Gossip Girl, Psycho Killer

by Cecily von Ziegesar

  If only Serena hadn’t taken the knife he and Vanessa had bought at Paragon. It would have been perfect. Dan decided on a meat cleaver. He could imagine throwing it at Chuck, ninja style, and watching Chuck’s shocked expression as it cleaved his rotten heart in two. He’d bleed to death slowly, from the inside out. A little coughing up of blood would be nice too.

  Dan had heard about Chuck’s suite at the Tribeca Star, and because it was Friday night, he was pretty sure that’s where Chuck would be. He took a cab downtown, the meat cleaver wrapped in a kitchen towel and stuffed into the front pocket of his gray Gap hoodie with just the wooden handle sticking out.

  Made up almost entirely of prewar residential doorman buildings, the stately inclines of West End Avenue after dark were always elegantly somnolent. Tribeca, on the other hand, was a mash-up of blocks of shuttered boutiques, spanking new glass-fronted condos, and hot new restaurants, hotels, and bars with bouncer-manned velvet ropes and red carpets outside their doors.

  The Tribeca Star was such a place. The entrance to the bar was to the right of the hotel’s main entrance, nondescript, unmarked, and totally unnoticeable, save for the line of people outside it, which went around the corner and halfway down the block. Of course this was what every establishment in town craved. The more people came, the more people would come. An ambulance with its lights flashing was parked outside the hotel’s main entrance, boosting the sexiness of the place a millionfold. Was there a celebrity inside? What had happened? An overdose? A bar fight? A suicide attempt?

  An eyelash curler accident?

  Overhead in the hotel eves the vultures roosted, their red-rimmed eyes only half-closed, dreaming of the next delicious carcass.

  Dan had never been anywhere this exciting. He joined the long line, already feeling like a murderer in his shabby corduroys, too small hoodie, and dirty sneakers, surrounded by pretty, tall girls wearing shiny lip gloss and expensive-looking high-heeled shoes. The damp sidewalk actually smelled like perfume.

  An hour passed before he reached the enormous bouncer at the door. The bouncer wore a puffy black leather jacket and looked like he could bench press two hundred pounds using only his neck. The beat from that Rolling Stones song Dan’s dad liked thrummed loudly from inside the bar.

  “Uh-ah uh-ah-ah uh-ah-ah-ah

  You will be mine, you will be mine, all mine.”

  Dan stuffed his hands into the front pockets of his hoodie, doing his best to conceal the meat cleaver. He was Serena’s knight in shining armor, he reminded himself. Coming to her emotional rescue.

  “Hello,” he greeted the bouncer nervously.

  “Can I see your ID, please?” the bouncer replied.

  Dan was prepared. He handed the bouncer his Riverside Prep ID card.

  The bouncer handed it back. “You’re only seventeen. Get the fuck out of here.”

  “But I don’t want to drink anything. I’m here to see Chuck Bass.” Dan’s tongue was basted with bitter bile as he said the words. “He’s a friend.”

  The bouncer just stood there, huge and unmovable. “Get the fuck out of here,” he said again.

  Dan stepped out of line, his hand clutching the meat cleaver in its kitchen towel bunting. He could just kill the bouncer. His eyes roved down the line of gorgeous, happy bargoers. He could just kill them all. But he wasn’t insane. He didn’t even wish them ill. Chuck Bass was the one he had it in for. He turned and started for the hotel’s main entrance.

  The ambulance was still parked outside, lights flashing, its back doors slightly ajar. Inside Dan could just make out the tips of two wildly annoying pigskin shoes, bespoke-cobbled in England by dapper elves for none other than the mighty wanker himself: Chuck Bass.

  Dan’s heart soared. Chuck was lying on a stretcher. Was he already dead, having been pecked to death by those big scavenging birds that seemed to be everywhere these days for the simple reason that he was a custom-made-pigskin-shoe-wearing scumbag?

  Dan could only hope.

  He turned away from the hotel and flagged down a cab, relieved of his duties as an assassin, at least for tonight.

  Blair was just getting started.

  The Remi brothers were happy to meet her at their gallery.

  “I’m Serena’s best friend. We grew up together,” Blair told their gallerist over the phone. “Serena wants to do our portraits together. You know, like with both of us in one picture?”

