" I lean over the duvet in the bedroom. I run my hand across it. It smells different. I check the door for the third time. It's locked. I stare at the Christmas tree longer than I should and then I take the elevator down to the lobby.

The night doorman sits at the front desk in the lushly lit lobby. I walk toward him, unsure of what to say. He looks up from a small TV.

"Did someone come by my place?" I ask. "Tonight? While I was out?"

The doorman checks the log. "No. Why?"

"I think there was someone in my place."

"What do you mean?" the doorman asks. "I don't understand."

"I think someone was in my condo while I was out."

"I've been here all night," the doorman says. "No one came by."

I just stand there. The sound of a helicopter roars over the building.

"Anyway, they couldn't get in the elevator without me opening it for them," the doorman says. "Plus Bobby's outside." He motions to the security guard slowly pacing the driveway. "Are you sure someone was in there?" He sounds amused. He notices I'm drunk. "Maybe it was no one," he says.

Pare it down, I warn myself. Put it away. Just pare everything down. Or else the bells will start chiming. "Things were rearranged," I murmur. "My computer was on ... "

"Is anything missing?" the doorman asks, now openly humoring me. "You want me to call the police?"

In a neutral voice: "No." And then I say it again. "No."

"It's been a quiet night."

"Well ... " I'm backing away. "That's good."

An actress I met at the casting sessions this morning is having lunch with me at Comme Ça. When she walked into the room at the casting director's complex in Culver City she instantly provided a steady hum of menace that left me dazed, which acted as a mask so I appeared as calm as a cipher. I haven't heard of her agent or the management company that reps her - she came in as someone's favor - and I'm thinking how different things would be if I had. Certain tensions melt away but they're always replaced with new ones. She's drinking a glass of champagne and I still have my sunglasses on and she keeps touching her hair and talking vaguely about her life. She lives in Elysian Park. She's a hostess at the Formosa Cafe. I twist in my chair while she answers a text. She notices this and then offers an apology. It's not coy, exactly, but it's premeditated. Like everything else she does it wants a reaction.

"So what are you doing for Christmas?" I ask her.

"Seeing my family."

"Will that be fun?"

"It depends." She looks at me quizzically. "Why?"

I shrug. "I'm just interested."

She touches her hair again: blond, blown out. A napkin becomes faintly stained after she wipes her lips with it. I mention the parties I went to last night. The actress is impressed, especially by the one I went to first. She says she had friends who were at that party. She says she wanted to go but she had to work. She wants me to confirm if a certain young actor was there. When I say he was, the expression on her face makes me realize something. She notices.

"I'm sorry," she says. "He's an idiot."

Some people at that party, she adds, are freaks, then mentions a drug I've never heard of, and tells me a story that involves ski masks, zombies, a van, chains, a secret community, and asks me about a Hispanic girl who disappeared in some desert. She drops the name of an actress I've never heard of. I'm trying to stay focused, trying to stay in the moment, not wanting to lose the romance of it all. Concealed, a movie I wrote, is brought up. And then I get the connection: she asked about the young actor with the gorgeous girl I was gazing at