Thank You for Smoking

by Christopher Buckley

  "I'm not sure I'm tracking here, BR. Am I under suspicion of something?"

  "I asked them just that."

  "And?"

  "They gave me some bullshit boilerplate non answer out of the G-man's training manual. Made me madder than a hornet and I gave it to them, believe me. But obviously, yeah, they seem to be… curious about you at this point."

  "What do they think happened? I kidnapped and almost killed myself with, with, with nicotine patches?"

  "I suppose for the same reason that it occurred to me. All the great press we got afterward. At the time, you'll recall I told you I wished I'd thought of kidnapping you. The same motive seems to have occurred to them."

  "Let them have my phone records. I don't have anything to hide. They can have my dry cleaning bill, too."

  "Nick," BR said in a parental tone, "I think it's time you had some representation. Just… in the event."

  "In the event of what? I didn't do it. It's the one thing in my life about which I can say, with actual conviction — I am innocent."

  "Nick, you don't have to convince me. I'm on your side. But let's at least do this thing right."

  "Great, tobacco spokesman hires lawyer."

  BR winced. "I see your point. But if this goes any further, I'm calling Steve Carlinsky."

  "Steve Carlinsky? Who defended whatsisname, the Dip 'n' Glow guy, Scarparillo?"

  "He's the best. And he got him off, which, considering he was facing fifteen to twenty-five for selling repackaged radioactive waste as furniture stripper, was something of a legal triumph. Tom Salley told me it was the most brilliant defense he's ever seen, and he worked for Edward Bennett Williams. Where are you going?"

  "To blow up the Holland Tunnel."

  "What?"

  "If I'm going to be arrested by the FBI," Nick said with asperity, "I might as well have some fun."

  Nick was sitting in his office staring at the poster of the Lucky Strike doctor, stewing, when Jack Bein called. "Nick! You were tremendous."

  "You saw it?" Nick said, surprised. Jack didn't strike him as a Nightline-watching type.

  "Not personally. But you were fabulous. And I voted for the guy's uncle, so you know where I'm coming from. You know, I can't eat cheese. Gives me a headache. Listen, I was just with Jeff, and by the way, there's no hurt feelings about the dinner, so put it out of your mind."

  "A great relief," Nick said.

  "Now we've got some incredible news. Jerry and Voltan — the producers — have agreed to come down on their percentage of Mace and Fiona's product placement compensation, so that means Mace and Fiona will have to come down."

  "Well there's certainly a lot of room for improvement, Jack. I gave my people those numbers and they went into cardiac arrest."

  "Nick, Jeff wants this to happen, so it's going to happen. Don't worry about the numbers. We'll make the numbers fit. Now, Jeff met with Mace and Fiona's reps and here's the situation vis a vis them…."

  * * *

  Nick stared into Bert's fireplace and watched the rotating purple and yellow light pretending to be flames. Bobby Jay had not found out anything from his FBI contacts. And Polly thought he ought to hire Steve Carlinsky right away, which annoyed Nick so much he changed the subject.

  "Mace McQuade and Fiona Fontaine have quote qualms unquote about quote glorifying smoking unquote."

  Bobby Jay shook his head as he stirred his coffee with his steel hook, a custom Polly found uncouth. "Qualms," he snorted, "from people who make their livelihood glorifying sex and violence."

  "What about your Durk Fraser ad campaign?" Polly said. "He made his millions playing a savage policeman, and now he's your poster boy. 'I'm on SAFETY.' "

  "Durk Fraser is a highly moral human being," Bobby Jay said, "who always stood up for what was right and fine."

  "Right, while torturing confessions out of minorities."

  "That was one movie, and the fact is that most crime is committed by minorities, a point that some bleeding heart liberals find difficult to admit."

  "Just because I find Durk Fraser repellent—and a bad actor— doesn't make me a liberal."

  "Durk Fraser," Bobby Jay said, "is five times the actor Mace McQuade is, and he never had to wiggle his bare butt on the screen. If I were Nick, I'd tell that boy and his agent to go straight to hell and don't even stop to clean the bugs off the windshield. And as for that Rahab… "

  "Who?"

