Thank You for Smoking

by Christopher Buckley

  Nick wrote: "Concerns L.B.'s personal safety."

  The viceroy looked up, confused, and said impatiently, "Very well, then." Nick followed him into the bathroom and after making a show of examining it for listening devices, opened up all the faucets so that it sounded like Niagara Falls. He whispered, "As you may already know, I was the target of an attempt by a radical anti-smoking movement."

  "Oh. Yes, I thought you looked a bit familiar. But what on earth has all this to do with Lady Bent?"

  "We don't know how far this group might prosecute their agenda. If you see what I mean."

  "But this has nothing to do with her. Her connection with your business is extremely remote. A few appearances at board meetings, the occasional dinner, that sort of thing."

  "She is accepting money from the industry."

  "Well, yes, but…"

  "And traveling in Ag Tobacco's plane."

  "Yes, but she's hardly…"

  "All the same, we're very concerned for her."

  "I think you're overreacting, frankly. I can't see how this affects the prime minister."

  "If you're willing to take that risk on her behalf, fine. You're probably right. They probably wouldn't go after her. I'll just go back and make my report, in writing, that you didn't think it was a problem."

  "Perhaps you should speak with her. But only very briefly, please. We are very pressed this afternoon."

  He opened the bathroom door and there was Lady Bent, standing in the middle of the room. She was a handsome old girl with a great matronly bosom, mongoose eyes, and a helmet of hair that looked as if it could deflect incoming nuclear missiles.

  "Ah," she said, "I've been looking all over for you. What on earth were you both doing in there?"

  The viceroy blushed.

  Lady Bent offered Nick a chair and said, "What may I do for you?" making it clear that she did not want to engage in small talk about the Pierre, New York, or her private secretary's penchant for luring younger men into toilets. Before Nick could answer, she looked at him curiously and said, "You're the cigarette man who was attacked, aren't you?"

  "Yes ma'am," Nick said.

  She instantly warmed. "You needn't call me ma'am. I'm not the queen. It must have been quite ghastly."

  "Well, it wasn't fun," Nick said. "But nothing like what you've been through."

  "We have something in common, then. We know that terrorism must never, ever, be countenanced."

  "You bet," Nick said. "However, Lady Bent, our people are very concerned that this group — which is still very much at large — might target you, and we would obviously feel awful if anything happened. So I've come to ask that in all your public and even private statements, you absolutely refrain from mentioning tobacco. Or, God forbid, from saying anything positive about it."

  She drew herself up like an aroused lioness and fixed him with a withering look. Nick thought, it sure must have been fun to be in her cabinet and face that look across the table.

  "Mister Naylor," she said, like an arctic wind, "I have never been one to shrink from principle out of fear for my own personal safety."

  "Of course not," Nick said. "And I certainly didn't meant to imply that you were. It's just that we feel—"

  "If we let terrorists dictate what we do not say, then we are as good as letting them dictate what we do say. And when we do that, we are finished as a civilized people."

  "Nicely put," Nick said. "Still, I must insist that you not mention tobacco. You don't want to get these people mad. I don't know about the IRA, I know they're bad news bears and all — and that was a terrible thing they did to your dogs — but things can get pretty nasty in America."

  The color rose in Lady Bent. She stood, signaling that their interview was at an end, and proffered her hand. She said tersely and without smiling, "Good to see you," and with the viceroy following, walked out of the room, whose doors opened as if by magic.

  Two days later, back in Washington, Nick was getting ready for his trip out to California when BR called him in.

  "You see this?" he said, tossing him The Wall Street Journal.

  Nick hadn't. He read:

  After the dinner at the Pierre, Lady Bent spoke for an hour and twenty-five minutes, lengthy even by her standards. The theme of her speech was free enterprise in the post — Cold War era. It surprised no one at the dinner, consisting largely of business and international commerce officials, to hear the former British Prime Minister issue a ringing defense of open trade and a stinging attack on protectionism; she also included an unusually passionate endorsement of the right of American and British cigarette companies to compete in Asian markets.