  The Remi brothers were wearing matching navy blue silk Hugo Boss suits with matching navy blue silk skinny ties and matching matchstick-thin black mustaches. Their hair was shaved to a short black fuzz. One of the brothers, the shorter and gayer one, actually clapped when Blair arrived at the gallery. She hadn’t even bothered to put on clothes—she’d simply thrown her coat on over her body paint and pink satin bathrobe. “I absolutely adore your little figure,” he said. “All that body paint. It’s so modern. So buon giorno!”

  And you, my dear sir, are so arrivederci.

  The gallery was on the ground floor, huge and white, with ceiling-high windows facing the deserted Chelsea street. The walls were hung with the enormous perforated rosebud “portraits” of the Remis’ “Behind the Scene” show. Blair recognized Serena’s right away, displayed on its own, opposite the gallery’s entrance. While Blair pretended to be waiting for Serena, the Remis popped open a bottle of champagne and made a toast.

  “To beautiful girls!” they cried in twinly unison.

  They were on their second bottle when Blair pretended to receive a text from Serena.

  “She says she’s in a cab and she’ll be here in five minutes.” She rolled her eyes dramatically. “Serena’s always late.”

  She excused herself to go to the restroom.

  “Ah yes,” one of the Remis said. “We always ask that our subjects freshen up before we photograph them.”

  Next door to the ladies’ room Blair discovered a closet. In the closet were all sorts of art-hanging supplies and hardware. She found just what she needed to do what she needed to do.

  She always does.

  The Remi brothers were fiddling with their tripods and cameras and lights in a small anteroom—their studio—where they photographed their subjects.

  “Do you mind removing your clothes so we can adjust the lighting?” one of the Remis asked.

  Blair polished off her champagne and smiled obligingly. She made as if to untie her bathrobe, instead reaching in the pocket for the coil of picture wire she had hidden there.

  “Wait, do I have something in my teeth?” she asked, walking toward the Polaroid camera on its tripod and jutting out her chin.

  The Remis leaned their heads in close to look.

  “It doesn’t matter,” the less gay one said. “We’re not photographing your face.”

  “I’m aware of that.”

  Blair unfurled the coil of wire and wrapped it tightly around both the Remi brothers’ skinny necks. In her deft, perfectly manicured hands the wire became a garrote, crushing their delicate windpipes and choking them in unison. The perky black dashes of their mustaches withered as they gasped their last gasps.

  As they died, Blair admired their dedication to wearing only navy blue. She thought she might try it out herself in the spring, variations on a sailor theme from A.P.C., Agnès B, J.Crew, and Armani, with a pair of cute white Christian Louboutin ankle booties to match.

  The Remis fell in a lifeless heap at her feet. Their necks still wrapped in wire, Blair dragged them over to the far wall of the gallery and strung them up from the same nail on which Serena’s portrait hung. She turned their dead heads to face each other, their twin bodies dangling—a diptych—over their masterpiece: Serena’s nostril or navel or whatever orifice it was.

  Blair stood back to admire her work, a masterpiece in itself. She was pleased she’d stuck with her tennis and was fit enough to kill two grown men at the same time with her bare hands.

  And she was only just warming up.

  will s & n hook up again?

/>   Just before midnight, the taxi pulled up at 994 Fifth Avenue. Across the street, the steps of the Metropolitan Museum of Art were deserted, glowing eerily white in the light of the streetlamps. Serena stepped out of the cab and waved to Roland, the old night doorman, who was dozing just inside the lobby. One of the cast iron and glass double doors to the apartment building opened, but it wasn’t Roland who opened it. It was Nate, wearing only a pair of boxers and some weird black paint on his face and chest, and looking sort of freaked out.

  “Nate!” Serena squealed, genuinely surprised. “Hey, silly. Could you loan me five bucks? I haven’t got enough cash. Usually the doorman helps me out, but I guess he’s asleep.”

  Nate gave his credit card number to the bemused taxi driver. He put his finger to his lips and crept up to the front door of the building. Then he knocked loudly on the glass door. “Hello?” he shouted.

  “Oh Nate.” Serena laughed. “You are so mean!”

