Thank You for Smoking

by Christopher Buckley

  "Right."

  "You don't have any proof."

  "No," Nick said, "I don't keep a video camera in my bedroom."

  "And you shared this scenario with Mr. Boykin the night before he died."

  "Yes. He was going to fire BR and Jeannette and then… "

  "Don't hold back, please. It's very counterproductive."

  "He's dead. Why does it matter what he was going to do?"

  "Everything matters."

  "He asked me to consider taking the fall, in order to spare the industry massive embarrassment. In return for which I'd be extremely well compensated. I decided I wasn't going to do that, and fight it all the way. Then he died."

  "Was this conversation recorded?"

  "No."

  "Too bad. Not that it would have been admissible, but we could have gotten it into the press's hands. It would have caused such an uproar that it would have made it very difficult to empanel a jury. And we'd have ended up with a dumber one. You'll have gathered by now that I like a dumb jury. Dumber the better. Now, as to this matter of Mr. Boykin suggesting that BR may have had something to do with these tobacco liability litigants' deaths by smoke inhalation, that," he said, puckering, "is a very full can of worms."

  "Yes. Nightcrawlers."

  "Though again, we have no evidence."

  "So, we'll start an investigation into their deaths," Nick said. "We'll feed the press, shake the bushes, the trees. Something'll drop out of them. It'll be great." Nick rubbed his hands together.

  "Perhaps. But before we go pointing fingers at high places, you need to consider. It is a high-risk defense strategy. Because if there isn't something, and we've gone trampling on graves, alleging conspiracies that even Oliver Stone would reject, then we'll end up making everyone extremely mad, especially the judge, and you might end up serving a longer stretch of time than even the maximum. At sentencing time, he can decide to make you serve the term for each count consecutively, rather than simultaneously. He can also send you to a maximum security prison. And I'm not sure that's an experience you would enjoy. Of course, that's your decision. Myself, I like a good courtroom dust-up. But it's your ass, not mine. As it were."

  Nick was considering all this, to the sound of steel doors clanging shut in his ears, when Carlinsky's secretary came over the speaker. "It's Mr. Rohrabacher, from the Academy of Tobacco Studies. He says it's extremely urgent. I told him you were with a client."

  Carlinsky said to Nick, "I guess I should take that."

  He picked up the phone. "Yes. Yes. Yes, he is here. I see. Have you told him? I see." He looked at Nick and arched his eyebrows. "Yes. All? Well, yes. We handle those. Of course. We're a large firm. I see. Let me speak with the managing partners and I'll have an answer for you by the end of the day."

  Carlinsky hung up. He cleared his throat. "I'm afraid this is awkward. I'm informed that you are no longer with the Academy of Tobacco Studies."

  This was a common phenomenon in Washington, finding out from a third party that you've just been fired. Usually, you hear about it on CNN, or over the phone from a reporter calling to confirm that the locks on your office were changed while you were out picking up your dry cleaning. Nick was not all that surprised, especially after receiving the frosty interoffice memo from BR informing him that he was not welcome at the Captain's funeral.

  "Well, to hell with him. Let's fight him."

  Carlinsky pursed his lips and furrowed his brows. "That might be awkward."

  "I know you're expensive. But I'm sure we can work something out. You can attach my salary for the rest of my life."

  "It's not that. It's a conflict of interest."

  "What conflict of interest?"

  "I can't defend one client by pitting him against another client."

  "What 'another' client?"

  "Our firm has just been asked to become legal counsel to the Academy of Tobacco Studies."

  "You mean, just now?"

  "Yes. Obviously, having the Academy of Tobacco Studies as a client would mean a considerable amount of business. What with all these smokers suing. But I guess I don't need to tell you that, do I?"

  "No," Nick said, "you don't."

  "If it were just my decision, it would be one thing. But I have a fiduciary responsibility to report the offer to the partners. On the other hand, who knows. Perhaps they'll decline."

  "What I don't understand," Nick said, "is why you didn't tell me you were such a dick before."

  "I assumed you knew," Carlinsky said.

  Nick stepped off the elevators into the Academy's reception area. Carlton was waiting for him.

