Glamorama Read Online Free PDF Page A

above my smiling, expressionless face, and I’ve just got to buy another copy, but since I don’t have any cash there’s no way.
31
    From 72nd and Madison I called Alison’s doorman, who has verified that outside her place on 80th and Park Damien’s goons are not waiting in a black Jeep, so when I get there I can pull up to the entrance and roll my Vespa into the lobby, where Juan—who’s a pretty decent-looking guy, about twenty-four—is hanging out in uniform. As I give him the peace sign, wheeling the moped into the elevator, Juan comes out from behind the front desk.
    “Hey Victor, did you talk to Joel Wilkenfeld yet?” Juan’s asking, following me. “I mean, last week you said you would and—”
    “Hey baby, it’s cool, Juan, it’s cool,” I say, inserting the key, unlocking the elevator, pressing the button for the top floor.
    Juan presses another button, to keep the door open. “But man, you said he’d see me and also set up a meeting with—”
    “I’m setting it up, buddy, it’s cool,” I stress, pressing again for the top floor. “You’re the next Markus Schenkenberg. You’re the white Tyson.” I reach over and push his hand away.
    “Hey man, I’m Hispanic—” He keeps pressing the Door Open button.
    “You’re the next Hispanic Markus Schenkenberg. You’re the, um, Hispanic Tyson.” I reach over and push his hand away again. “You’re a star, man. Any day of the week.”
    “I just don’t want this to be like an afterthought—”
    “Hey man, spare me.” I grin. “‘Afterthought’ isn’t in this guy’s vocabulary,” I say, pointing at myself.
    “Okay, man,” Juan says, letting go of the Door Open button and offering a shaky thumbs-up. “I, like, trust you.”
    The elevator zips up to the top floor, where it opens into Alison’s penthouse. I peer down the front hallway, don’t see or hear the dogs, then quietly wheel the Vespa inside and lean it against a wall in the foyer next to a Vivienne Tam sofa bed.
    I tiptoe silently toward the kitchen but stop when I hear the hoarse breathing of the two chows, who have been intently watching me from the other end of the hallway, quietly growling, audible only now. I turn around and offer them a weak smile.
    I can barely say “Oh shit” before they both break out into major scampering and rush at their target: me.
    The two chows—one chocolate, one cinnamon—leap up, baring their teeth, nipping at my knees, pawing at my calves, barking furiously.
    “Alison! Alison!” I call out, trying desperately to bat them away.
    Hearing her name, they both stop barking. Then they glance down the hallway to see if she’s coming. After a pause, when they hear no sign of her—we’re frozen in position, red chow standing on back legs, its paws in my groin, black chow down on its front paws with Gucci boot in mouth—they immediately go to work on me again, growling and basically freaking out like they always do.
    “Alison!” I scream. “Jesus Christ!”
    Gauging the distance from where I’m at to the kitchen door, I decide to make a run for it, and when I bolt, the chows scamper after me, yelping, biting at my ankles.
    I finally make it into the kitchen and slam the door, hear both of them skidding across the marble floor into the door with two large
thumps
, hear them fall over, then scamper up and attack the door. Shaken, I open a Snapple, down half of it, then light a cigarette, check for bites. I hear Alison clapping her hands, and then she walks into the kitchen, naked beneath an open Aerosmith tour robe, a cell phone cradled in her neck, an unlit joint in her mouth. “Mr. Chow, Mrs. Chow, down, down, goddamnit,
down.”
    She hurls the dogs into the pantry, pulls a handful of colored biscuits from the robe and throws them at the dogs before slamming the pantry door shut, the sounds of the dogs fighting over the biscuits cut mercifully short.
    “Okay, uh-huh, right, Malcolm McLaren … Yeah, no, FredericFekkai. Yeah.