  Roland snapped his eyes open and nearly fell off his chair. Then he opened the door for them, and Serena and Nate ran inside and rode the elevator up to Serena’s apartment.

  Serena led the way to her room and sat down heavily on the bed. “Did you get my message?” she yawned, pulling off her boots. “I thought you’d come out tonight.”

  “I couldn’t.” Nate picked up the little glass ballerina perched on top of Serena’s mahogany jewelry chest. She had the tiniest toes, like little pinpoints. He’d forgotten about her.

  “Well, it wasn’t worth it anyway,” Serena sighed.

  She lay down on the bed, wondering if Chuck had gone to the hospital with his missing eyelid or if—fortuitously—he’d staggered into the road and gotten hit by a speeding limo.

  “I’m so tired. And really drunk.” She patted the bed next to her and slid over to give Nate room. “Come lie down and tell me why you’re not wearing any clothes.”

  Nate put the ballerina down and swallowed. Breathing in the scent of Serena’s room with Serena in it made his heart hurt. He lay down next to her, their bodies touching. Nate put his arm around her and she snuggled close and kissed his paint-smeared cheek.

  “I was just over at Blair’s,” Nate said.

  Serena didn’t answer. She was breathing noisily. Maybe she was already asleep.

  Nate lay still, his eyes wide open, his mind racing. He wondered if he and Blair were officially broken up now. He wondered if he kissed Serena right now, full on the lips, and told her he loved her, how she’d respond. He wondered if he’d just gone ahead and had sex with Blair if everything would have been all right. He wondered if this frigging body paint was ever going to wash off his skin and if those creepy vultures were ever going to stop following him.

  He cast his eyes around the room, taking in all the familiar well-loved objects that he’d grown up seeing and had forgotten all about. The kilt-wearing teddy bear from Scotland that sat aristocratically on Serena’s little dressing table. The big mahogany armoire with its drawers half-open and all her clothes spilling out. The little brown burn mark he’d made in ninth grade on the white eyelet canopy hanging from her bed.

  On the floor by the door was Serena’s red velvet bag. The contents had spilled out of it. A blue pack of Gauloises cigarettes. A one-hundred-dollar bill. Her BlackBerry. And a cream-colored cashmere scarf with the letters C.B. stitched on it in gold, covered in blood and vomit.

  Why had she needed to borrow money from him when she had one hundred dollars with her? Nate wondered. And what the hell was she doing with Chuck’s bloody, vomit-soaked scarf?

  Nate turned over on his side and Serena moaned softly as her head sank into the pillow. He studied her critically. She was so beautiful, but so full of surprises. It was sort of easy to believe some of the things people said about her.

  She slid her arms around Nate’s neck, pulling him toward her. “Come on,” she murmured, her eyes still closed. “Sleep with me.”

  Nate’s whole body tensed. He didn’t know if Serena meant just go to sleep, or sleep with her, but he was definitely aroused. Any boy in his right mind would be, which is exactly what turned Nate off.

  There was something so careless about the way she’d said it. Nate suddenly had no trouble imagining her doing everything he’d heard she’d done. Sex. Murder. Cults. Drugs. With Serena, anything was possible.

  A glint of chrome on the floor caught his eye. The clasps of a black violin case. Since when did Serena play the violin?

  Nate rolled off the bed and opened the case. An expensive-looking hunting knife lay on the plush blue velvet interior. Dried blood mottled the blade. Beside the hunting knife was a bone-handled switchblade, the kind made it Italy, custom fit for a small hand.

  He shuddered. Were the so-called lies and vicious rumors about Serena all true? At least the vultures were scavengers, preying on the already dead. Serena was… Nate didn’t know exactly what she was, but he knew he didn’t like it.

  He snapped the violin case shut, stood up, and tossed Chuck’s stained scarf on the pillow beside Serena’s sleeping head. Then, without even looking at her again, he left, slamming the door behind him.