  "Nicky," he said, blushing. "Could I have a word with you?"

  "Okay," Nick said. "We can talk in my office."

  "Uh, that's what I need to talk with you about." Carlton was whispering. "BR said — gee, Nicky, I feel like a real asshole having to tell you this."

  "I think we're all feeling like that these days, Carlton."

  "Yeah. Do you want me to bring your stuff to your apartment, or.?"

  "That would be fine. Do I get to say good-bye to people, or is this a Stalin thing, where I just disappear without a trace?" Carlton blushed again. "If it was me… "

  Jeannette clicked by, looking very smart in suede. "Nick," she smiled. "Just leaving?" She looked at Carlton. "I told you I wanted those budget numbers now." She turned and walked off in the direction of BR's office.

  Carlton said, "Our new executive VP. What a fuckin' headache, huh?"

  Tobacco Lobby Fires Nick Naylor

  Rohrabacher Says He Is "Shocked" By the FBI's Evidence Against Him

  BY HEATHER HOLLOWAY MOON CORRESPONDENT

  The Mod Squad was no longer meeting at Bert's, but in a dark corner of the Serbian Prince restaurant in suburban Virginia. They deemed this a safe bet, since not many people went to Serbian restaurants anymore. It was so empty, in fact, that they wondered how it managed to stay open. Bobby Jay said that it was obviously a front for Serbian arms merchants. In any event, it was a suitable milieu for the Merchants of Death, for two reasons. The press wasn't likely to find them here; nor were the Muslims. The FBI, seeking revenge for Nick's escape in the taxi, seemed to have convinced Akmal that Nick was an agent provocateur working for the Israelis, and had provided him with his phone number, address, mother's maiden name, everything. What space was left on Nick's answering machine tape after all the calls from reporters was taken up with abuse and threats from a number of people with Middle Eastern accents.

  "They cut off my medical insurance," Nick said into his black coffee. "Do you know how hard it is to get medical insurance when your previous place of employment was the Academy of Tobacco Studies?"

  "Do you need health insurance if you're a federal prisoner?" Polly said. Polly, herself fleeing reporters, was in elegant mufti, sunglasses, and shawl. She looked like a cross between Jackie O and Mother Russia. And with the sunglasses, in this dark, she kept knocking things over.

  "No," Bobby Jay said, stirring his coffee with his hook. "Prisons have their own doctors. Naturally, they're very highly qualified, all from Ivy League medical schools."

  "Could we not talk about this," Nick said morosely.

  "I'm sure it won't come to that," Polly said, touching his arm.

  "That's what everyone's been telling me. Like, I might get really lucky and end up on a converted military base in a desert for ten years. It's a very consoling thought."

  "Sounds a whole lot better to me than Lorton," Bobby Jay snorted. Lorton was the prison in Virginia where they sent the overflow hard cases from the D.C. jails. It enjoyed a reputation as a not particularly nourishing environment, especially for inmates of the Caucasian persuasion.

  "You're not going to Lorton," Nick said, annoyed by the attempt at one-downmanship. "You're a handicapped Vietnam vet, it's a first offense. You'll get six months, suspended. So please, spare me the Ballad of Reading Gaol."

  "Oh yeah? Then how come the lawyers tell me the prosecutor is just
itching to put me away? First, I'm white, secondly, I work for the most hated lobby in America—"

  "Whoa. The gun lobby is not the 'most hated lobby in America.' Do I need to remind you that I am personally responsible for the deaths of over half a million people each year, whereas you are barely responsible for thirty thousand—"

  "Oh, Jesus," Polly said.

  "I'm sorry," said Nick. "I'm not in a good mood right now."

  "How odd," Polly said.

  "The Captain's funeral is tomorrow. I've been told in no uncertain terms that I'm not welcome. And guess who's giving the eulogy." He shook his head. "BR."

  As the sweat pooled inside his fake beard and fake nose, Nick reflected that it was a good thing the Captain had asked to be buried up in Roaring Gap, where it was a little less infernally hot than Winston-Salem. It was sweltering inside the Baptist church, and jam-packed. Nick's rubber nose felt like it was going to drop off and the pinched, elderly woman sitting next to him was already looking at him strangely.

