Gotham Read Free Page A

the boosters, the story. Or maybe it’s privilege that accords a person more adjectives with their food nouns. Honey is no longer just honey, not for Nati, or Smokey.
    â€˜Bloomingdale’s frozen yoghurt is…an institution. You get frozen yoghurt any place now, but it was here first.’ Smokey looks at the ice bucket, the melting yoghurt. ‘Should’ve got an extra bowl.’
    The poster for the tour in support of The Snatcher , Nati’s major label debut, features a reclining white woman, photographed in black-and-white from the end of the table or platform that she’s lying on. It isn’t a bed or somewhere comfortable—there’s a glossy sheen to it, hard edges at the sides and a curve at the end that lets the top turn ninety degrees and drop to the floor. Her face and upper body are out of view. All you can see of her are her thin bright legs.She’s wearing glossy dark shoes with towering heels, and perhaps nothing else. One knee is bent, with the shoe on the tabletop, while the other is almost straight and rotated a little outwards, with her foot and shoe hanging in space. Nati’s hand is a dark wedge over her crotch, flat with the fingers extended. It might be a barrier, a shield. It might not even be touching her. His arm is straight, his torso shirtless and crossed by metal chains, his face staring at the camera is utterly blank.
    â€˜So tell me how the creator of The Snatcher gets to be an appreciator of institutions.’ It seems as good a way for me to put it as any.
    He takes the shirt from Eloise, rubs the fabric between thumb and finger.
    â€˜Soft,’ he says. ‘I like that.’
    He holds it up against himself. There’s a full-length mirror next to me, angled so that he can appraise himself.
    Just when my question seems to have drifted out of view, he adds, ‘Institutions. The record’s all about one of the oldest institutions. It’s about a thief of love and pussy.’
    He offers it as though it’s the smartest thing said in the world all week. He’s said it dozens of times, I bet—‘a thief of love and pussy’—with no thought as to whether the recipient might already have given the record’s title a second’s thought and be wise to the sledgehammer subtext.
    He bundles the shirt into a ball and tosses it back to Eloise.
    He’s still looking in the mirror when he says, ‘That record got me more pussy than a bucketful of fish marinated in catnip.’ Then he glances Smokey’s way. ‘That’s a new one, new right now. You can have that one for Australia.’
    He sets up for a fist bump and Smokey obliges.
    â€˜He’s a poet, my boy,’ Smokey says, shuffling his cuffs again and giving Nati a smile I can’t read.
    I have, it turns out, missed most of the trying-on of clothes. I’m here to bear witness to the boy pharoah’s taste for Bloomingdale’s, to his penchant for mashing up high-end and street, but I’ve been spared much of the detail. Andie has been folding and piling the chosen garments on the next countertop along from the frozen yoghurt. The throw to Eloise signified that the Pensacola Henley is a no. They have a system.
    I take out my camera and snap some pictures of Nati on the chaise lounge, picking up the plush red, the gilt trim, the silver of the ice bucket over his shoulder. He knows I’m doing it and looks as disengaged as possible. He’s been watching models.
    â€˜Would you like to see the purses now?’ Eloise says. The question’s directed at Natibut her eyes shift for a moment to Smokey. She’s following orders. Some time during the planning he put purses on the list. Smokey seems not to notice her. He’s checking his phone again. ‘I have a selection from our premium designers.’ She indicates a trolley that’s mostly obscured by the grey yachtsmen.
    â€˜I would.’ Nati Boi sits back on