Thank You for Smoking (13 page)

Nick cleared his throat. "If this gentleman wants to debate the
science,
I'm all for it. Our attitude has always been . . . bring on the data."

"He's lying through his teeth, Larry. That guy is lower than whale-crap."

"Well," Nick said, "it's a little difficul
t to carry on a rational discus
sion while being verbally abused. But abuse does seem to be the lot of the modem-day smoker." Oh yes, please, let's do shift this steaming pile away from ourselves. . . . "They're scorned, victimized, shunned—if they're
lucky
they're shunned, most of them are actively abused. They have to huddle in doorways in the dead of winter and shiver. I would like to ask the
gentleman
from the CDC, if that's really where he's from, about the recent rise in cases of pneumonia—"

"What rise in pneumonia? There's no rise in pneumonia."

"Hoh! Who's lying now? Larry, there has been an
extraordinary
increase in this gha
stly
, life-threatening disease, well documented by medical authorities, thank you very much, and it's happening because smokers are being forced out-of-doors in freezing temperatures. Let's face it,
sir,
you and your ilk have turned one-fifth of the population of the United States into lepers. Talk about your
tyranny of the major
ity."

"I give up, Larry, I can't listen to this anymore, I'm going to get violent."

"Emotional issue," Larry said. "Hemdon, Virginia."

"Yeess," said a man's voice with a nervous air to it, "I have a question for Mr. Naylor. I would like to ask him his opinion of these nicotine patches that so many people are wearing."

"Good question," Larry said.

"Yes it is. Frankly, sir, we at the Academy of Tobacco Studies are a little concerned about these things."

"Why?" said Larry. "They dispense nicotine into the system, same as cigarettes, and your position is that cigarettes aren't bad for you, right?"

"Well," Nick said, "your typical cigarette delivers a relatively minute amount of nicotine into your system, a very minute amount. Whereas just one of these deadly little Band-Aids—"

"Hold on," Larry said, "you said 'deadly'?"

"Oh, absolutely. People have been dropping dead all over as a result of these patches. Even our previous caller, Dr. Doom down there in Atlanta, would admit to that."

"I read that some people who kept on smoking after they starting wearing the patches had had heart attacks," said Larry. "But—"

"Well there you go. Heart attacks. I tell you something Larry, and Mr., sorry, I don't know your name, there in Hemdon, I wouldn't let one of those things get
near
my skin."

"It's very interesting you say that," said the voice. "I will certainly be careful with them. Larry, has anyone ever announced that they're going to kill someone on your show before?"

"No," said Larry, "but we get a lot of angry calls."

"Then this is your lucky day, because I'm here to tell you that within a week, we're going to dispatch Mr. Naylor for all the pain and suffering he's caused in the world."

There was an awkward pause. "Wait a minute," Larry said, "are you threatening him?"

"Yes, Larry. I have really enjoyed talking with you. You have a very nice show." There was a click.

"Emotional issue," said Larry.

9

It
was just a short item, in the "Reliable Source" section of the late edition of the
Sun,
slugged,
caller to king show threatens to stub out tobacco smokesman
. Nick felt a
little
short-changed. The guy was obviously just some nut with too much free time on his hands, but where did the
Sun
get off making puns out of a death threat? In
this
crazy, mixed-up world?

He called the
Sun
on his car phone to complain. After explaining to the operator that he had a complaint and wanted to speak to an assistant managing editor, he was put through to a recording.

"You have reached the
Washington Sun's
ombudsman desk. If you feel you have been inaccurately quoted, press one. If you spoke to a reporter off the record but were identified in the article, press two. If you spoke on deep background but were identified, press three. If you were quoted accurately but feel that the reporter missed the larger point, press four. If you are a confidential White House source and are calling to alert your reporter that the President is furious over leaks and has ordered a review of all outgoing calls in White House phone logs, press five. To speak to an editor, press six."

Exhausted, Nick hung up. His phone rang. It was Gazelle, concerned because Jeannette was going around breathlessly telling everyone in the office that five of the six major pharmaceutical companies that manufactured nicotine patches were threatening to sue unless Nick issued a retraction of his comments on the King show. The achievement of car phones is that your morning can now be ruined even before you get to the office.

People greeted him in the corridors. "Hey, Nick, way to go!" "You gonna be okay, Nick?" "Jesus, Nick, who
was
that guy?"

Gazelle handed him coffee and told him that BR wanted to see him right away.

Jeannette was there when he walked in. She jumped up and went over to him and—hugged him. "Thank
God,"
she said.

"Nick," BR said, with this concerned, three-furrows-in-his-brow look, "are you all
right?"

"Fine. What's the problem?"

"The problem," BR said, sounding a little surprised, "is that your life has been threatened."

Nick lit up a Camel. Nice, being able to smoke in BR's office now. "Oh, come on. Some nut."

"That's not how I see it. And that's not how the Captain sees it."

Nick exhaled. "The Captain?"