  Lady Bent serves on the board of Agglomerated Tobacco, which has been especially aggressive in trying to break down Pacific Rim trade barriers to U.S. tobacco products. In an informal exchange with a reporter after the dinner, Lady Bent said that her remarks on tobacco were unrelated to her connection with Agglomerated. "My views on the tobacco business are the same as my views on the ice cream business," she said, "and they have been consistent throughout my career." She went on to rebuke the anti-smoking movement for being "anti-business."

  "I don't know what you told her," BR said, "but it sure worked. I've been instructed to give you another raise. To two-five-oh." Nick ran into Jeannette in the hallway. She was all smiles. "We still never talked about Inhale!" she said.

  "I have to go to California tomorrow."

  17

  He flew First Class, which BR had okayed since he was carrying an attache case containing a half million dollars in fifty- and hundred-dollar bills. Lorne Lutch's hush money. It was a strange sensation, carrying all that money. It made him feel like a drug dealer or a Watergate bag man. Going through the X-ray machine at Dulles, the eyes of the guy monitoring the screen went buggy when he saw all that cash. No law against carrying around money, but there was a minor scene when his three women bodyguards declared their 9-millimeters. But once he was seated up in First and hovered over by stewards dispensing hot towels and Bloody Marys, he began to relax. Nick liked airplanes, even if the airlines were circulating less fresh air in the cabins to make more money. In a way, he mused, he and they were in the same business.

  First Class was full. There was a lot of traffic back and forth between D.C. and L.A. these days. He recognized Barbra Streisand's issues person, whom he'd read had flown in to brief the National Security Council on Barbra's position on the developing Syrian situation. Richard Dreyfuss's issues person was also on board, having given a presentation to the cabinet on Richard's feelings about health reform.

  It wasn't until two hours into the flight that Nick realized that the woman sitting next to him, underneath Jackie O — sized dark glasses, was Tarleena Tamm, the television producer friend of the First Family. Nick didn't introduce himself, knowing how celebrities, especially controversial ones, value their privacy in the air. But then he became aware that she was sneaking furtive glances at him. When their eyes connected for the third, embarrassing time, he smiled at her. She said, "Aren't you the tobacco person who was kidnapped?"

  "Yes," Nick said, flattered at being approached by a celebrity. He was about to reciprocate when she set her jaw and said, "I know a lot of people who died of lung cancer. Good people."

  Nick said to her, "No bad people?"

  She gave him a fierce look, craned about to see if there was an empty seat, and finding none, went back to angrily marking up the script on her large lap with a big, angry red pen. Some screenwriter would pay for Nick's insolence.

  Nick loved L.A. Arriving there always made it feel like Friday, even in the middle of a week facing a full workload. He felt exhilarated walking off the plane and imagined himself at the wheel of the sporty red Mustang he'd had Gazelle rent for him, driving along Mulholland Drive at night and looking down on all the lights of the city, spreading out as far as the eye could see. Too bad Heather or Jeannette wasn't here. Maybe he could entice Heather to fly out. Or Jeannette.

 
Shattering this pleasant reverie was the sight of a Middle Eastern-looking chauffeur with a hundred-dollar haircut waiting for him at the gate holding up one of those signs: mr. naylor. When he innocently reached for Nick's attache case, Nick's bodyguards nearly wrenched his arm out of its socket. The chauffeur apologetically introduced himself as Mahmoud and said that he'd been sent by Mr. Jack Bein, of Associated Creative Talent, and handed Nick an envelope with a note inside from Bein asking Nick to call him immediately.

  Nick was sorrier still for his canceled Mustang when he saw Mahmoud's vehicle, a white stretch limousine the length of a lap pool. People standing on the curb nearby waiting for the shuttle bus saw Nick with his entourage and Moby Dick limousine and demanded his autograph, which made the bodyguards nervous. Nick signed one and the person who'd asked for it examined it, frowned, and said, "It's not him." The small crowd dispersed.

  It was cool and cavernous inside and lit with scores of tiny Christmas tree lights. A huge TV screen in front displayed computerized fireworks that formed the words "Welcome to Los Angeles, Mr. Naylor." A microwave oven beeped open with a bowl of hot towels; a wet bar opened with four kinds of freshly squeezed juice, as well as liquor. On the seats were fresh copies of the L.A. Times, Variety, and Asahi Shinbum. So where, Nick wondered, was the terry cloth bathrobe?