  "The painted whore of Babylon." Two espressos and Bobby Jay became a flame-snorting Old Testament moralist. "I am familiar with the complete oovre of Fiona Fontaine, and while I do not deny that the Lord endowed her with natural beauty — which she defiled by having her tits pumped full of plastic — I do not frankly see what all the fuss is about. Not wearing underpants does not make you an actress."

  "So," Polly said, "does this mean no smoking in Sector Six?"

  "Oh no," Nick said, "two million dollars — each — goes a long way toward qualm abatement. I have to hand it to Jeff Megall; for a guy who eats transparent sushi, he's very smart. He came up with a brilliant solution: shooting duplicate scenes, in which Mace and Fiona smoke, but only for foreign distribution. This way no one here at home will see them smoking. Just billions of Asians, who want to be just like Mace and Fiona. Jeff calls it 'product-smart placement.' Like the bombs."

  "That is smart. So Mace and Fiona don't mind quote glorifying smoking unquote as long as it's for the benefit of… "

  "Gooks," Bobby Jay said.

  "I hate that word," Polly said.

  Bobby Jay held up his hook. "I left twenty pints of blood and half an arm over there," he said, "so I suppose I can call them anything I please."

  "He's got a point," Nick said. "Megall came up with even another idea: shooting the scenes with blank cigarette packs, then they can digitalize in different brand names, according to country."

  "Wow," Polly marveled.

  "So in the movie print that goes to Japan, they're smoking a Japanese brand, in the one that goes to Indonesia, Indonesian, and in the Hungarian print, a Hungarian brand like Throatscraper. An actual name. In Eastern Europe they want more tar and nicotine."

  "Smart."

  "Actually," Nick said, "I don't know why we didn't think of it. It's already being done abroad, using transponders to superimpose logos on satellite TV transmissions. So the Madonna concert in Spain becomes the Salem Madonna concert in Hong Kong. You can do things over there you just can't here. Laura Branigan, Tiffany, Stevie Wonder, Roberta Flack, Huey Lewis, Luciano Pavarotti, Tom Berenger, Roger Moore, James Coburn, Jimmy Connors, and John McEnroe have all endorsed cigarettes overseas, either directly or indirectly. And they don't get any grief about it here, because nobody sees it."

  "But what about here? The whole idea was to promote the product here, wasn't it?"

  "Jeff says no problem. It's only the big actors who pull down eight, ten million a picture who can afford the luxury of quote qualms unquote. He says we'll be in three Christmas movies. By this Christmas."

  "How would I go about getting in touch with Jeff Megall?" Polly said.

  Under the circumstances, Nick thought it made sense to meet Heather not at Il Peccatore but at a more out-of-the-way place, so he picked the River Cafe in Foggy Bottom. He got there first. It had been a trying day, listening to threats by the governor of Vermont, among others. He ordered a vodka negroni on the rocks, but reminded himself, as it massaged its way up his brain stem, of the need for mental clarity. On tonight's agenda was not how to get Heather into the sack, but how to keep Heather from getting him sacked. At this point, she seemed hotter to impress her prospective employers at the Sun than she was for him.

  She arrived, right on time, all smiles, and in a dress that surely had been put on after work, for his benefit. It would have created havoc in any newsroom.

  "Hi!" she said. "Am I late? I came right from work."

  They started with a little small talk, then moved on to major media gossip — who was going to replace Morton Ko
ndracke on The McLaughlin Group. Boy, Nick thought, the things we care about in Washington.

  Finally, after they'd both refused dessert and settled in with their decaf cappuccinos, Heather ventured: "You know, the more I think about the FBI investigating you, the more burned I get."

  "Appalling, isn't it?"

  "That's why I think it's so important to get it out there. Your tax dollars at work. I think they'll back off the moment this sees print."

  "Is this seeing print?"

  "Yes," she said nervously, "I was able to confirm independently that they're looking into you. So I wouldn't be violating any confidence."

  Nick suppressed the urge to congratulate her on having sunk to his own chthonic ethical level. He merely nodded. "Fair enough."

  Heather seemed surprised by his compliance. "You're not pissed?"

  "No. Actually, I think you're right. I think they probably would back off. Write as you will. Though I'd certainly appreciate it if you didn't quote me."