"I just got off the phone with him. He wants full security around you until this matter is . . . until we know exa
ctly
what we're dealing with here."

"That's crazy."

"Jeannette," BR said, "would you excuse us?" Jeannette left the room. "Nick, we got off to a bad start, and that was my fault, for which I hereby apologize. Sometimes I can be an asshole. It's . . . the world I come from, vending machines, it's a tough world. I have some edges. But never mind that. I've come to realize lately just how valuable you are to Team Tobacco. So," he smiled, "my concern for you isn't just warm and fuzzy feelings. Basically, I don't want to lose you. And certainly not to some nutcase."

Nick was quite overwhelmed. "Well," he stammered, "I appreciate that, BR."

"So it's settl
ed. We're putting a security detail on you."

"Wait, I didn't agree to that."

"Nick, you want to tell this to the Captain?"

"But I get dozens, hundreds of threats. I've got a whole file labeled 'Threats.' It's under 'T.' One guy wrote that he was going to tar and feather me. He was going to collect an entire vat full of tar from those disposable cigarette-holder filters and cover me with it and then feather me. You can't take this stuff seriously."

"This is different. This was live, national—international—television. Even assuming the guy is just a crank, other people watching might get an idea. They're called copycat killers, I think. Anyway, we're just not prepared to take the chance."

"You're telling me," Nick said, "that I have to have a
bodyguard?"

"Bodyguards, plural."

"Uh-uh. Not my style."

"Then
you
tell the Captain," BR said, holding out his phone. "Listen, in this town it's considered a sign of having arrived."

"I'll look like a drug lord, for crying out loud."

"Look, I don't want to sound like I'm capitalizing on a gruesome situation, but, how can I put this?—the fact that it's gotten to the deplorable point where a senior vice president for a major trade association, for God's sake, is reduced to needing security, in the nation's capital, to keep himself from being killed by a bunch of fanatic anti-smokers—"

"You're really getting into this, aren't you?"

"Nick, I
know
it's a sow's ear, but maybe there's a silk purse inside."

"Well, yeah, but
..."

"All right, then. Aren't you having lunch with Heather Holloway of the
Moon
today?"

"Yes," Nick said, surprised at how well apprised BR was about his daily schedule. Jeannette.

"So, she's going to notice that you've got bodyguards and put that in her story. How bad can that be for our side?"

Nick left BR's office in a foul mood and went back to his office and called the Captain and asked him if this ridiculous order had come from him. In fact it had, and the Captain was adamant.

"Take it as a measure of our esteem for you, son. Can't go taking chances. I just got off the phone with Skip Bi
llington and Lem Tut
weiler and they want to put you in an armored personnel carrier." Billington and Tutweiler were heads of, respectively, Blue Leaf Tobacco, Inc., and Tarcom, two of the largest of the Big Six tobacco firms; by virtue of which they occupied seats—large ones—on the ATS board.

"I think," Nick said, "that we're overreacting to a crank call."

"You let us be the judge of that. Now what progress have you made on the Hollywood project?"

Nick fudged, the correct answer being none. The Captain, shrewd as he was, already knew. "I hope you'll be able to apply yourself to that as
soon
as possible. In fact, things being what they are, you being a ter'rist target
..."
This seemed to Nick a rather fraught way of looking at it, but paranoia rubs off and now he was getting sort of nervous. ". . . it might behoove you to get out of town for a few days and go out there and—don't they all hang out by pools, with their telephones and glamorous stars? That doesn't sound like such an unpleasant assignment," he chuckled. "On second thought, why don't you come down here and run the tobacco business and
I'll
go out to Hollywood and hang out by the pool with all the beautiful women." He added, "Don't tell Mrs. Boykin I told you that or she'll put a water moccasin in the toilet bowl."

In a serious tone of voice, he said, "Now you listen to the security people and don't you go taking any chances. By the way, did BR convey to you my expression of confidence?"

"Yes sir, he did," Nick said, embarrassed that he hadn't thanked the Captain for his extremely generous raise. "Thank you. It was extremely generous."

"Tobacco takes care of its own. Call me from the pool and tell me all about the women. I like that what's her name, blond gal, in that movie they have the ads for about those fellahs throw themselves off cliffs with rubber bands tied to their ankles.
..."

"Fiona Fontaine."

"That's her.
Fine
specimen. Now if you could get
her
to light up, well, that would be something."

Nick went to see Carlton. Carlton was a former FBI agent who looked like anything but. More like a goofy friendly-faced ice cream vendor, thin, short, and mild, except that his eyes had this tendency to widen and widen as you talked to him, so that by the time you were finished he was looking at you like you were a serial axe murderer.

"Tell you the honest truth, Nicky"—security people had this tendency to use the diminutive in order to achieve instant intimacy—"I think we're overdoing this."

"Hey, I
know that," Nick said.

"Big guy says you get security, so we're going to give you a detail."

"A detail? No one said anything about a detail."