  Suddenly the fireworks display vanished from the screen and was replaced with a huge face: deeply tanned, teeth so white they hurt to look at, eyes masked by tinted aviator glasses. Nick was trying to figure why the TV had gone on and what game show host this was when the face said: "Nick!"

  Nick started.

  "Jack Bein. Is everything okay?"

  It was asked with urgency, with fear, as if he expected Nick to tell him, No, everything is not okay, Jack. Things are very un-okay. And you, your family, and your dog are going to suffer for it.

  "Yes," Nick said, recovering his composure. "Fine. Thank you."

  "I can't believe I'm not there to greet you personally." Nick was left to interpret this as he chose. "Jeff is really looking forward to meeting you. I'll pick you up at the hotel first thing. Here's my home number, call me anytime, in the middle of the night, whenever. Whatever you need. I mean that, okay?"

  "Okay," Nick said.

  A half hour later they pulled up in front of a hotel. It was not the Peninsula, where Gazelle had made reservations, but the Encomium, very palmy, open, and grand, with an enormous Yitzak McClellan fountain bleu outside. An assistant manager was waiting for him at the curb.

  "Yes, Mr. Naylor, we've been expecting you. The manager asked me to relay his sincere regrets that he couldn't be here to greet you personally. Are these," he said, regarding the three brutish women surrounding Nick, "ladies in your party?" Nick said that they were.

  "Will you all be staying together?"

  "No, no," Nick said.

  "If you'd follow me, please."

  Nick's bags were whisked away. Check-in formalities were dispensed with. The assistant manager handed him a magnetic card to operate his own private elevator, and led him up in the outside glass elevator to a huge penthouse suite with sunken marble bathtub, fireplace, balcony, waterfall, and immense bed already turned down. There were Hockneys on the wall; originals. Nick's very own butler, an immaculate young Asian fellow, was standing there in white tie holding a silver tray with a vodka negroni on the rocks in a Baccarat tumbler. Nick's drink. Now this was good advance.

  "We took the liberty of calling your office this morning as soon as we knew you were coming," explained the assistant manager.

  "May I pour your bath?" the butler said.

  The phone rang.

  "May I get that for you? Mr. Naylor's suite. Yes, please hold. It's for you, sir. Mr. Jack Bein of ACT."

  "Nick, Jack. Is everything all right?"

  "Yes, Jack," Nick said. "Everything is fine."

  "You're sure?"

  "I think so."

  "Just sign for everything. Don't worry about it." All this was — free? What a great town.

  "I want you to call me if you're not happy," Jack said, "for whatever reason. If you wake up in the middle of the night and you just want to talk. I'm here. I know what it is to be alone in a strange town. Take this number down, it rings on my bedside table. Only three people in the world have this number, Michael Eisner, Michael Ovitz, Jeff, of course, and now you. And my mother makes five. Do you have a mother? They're great, aren't they? I'll see you for breakfast. Is Haiphong there?"

  "Who?"

  "The butler. They did give you a butler, didn't they? Jesus Christ on Rollerblades, what's going on there?"

  "Is your name Haiphong?" Nick asked the butler. "Yes, Jack, he's here."

  "Put him on."

  "He wants to speak with you," Nick said, handing over the phone. Haiphong said "yes sir" crisply many times and hung up. "May I send up the masseuse, sir? She's very good. Highly trained."

  "Well, I… "

  "I'll send her right up."

  "Haiphong," Nick said, "can I ask you something?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Is Mr. Bein connected somehow with this hotel?"

  "All ACT guests and out-of-town clients stay at the Encomium, sir."

  "Ah," Nick said.

  "I'll send Bernie right up."

  Nick sat back in a chaise longue and sipped his vodka negroni and looked out the window at the sun setting over Santa Monica and the ocean. The Campari and vodka was just starting to make him comfortably numb when Haiphong knocked to announce that Bernie had arrived. She was in her mid-twenties, pretty, muscular, and blond, with a big California smile—"Hi there! — in a white V-necked leotard.