  There were reporters in the back, some from the national press. The Captain's passing, amidst the kidnapping scandal, was being played as The End of an Era.

  whither tobacco?

  BR had just taken the pulpit.

  "Doak Boykin," he began, "strode the world of tobacco like the colossus he was. He would give you the shirt off his back. He was, truly, the salt of the earth."

  God, who'd written this swill for him? (Jeannette.) Vilified in his autumnal yean, his heart patched with parts from barnyard swine, and now eulogized by a Judas with a fondness for cliches. The man deserved better, even if he was a mass murderer.

  "He was a man who believed in the Constitution of the United States of America, especially the parts about individual liberties and the right to the pursuit of happiness."

  That was in the Declaration of Independence, but never mind.

  "I think everyone gathered here would agree that, these days, it takes courage to stand up to the politically correct and the sanctimonious, who are trying to destroy a perfectly legal American product."

  A deft bit of self-praise. Murmurs of approval.

  "And the Captain had that kind of courage, in spades. I also know that many of you agree that he would have been saddened by the recent events in our own backyard. If there was a silver lining to his far too premature parting, it was this — that he will not have to endure the slings and arrows of misfortune that his misguided, overambitious, and perhaps mentally ill protege has brought down on our house."

  The entire tobacco establishment, the heads of the Big Six — his new peers, now that he had completed his climb up from the world of vending machines — were all sitting in the front pews. And now he was distancing himself from Nick by making it clear that he had been the Captain's Frankenstein monster.

  "Suh? Suh?"

  It was the woman next to him, hissing: "Would you mind not growlin'? And there is something very wrong with your nose."

  The Captain had been cremated — a brave choice, Nick thought, for a tobacco man; the press would have a good snigger over that— and his ashes scattered at the lake, from where he'd called Nick many times on his cellular while casting for one of the big ones.

  The crowd along the shore for the scattering was deep, but Nick, being tall, was able to see from the rear. The Captain's family were all standing on the wooden pier: his wife Maylene and seven daughters, Andy, Tommie, Bobbie, Chris, Donnie, Scotty, and Dave, all in hats and dabbing at their eyes with lace hankies. The Captain's ashes were in a large silver cigarette box, a nice touch.

  The minister, a squat, pink man in robes, read what the program said had been the Captain's favorite Old Testament passage.

  "And Nahar did go unto the place of Gunt, who had been unrighteous and split the tongue of Nahar's brother, Rehab, with a rock. And he did say to him, 'Thou boil and pestilence,' and did strike a flint on the rock, which madeth a spark, with the which he set fire to the hem of Gunt's tunic, and Gunt did flee, quickly, out of the land, for he was on fire. And Nahar said to his brother, Rehab, 'Now thou seeest that smoke and fire are good and have their purpose. And Rehab sayest, 'Yeth.' "

  "A-men," said the assembled.

  "And now," the minister said, "we commit his ashes to the deep.."

  The man standing next to Nick said to his wife, "Ain't but four foot deep theah."

  "Hush," his wife said.

  ". where they await in hopes of eternal resurrection. "

  As he spoke, the silver cigarette box with the Captain's ashes was passed from daughter to daughter, who each spooned out a little bit of old dad into the lake and passed it on to the next. It was very touching.

  Nick felt a firm, gripping hand on his bicep. He spun around and saw a sheriffs deputy, young, meaty, and with a big semi-auto pistol handle protruding from its holster. Over the cop's shoulder, Nick saw the pinched, elderly woman pointing out Nick to someone.

  "You Nick Naylor?"

  "Uh. "

  "Sir, we have been advised by the FBI to take you into custody. Would you come with me?" He tugged.

  Shit, thought Nick, disgraced protege arrested at mentor's funeral; new charge is added to list: bail violation.

  He followed, awaiting the now-familiar snap of steel around his wrists.

  Suddenly a man was at their side.

  "Officer," he said in a commanding voice. He flashed a badge. "Raleigh FBI. Good work, deputy. I'll take it from here."

  The deputy beamed and relaxed his grip, releasing Nick into the custody of — Gomez O'Neal.