"The big guy said a detail. It's expensive, let me tell you. Somebody up there must like you." Nick groaned. Carlton said, "Look at it this way—you'll save a fortune on cab fare."

"Oh no," Nick said. The company had given him use of a BMW, which Nick liked to drive. "I drive myself. They want to follow me, that's fine. But I drive myself, alone."

"Nicky, Nicky, Nicky."

"Carlton, could you please not call me that, okay?"

"Look," Nick said to Mike, head of his three-man detail, "could you not come into the restaurant with me? I'm meeting a reporter and I'm going to look like a total wimp if I walk in there with you guys." "Can't do it, Nicky. Orders."

So Nick walked into Il
Peccatore, trying to keep as far ahead of his three obvious bodyguards as he could. They had the little pigtail radio cords that came up the back of their collars and went into their ears. Though with whom were they supposed to be communicating? Nick suspected they wanted to be mistaken for Secret Service agents.

He scanned the room. Senator Finisterre was not ther
e—he was pretty much avoiding Il
Peccatore since the incident. But his nephew, Senator Ortolan K. Finisterre, was there, lunching with Alex Beam, the
Sun
columnist, no doubt telling him how he really wasn't interested in running for governor of Vermont when there was
so much work to do right here in the Congress yada yada yada.

Heather Holloway was already there, at the corner table, looking over her interview notes.

Hm. Very nice indeed, bit of a cross between Maureen O'Hara and Bonnie Raitt, without the gray thing in the hair. Glasses. Nick found glasses sexy on a woman. The shrink he went to during the divorce said this was significant but wouldn't tell him why, wanted him to figure it out for himself. Nick told her, for seventy-five bucks an hour—fifty minutes—she could goddamn well tell
him,
but she wouldn't. Great skin, smattering of freckles. The figure, well, yes, Bobby Jay was right about that, it was a
very
attractive figure, rounded yet exercised, StairMaster voluptuous. And what was this peeking out beneath the table? Pale, ivory stockings? Whoa. She was in a short green suit, open collar, and gold earrings. She smiled up at him through the glasses. Dimples.
Dimples!

"Who are they?" she said after the introductions, pointing to Mike, Jeff, and Tommy, his bodyguards.

"Off the record?"

"No," she smiled, "on the record. I'm sure that you're good company, but this isn't a social lunch."

That was encouraging. Nick explained, emphasizing that they were unnecessary.

She said, "I have spoken to a number of people who don't
...
I
wouldn't call them major fans of yours."

"Well, that's tobacco for you." He picked up a menu. "The sole
in flagrante
is good."

" 'In flagrante'?"

"It's named after Senator Finisterre." Heather stared.

"You remember, he was interrupted in the middle of
...
in the back room here? Maybe you read about it?" Maybe sexual jokes of questionable taste—or wit—within sixty seconds of having met were . . . not such a good idea? With all that red hair she might be Catholic. "Everything's good. Pasta. Veal chop Valdostana, very good. The trout is excellent. Lot of almonds, if you like almonds."

She ordered salad and San Pellegrino water, which made him feel like a spurned waiter. Nick, feeling trapped inside his own recommendation, ordered the trout, though he did not particularly like trout with a lot of almonds.

"So," he said, "how long have you been a
Moonie?
I mean, how long have you been with the
Moon?"
Very good, two gaffes in two minutes. Why not follow up with something suave like "Your breasts are really incredible. Are they real?"

"A year," she said. "Do you mind if I tape?"

"Please," Nick said magnanimously.

She put her tape recorder on the table between them. "I'm always convinced that I'll get back to the office and there'll be nothing but static on it."

"I know." Perfume. Dioressense? Krizia? Fracas? Fracas, definitely.

"Is that Fracas you have on, by any chance?"

"No."

"Oh?"

"I interviewed Mick Jagger last year," she said, turning on the recorder, "when the Stones played at the Cap Center. When I got back all there was was hissing. I thought they were going to fire me. I had to reconstruct everything he said. I had to put it all in italics."

"Well," Nick said, "he's never
said
anything interesting." From the look Heather gave him he realized he was probably not going to score points with her by denigrating rock and roll's biggest icon. Not that being a Washington trade association spokesman wasn't incredibly sexy.
...
"I mean," he said, "I
am
a Stones fan. It's just. . ." Move
on,
Nick.

"So," he said, "what's the focus of your piece?" Yes, let's talk about me. "You are."

"I suppose I should be flattered."

"I started out with the idea of writing about what I'm calling 'The New Puritanism.' "

"Oh yes. Lot of that going around. Olive?"

"No, thank you. I was going to talk to lobbyists for unpopular industries. Tobacco, guns, liquor, lead, asbestos, whaling, toxic waste dumpers, you know.
..."

"Your basic planet- and human-race—despoiling swine."

"Not necessarily," said Heather, blushing. "Then I saw you on the Oprah show and thought . . . something interesting going on in there."

"The idea being to find out how I'm able to live with myself." Nick tore into a bit of oven-hot
bruschetta.