  The few times he'd indulged in massage — never in a "massage" parlor — Nick had always felt a little awkward, but Bernie put him at ease with her friendly, open manner and soon he was starkers on the slanted table, with a towel over his privies. She gave him a massage menu — Swedish, Shiatsu, hot oil, Tibetan, etc. — but strongiy recommended something called NMT, or Neuro-Muscular Therapy, which, she said, had been invented by a much-wounded Vietnam veteran who, fed up with Western medicine, had studied Oriental healing techniques. It wasn't very relaxing; in fact it caused Nick significant, groaning, teeth-clenching pain as she knuckled into his vertebrae, kneaded his sternocleidomastoids and traps, crunched his lumbar region with her elbows, and then pinched his skin till it burned — in order, she explained, to bring the blood up to the surface. This last torture she called "bindegewebs," a technique that had been invented by the Germans; naturlich.

  She put on a tape called Pelagic Adagios. New Age muzak consisting of squealing humpback whales and synthesized musical gibberish. Actually, it was pleasant enough, since it took his mind off the pain. After pressing her thumb tips along the rims of his eye sockets, producing an aura of light — aggrieved signals from the optic nerve, no doubt — she maneuvered his head off the edge of the table and put his face down into a "face cradle." With the table slanted up at his legs, the blood was soon puddling in his sinuses, making him feel as if he had a severe head cold. She stood, bending over his head as she attacked his lower back, her breasts grazing the top of his head. Back and forth, back and forth. After a few minutes of this he had to start counting backward from one hundred in intervals of seven, a delaying tactic that he'd learned many years ago. He lay there, facedown, snuffling through his clotted nasal passages like a truffle pig, listening to humpbacks squealing and gamboling in the deep.

  "Do you like the music, Nick?"

  "Urhh."

  "I love whales. They're the most majestic of the creatures, don't you think?"

  "Rhhh."

  "I can't believe that the Japanese are going to start hunting them again."

  "Wrrh!."

  "You kind of have to be sort of careful saying that here."

  "Nrrll mhh?"

  "Have you ever swum with dolphins, Nick?"

  "Nmh." Where was this going?

  "My boyfriend and I did, a couple of weekends ago."
Aha. Boyfriend. Code for Don't get any ideas. This is strictly professional.

  "There's a place north of San Diego where you can swim with dolphins for ten dollars. Mark and I were out riding on his motorcycle. He has a Harley-Davidson. A big one?" She had the habit of turning everything into a question, even the most basic declarative sentences, just in case you weren't able to follow along? "He's in the navy, stationed there. He's a SEAL? He can't talk about what he does. Anyway, he didn't want to swim with the dolphins, but I really wanted to, so we did. Their skin is really incredible and soft, and when they breathe, it's like they're sighing? They go, Poosh. That's what they sound like. It was so sensual, you know? Riding on them, holding on to the fin? It was almost.." She sighed. "Mark didn't like them. He kept punching them whenever they came up to him. The man who owned the place got angry and told him to get out, then Mark said he was going to throw him in with the dolphins."

  More code: My boyfriend is a short-tempered, highly trained professional killer. What was that about a hand job?

  "But I stayed in," she continued, "I could have stayed in there forever, it was so wonderful? The other night I even dreamed about it. I was riding dolphins in the moonlight, leaping up and down over the waves. No swimsuit on or anything, and the amazing feel of his skin on mine. And him sighing? Push … I woke up all excited? And there's Mark next to me, snoring. Mark really snores? And when I tell him about it, he gets angry? I bought him this thing for his birthday, it's like a microphone that you clip on to your jammy tops and it goes to this thing like a wristwatch, only you strap it to your arm, and every time you snore it like zaps you with a little electricity? And he got so angry? It ruined the evening. Everyone went home early. Mark can get so angry at times? You'd think a Navy SEAL would get all his anger out at work?"

  "Yurnh."

  She was working on his neck muscles with her thumbs and forefingers… "Your bands are hypercontracted, Nick. You're kind of tense."

  "Urnh." Her breasts were pressing against his head again. 100… 93… 86.

  "Would you like me to relax you totally, Nick?"