Thank You for Smoking

by Christopher Buckley

  "My move? What is my move?"

  Gomez sat back in his seat and picked at a piece of stuck catfish with a toothpick. "That's up to you, kid."

  "But I'm just a yuppie dick. What am I supposed to do, challenge him to a debate on hit men on the Donahue show? 'Men who kill other men, and the ones who get away, next, on Donahue'?"

  "No." Gomez smiled enigmatically. "I'd expect you to be smarter than that." He slid a piece of paper across the table. There was a name and address printed on it.

  "Can you memorize that?"

  "Yeah."

  "Then do it." Gomez took the slip of paper back, held it over the mason jar, — and set it on fire. The ash sizzled onto the ice. "This will come in useful. 'Team B.' "

  "Team B? The Presidential Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board?" Gomez nodded. "Smart boy. I thought it sounded familiar. BR must have taken the name from that."

  "But what's Team B?"

  "Team B," Gomez said, "is the code name for his little special operation squad. Here's something else that will be useful: 'Team A.' "

  "What's that?"

  "Use your head, kid."

  "Will you stop calling me that? I'm not Lauren Bacall and you're not Humphrey Bogart."

  "Team A, obviously, is BR."

  Nick thought. "I still don't get what I'm supposed to do."

  "Well, Nick, the way things are going for you, you'll figure out something. Necessity is the motherfucker of invention."

  In the car on the mostly quiet drive to the airport, Nick said, "Why are you doing this?"

  Gomez thought. "I could tell you I was doing it for the Captain. But since I like you, I'm not going to bullshit you. I like my job at the Academy. I believe in cigarettes. I think we're overpopulated. The planet could use a break, you know what I mean? I'm glad we're getting into the Asian markets in a big way. I spent a lot of time working in Asia, Nam, Laos, Cambodia, Indonesia, China, and let me tell you, I'm not losing sleep over the idea of thinning out those hordes. Their food's good, though. I always liked the food."

  "You're in this for population control?"

  "Sure, but honestly? I like the hours, too. It's not too demanding. Most of what I do involves finding out stuff about people, and that I can do in my sleep. I like the hours, I like the pension plan, good medical, vacation. I like the whole package. But I do not like BR. And I like him even less now that he's got the chairmanship. And," he said, "I do not like this split-tail squeeze that he's just made executive vice president. Now I'm supposed to answer to her, and," he chuckled, "I have never answered to a woman before. So I'm anticipating problems, and at this stage of my life, I'm just looking to put in a few more years and take early retirement. And these two are complicating my plans."

  Split-tail? "Were you in the navy?" Nick asked.

  "Do you want to know?"

  "No," Nick said.

  28

  "I don't see why you can't say who told you about this," Polly said with an edge to her voice, owing to the headline in the day's Moon.

  Naylor, Gun Lobbyist, Liquor Spokeswoman Belonged to Club Called "The Mod Squad": An Acronym for "Merchants of Death"

  Three Spokesmen of the Yuppocalypse?

  BY HEATHER HOLLOWAY MOON CORRESPONDENT

  Her boss was not at all thrilled by this deplorable revelation; nor was Stockton Drum, Bobby Jay's boss, who had so far been a brick, even proud that his boy was now down and dirty in the Second Amendment trenches. About the only person who was pleased, though he would not admit it, was Bert, whose restaurant had now been put on the Scandal Tours itinerary, a popular Washington tourist bus whose other stops included the Watergate, the Tidal Basin, and the hotel where the FBI had caught Mayor Barry smoking crack.

  "Because," Nick said, "I want to live. And the person who told me this made it clear that that would no longer be an option if I revealed his identity."

  "This stuff is so strong it's melting my hook," Bobby Jay said, wiping off the thick coating of coffee grounds.

  "Would you please stop doing that," said Polly. A TV camera crew, hot on the heels of the morning's Mod Squad story, had shown up at her Sober Drivers 2000, shouting blunt questions at her during the Q and A. All she could do was to cast aspersions on the Moon for being owned by a Korean who said he was the Messiah. It was generally what people did whenever the Moon, a pretty good newspaper, published something true that they didn't like.

  The strong Serbian coffee was not improving Polly's nerves. She was drumming her fingernails on the table. C-c-c-clink, c-c-c-click. "Then why don't you tell us where Ms. World Class Tits got this."

  "I would guess," Nick said mournfully, "that she got that from Jeannette."

  "Oh?" Polly said, flaring. "And how did Jeannette know about the Mod Squad?"

  Nick sighed. "You're not going to like it."

  "My day began ruined, so you won't be spoiling it."

  "She got it from you."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "You remember leaving a message on my machine congratulating me on the killer cheddar cheese the night I went on Nightline?" "Yes," Polly said suspiciously.

  "Well, uh, you, uh mentioned, uh the Mod Squad, and. "

  "So I mentioned Mod Squad. People think that's a TV show in reruns."