  "No, of course. You're sure?"

  "Sure. In fact," he leaned forward in his best revolutionary hunch and whispered, "completely, utterly, and totally off the record, that would be kind of… for the best."

  "Oh?"

  The hook was in.

  "Let's get out of here," Nick said.

  They walked down I Street toward the Watergate. An appropriate direction, given what he was up to. Heather said, "What did you mean, 'for the best'?"

  "Well," Nick laughed, "would you want the FBI going through your drawers?"

  "Nick, are you trying to tell me something?"

  Nick grinned. "Only that people will do amazing things if the stakes are high enough."

  "You did kidnap yourself?"

  "I didn't say that."

  He dropped Heather off at her front door with a chaste kiss, confident that there would be no story. She would now have her eyes set on a much bigger story, and there wasn't one. She'd end up stuck in gridlock.

  22

  Ordinarily, Nick enjoyed appearing before Senate subcommittees. It made you feel that for a brief, shiny moment, you'd taken part in the great serial drama of American history. The bright TV lights, the pitcher and glass of water", the green felt tabletop, the hum and thrum of the spectators, the senators trying to look like Roman busts, the crab-scuttling of their aides as they pretended to avoid the TV cameras, and now, Nick noted, this new twist on stenography — stenographers speaking into cones held over their mouths.

  Today, however, Nick was not enjoying his small role in the great serial drama of American history. Today was more of an exercise in waiting, a combination of jury selection and Disney World. It was now a few minutes to four, and Nick had been waiting to testify since ten a.m. Finisterre's petty revenge. At first he wasn't even going to allow Nick to appear before his subcommittee, but he relented when Senator Jordan privately threatened to cut off his highway improvement funds. (After the Captain privately threatened to cut off his free jet.)

  So far, Nick had listened to tobacco — and himself in particular — be denounced by adversaries familiar and new: Mothers Against Smoking, Teenagers Against the Exploitation of Youth (what a bunch of dweebs), the head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (Finisterre, subtle fellow that he was, wanted to jackhammer home the point that tobacco was just another drug, like crack), and the Coalition for Ethical and Responsible Advertising (a rather small group). At four, after a weepy Hispanic woman finished a lurid description of how her husband, Ramon, had been killed by the evil weed—"He no can read so he no know is so bad for him" — Finisterre tried to adjourn the proceedings for the day. At which point Senator Plum Rudebaker of North Carolina, tobacco's man on the subcommittee, growled into his mike that this "lynchin' " had gone on long enough and demanded that Nick be heard, today.

  Nick graciously thanked Chairman Finisterre for the opportunity to present his views before such a distinguished committee. How proud the founders would have been of the senators before him: over two thousand bounced checks between them, a seducer of underage Senate pages, three DUIs, one income-tax evader, a wife beater whose only defense was that she'd beat him up first, and a case of plagiarism, from, of all sources, a campaign speech of Benito Mussolini. (The senator later blamed the episode on an "overzealous staffer.")

  As soon as Nick launched into his prepared statement, which consisted of an eloquent plea not to turn the American tobacco farmer into the Dust Bowl Okies of the nineties — complete with tear-duct-pumping quotes from The Grapes of Wrath—two of the senators ostentatiously stood up and left, without even going through the usual pretense of telling the chairman that the safety of the Republic depended on their immediate presence elsewhere. Nick paused in his recitation long enough to reflect that it's a sorry state when seducers of teenagers and Mussolini-quoters feel morally superior to you. He would shore up his prepared statement by proudly pointing to the Academy's vigorous anti-underage-smoking campaign. That done, Rudebaker tossed out the softball, right on cue.

  "Ah'd lak to thank Mistuh Nayla fuh his courage in attendin' today's hea'ngs," he intoned in his Tarheel baritone. "And ah'm not just speaking to his mor'l courage, but his physical courage." Nick modestly lowered his eyes, an appropriate gesture, considering that he'd ghostwritten these very words of the senator's. "For it's mah understandin'," Rudebaker continued, "that he has been threatened by a number of mah distinguished colleague from Vuhmont's con-stit-uents."

  "Just what," Finisterre barked, "does the gentleman from the tobacco-producing state imply by that remark?"