  27

  Nick that he did it in full view of the mourners. He even put his hand on top of Nick's head as he put him into the back seat of the car, just the way real cops do.

  "I thought you might pull a stupid stunt like attending the funeral," Gomez said, "so I brought along a badge from my collection. How come you violated your bail for a second time?"

  "I love North Carolina. Can we take off the handcuffs now? You put them on tight. I'm losing circulation."

  "Maybe I ought to leave 'em on." A strange sense of humor, Gomez.

  He drove for an hour, not saying much, in the opposite direction of Raleigh, then went onto back roads and pulled over at a roadside dive called Mudd's, where the menu offered hot fried catfish and iced tea. The catfish came on newspaper, the iced tea came in mason jars.

  "The Captain told me he had a man at the Academy," Nick said. "I thought it was you."

  "Our new chairman—" he pronounced the word with distaste " — has probably figured that out, too," Gomez said, wiping away the grease. "If he didn't know all along. Maybe that's why him and me seem to have this problem."

  "I saw the Captain the night before he died."

  "I know that. He called me at 11:45. The time of death was listed as 12:05 a.m. I told him he didn't sound too good." Gomez drank some tea and rattled the ice inside the jar. "He said to look after you if anything happened. Looks like we're there."

  Nick leaned across the newspaper. "Did he mention anything to you about BR and those tobacco litigants who died?"

  Gomez looked out the window. "Nice place." He stared at Nick. "I like you, kid. You got heart. But if you ever tell anyone — lawyer, prosecutor, judge, your two Mod Squad buddies, or even your kid— that this came from me… then you and I would have a problem, no matter what I promised the Captain. So, are we reading off the same sheet of music so far?"

  "Yes," Nick said.

  "All right, now let's see if we can stay on the ball. After Mrs. Cappozallo, who you'll recall was the third person with lung cancer who was suing us, died from smoke inhalation, I began to think that what we had here was some kind of pattern. So I made my inquiries. Do not ask how I made them, or who I made them to. It's only relevant that it turned out that BR was doing a little networking with his old connections from his vending machine days."

  "Networking?"

  "Setting up a squad to take care of these liability cases."

  "A death squad?"


  "What happened was, the Captain offered BR a bonus of a quarter million for every case that didn't come to court. Obviously, he didn't mean for BR to kill these people. He was just giving him some financial incentive to work his butt off with the lawyers who were fighting the cases. These cases were driving the industry crazy. Now BR, since he came up through vending machines — which is not Marquis of Queensberry — he decided to deal with it in his way, and before you know it, litigants are croaking of smoke inhalation, from dropping lit cigarettes on themselves in bed." Gomez shrugged. "In a way, you gotta hand it to him. It's kind of poetic justice. And as hits go, it's a piece of cake. Just sneak in, drop a lit cigarette on the pillow, and— suit dismissed."

  "Can we prove it?"

  "What's to prove? They're dead. The Captain's dead. BR is on top of the world. You're a yuppie dick facing ten to fifteen for a fucking publicity stunt. Who's going to believe you?" Gomez chuckled, "You're the guy who told the world the President was dead."

  "Thank you for reminding me. Just when I'd forgotten."

  "Use your head, kid. These people who did this are still out there. And they're good. I know they screwed up your case, but they sure as shit didn't screw up with those three litigants. You go telling the FBI about this, two things are going to happen. First, they're going to laugh their asses off. Second, you're going to wake up dead from smoke inhalation."

  "So where does that leave us?"

  "I'm okay. You're neck-deep in shit."

  "That's helpful."

  "Okay," Gomez sniffed, "here's what I can give you. Name and an address. I know they were both wearing makeup when they snatched you, but you will recognize him. When he's not killing people, he acts."

  "Axe?"

  "He's an actor. I guess he can't be that good, or he wouldn't be killing people for a living. It's amateur stuff, light opera, that kind of crap."

  "Peter Lorre," Nick said.

  "Yeah, him."

  "I was kidnapped and tortured and nearly killed by a bad actor?"

  "Bad actor, but a good killer. Before he did the three litigants he was — well, you probably don't need to know all that. But take my word for it, when you make your move, don't mess up."