  At the sound of the door closing Serena opened her eyes and breathed in the scent of her own barf. Gagging, she threw the covers back and ran to the bathroom. She clutched the rim of her white porcelain sink and heaved into it, her sides aching with the effort. Nothing came out. Serena turned on the shower as hot as it would go and ripped off the clammy multicolored Pucci dress. All she needed was a good hot shower with her favorite Biotherm Aquathermale Spa body scrub, followed by a rubdown with Decléor Aromessence Baume Spa Relax. Tomorrow she’d be good as new.

  And ready to kill again.

  hey people!

  BREAKING NEWS

  The Remi bothers—those French, navy blue–wearing pretty boy geniuses of the art world—were found hanging by their necks in mute argument over one of their masterpieces in their gallery in Chelsea early this morning, where their latest show, “Behind the Scene,” has been all the rage. It is unclear whether the artists’ deaths were caused by suicide or murder. One thing is certain—the Remi brothers join Keats and Basquiat in the sad fate of doomed young brilliance: They will be even more famous now that they are dead.

  CLOSE BUT NO CIGAR

  Can you believe N? He was thisclose to getting a nice slice of B pie, if you know what I mean. I guess we’re supposed to admire his self-control, his ability to keep the old hot dog in the bun, his savoir faire, his game-for-anything half-naked sprint up Fifth Avenue. Was that a lacrosse team thing?

  I was wrong about him. He has a freaky streak.

  Ooh, that makes me like him even more. He can let his freak flag fly with me anytime.

  YOUR E-MAIL

  q:

  hey gossip girl,

  i saw S go upstairs with some dude at the Tribeca Star. she was wasted. so was i. i was kind of tempted to knock on the door and see if there was a party going on or s/t, but i chickened out. i just wanted your advice. do you think she’d do me? i mean, she looks pretty easy.

  —Coop

  a:

  Dear Coop,

  If you’re the type of guy who has to ask, then probably not. S may be a dangerous ho, but she has excellent taste.

  —GG

  SIGHTINGS

  N at the burrito place on Lexington late last night, chatting up the cute girl behind the counter. She gave him extra guacamole for free. Yeah, I bet she did. And C out for his Saturday morning stroll, sporting a tan leather eye patch freshly flown in from Italy by Hermès’ leather artisans and stamped in gold with his initials. How eye-catching!

  You know you love me,

  westsiders go bonkers for barneys

  “Dan,” Jenny whispered, poking at her brother’s chest. “Wake up.”

  Dan flung his hand over his eyes and kicked at his sheets. “Go away. It’s Saturday,” he mumbled.

  “Please get up,” Jenny whined. She sat down on the bed, poking him repeatedly until he re
moved his arm to glare at her.

  “What’s your problem?” Dan said. “Leave me alone.”

  “No,” Jenny insisted. “We have to go shopping.”

  “Right.” Dan rolled over, turning his head toward the wall.

  “Please, Dan. I have to get a dress for the party on Friday and you have to help me. Dad gave me his credit card. He said you could get a tux too.” Jenny giggled. “Since we’re turning out to be the type of spoiled rotten kids that will need tuxes and dresses and all that crap. Besides, I need to do something to get my mind off all the murders I keep reading about. It’s giving me the creeps.”

  Dan rolled over, thinking of Chuck. He hoped he was dead, even though he hadn’t gotten the satisfaction of killing him himself. “I’m not going to that party,” he insisted.

  “Shut up. Yes you are. You’re going and you’re going to meet Serena and dance with her. I’ll introduce you. She’s totally cool,” Jenny burbled happily.

  “No,” Dan said stubbornly.

  “Well, you can at least help me pick out a dress,” Jenny pouted. “Because I’m going. And I want to look nice.”

  “Can’t Dad go with you?”

  “Yeah, right.” Jenny scoffed. “You know what Dad said? ‘Go to Sears, it’s the proletarian department store.’ Whatever that means. I don’t even know where Sears is, if it even exists anymore. Anyway, I want to go to Barneys. I can’t believe I’ve never even been there. I bet Serena van der Woodsen and Blair Waldorf go there every day.”

  Dan sat up and yawned loudly. Jenny was all dressed and ready to go, with her curly hair pulled back into a ponytail. She even had on her jacket and shoes. It would be kind of hard to say no.

  “You’re a pain in my ass,” Dan said, standing up and stumbling toward the bathroom.

  “You know you love me!” Jenny called after him.