  "Ahh'm not implyin' anythin'." Again on cue, Plum held up a fistful of papers, spilling them all over. Photographers, by now near coma from boredom, fired away, filling the room with the cricket-sound of motorized drives. "An' neither do these death threats, all o' which are postmarked from the great state of Vuh-mont." Murmur murmur, gavel gavel.

  "I certainly hope that my distinguished colleague…" Amazing, senatorial courtesy. "… isn't suggesting that these alleged letters were somehow the result of some coordinated effort—"

  "Ah'm not sayin' or suggestin' or otherwise hintin' at anythin' of the sort. Ah'm merely sayin' that it's a saad day when a man whose only crayhm is representin' the interests of a legal product becomes a hunted man. In that regahd, ah'd like to point out to the distinguished chairman that Mistuh Nayla has already suffuhd kidnappin' and tor-cher fuh doin' his job. An' now he's got to live with thiyuss. Myself, ah don't know who put these cheesemongerin' assassins on his case, but ah am proposin' that their elected representatives show a little leadership and call off these dogs of wah, before someone gets hut."

  "Gets what?" said a reporter sitting behind Nick.

  "Plum certainly rose to the occasion," BR said the next day as he and Nick scanned the media coverage, finisterre disavows threats against tobacco spokesman.

  "Don't think it's not going to cost," the Captain said over the speakerphone. It was dark in BR's office. The new "tempest-hardened" curtains that Carlton had had installed were drawn. They were supposed to foil electronic eavesdropping. Between the FBI investigation of Nick and the tobacco lobby's frontal assault on a U.S. senator, the paranoia level was rising like the Mississippi during a wet spring. "But," the Captain continued, audibly short of breath, "we got the sumbitch on the defensive. Brilliant idea, son, brilliant."

  Nick, exhausted from another night of making whoopee in the wee hours with Jeannette, yawned. "We're not going to win this one, Captain. Leg Affairs says it's going to pass committee by twelve to five. And when it hits the floor, watch out. We might as well face it. We're going down."

  "Don't talk defeatism to a southerner," the Captain said.

  "I'm just trying to be realistic."

  "What about your Kraut doctor's report?"

  Erhardt's Institute for Lifestyle Health had cranked out a document entitled The Silent Killer, estimating that over two million Americans a year were dying from Vermont cheddar-clogged arteries. (Based, to be sure, on the ass
umption that anyone who ever ate so much as a mouthful of Vermont cheddar cheese had ultimately died from it.) Nick was recommending against releasing it. Indeed, was recommending that all copies of The Silent Killer be immediately shredded.

  "Gomez?" the Captain said in a lowered voice.

  "We're pretty sure he made a pass at an au pair a couple of years ago," BR said.

  "A what?"

  "A foreign nanny. Icelandic girl, twenty-one, named Harpa Johannsdottir. She's back in Iceland. I have a man over there now looking for her. It may take some time. The Icelandic phone book is listed by first name and—"

  "Can I interject?" Nick said. "Much as I regret to say it, I think we need to start planning, and now, for a post-skull and bones labeling environment."

  "That's Appomattox talk." The speakerphone filled the room with the Captain's coughing. He didn't sound well at all. There was talk of installing a new fetal-pig heart valve.

  Nick felt badly for the old boy and wished he had more positive thoughts for him. "Maybe," he said, "there's some way we could make it our skull and bones."

  "What does that mean?" the Captain said.

  "I don't know yet. Let me get with our creative people and try to work something up. In the meantime, maybe Gomez's man in Reykjavik will come up with an Icelandic love child with buck teeth."

  Gazelle was waiting for him outside BR's office, looking worried. "It's them," she whispered.

  "Them who?"

  "FBI."

  "Well don't look so guilty," Nick said, annoyed.

  They were in his office. Monmaney, to Nick's considerable annoyance, was looking over the top of his desk. Airman — the more humane of the two — was looking with bemusement at the Lucky Strike doctor.

  Nick closed the door behind him and said, "So, you've found them."

  "Who?" Allman said pleasantly. "My kidnappers."

  "Oh," Allman said.

  "Are you planning to travel, Mr. Naylor?" Monmaney asked.