  "Yeah, but, uh. "

  "Will you stop saying 'uh'? I've already maxed out my Prozac today, and I can't take any more. Spit it out."

  "Well, Jeannette was there in the apartment and we were, uh, she asked me what it meant and…"

  It was good that Polly was wearing her Jackie O sunglasses, because Nick didn't want to see what kind of looks she was giving him.

  "First," she finally said, "you tell us that you were fucking this slut. And now you tell us that you were fucking us at the same time."

  "I'm not happy about this," Nick said.

  "You're not happy about this?"

  "I'm really unhappy about this."

  "Oh, well then," Bobby Jay said, "in that case, no problem." He added, "Fornicator."

  "Maybe I'll get religion after all this," Nick said. "The Christian Prison Fellowship has chapters in most of the better penitentiaries."

  "Asshole," Polly said, leaving.

  They watched her go. Bobby Jay said, "Nicely done, son. Before you arrived tonight, she told me she was going to liquidate her savings to help you with your legal expenses."

  "Why would she do that?"

  Bobby Jay shook his head. "Boy, you're dumber than a mud box." Bobby Jay left.

  "I'll get the check," Nick said, to no one in particular.

  At first he didn't recognize the extraordinarily awful taste in his mouth, nor did he have a clue as to where he was. Wherever it was, it had a spectacular view of Washington. He was on the Arlington side, this much he did know. The dawning fact that he was surrounded by identical tombstones, and many thousands of them, suggested that he was somewhere in Arlington National Cemetery. Then he was able to identify the revolting layer of scum on his tongue. Slivovitz. The residue of glass after glass after glass of it. Yes, it was coming back now: he had ended the evening singing Serbian fighting songs shoulder to shoulder with the waiters and kitchen staff. Somehow he had driven himself to Arlington Cemetery, and had gotten himself over the fence. His ripped trousers and the acute pain in his right kneecap implied that this had not been smartly done. But why Arlington?

  That came back to him too. He had come here to kill himself.

  He liked Arlington, sometimes came here on a nice day, just to stroll and check out who was who. There were over two hundred thousand people buried here, which was a lot of dead people, though it wasn't, it occurred to him uncomfortably, even half one year's smoking casualties. He remembered deciding not to kill himself at his apartment so his cleaning lady wouldn't have to find him. He remembered the speedometer hitting 110 mph and aiming for the concrete pillars of the overpass, but chickening out, just in time, when he remembered that the car had an airbag and he'd probably end up a quadraplegi
c for the rest of his life, and an extremely bitter one at that.

  At which point he looked up and saw Arlington national cemetery. Why not? There was no rope in the trunk, so he decided to hang himself with the jumper cables. There they were, by his feet.

  He picked them up. They felt kind of rubbery. He didn't relish hanging himself with the equivalent of a bungee cord. He saw himself bouncing up and down, his head banging against the branch.

  He considered. The Metro stopped at Arlington. He could clamp the jumper cables to the third rail. Seven hundred fifty volts should do the trick nicely. That would give the headline-writing bastards material.

  His watch showed 4:23 a.m. The trains weren't running yet. He stood, wincing from the pain in his knee, and hobbled up the hill. He could see a flickering light not far off that turned out to be the eternal flame on President Kennedy's grave.

  Who better to share his final moments with? One young victim to another, cut off in the prime of life.

  Whoa.

  Hard to lie to yourself in a cemetery.

  Let's be honest, kid—Gomez O'Neal seemed to be doing the voice-over for what was left of his conscience—you're a washed-out, forty-year-old snake-oil vendor on the payroll, until recently, of people who sell death for a living. On the Karmic food chain, you're somewhere between a sea slug and eel shit. You've fucked up two careers, one marriage, and two good friendships. Just think what you could have accomplished if you'd lived to a ripe old age.

  So — a tragic career, happily cut short.

  He stood at the fringe of the gravesite, apprehensive about being stopped by the park police.

  Naylor Arrested with Jumper Cable at JFK Grave Claims His Car Battery Went Dead Was Seeking "Inspiration" at Difficult Time

  JUDGE ORDERS PSYCHIATRIC EXAMINATION

  But there were no signs of police, so he walked closer to the flame, which glowed warmly in the predawn chill.

  A rustle in the bushes. Movement. Oh God — did they let Dobermans patrol on the loose?

  Remains at JFK Gravesite Are Identified as Naylor's

  For a man who wanted to die, he was awfully scared. He hobbled over to a bush opposite and crouched and hid.

  A bum stumbled out of the bushes. Nick peered. He was layered with rags, and seemed enormous and hunched over, like an apparition out of a Grimm fairy tale. The bum coughed. A great, deep baritone volcano of a cough — one of our clients, for sure — and then spat in Nick's direction. It landed with a vile, liquidy splat.

  His pulmonary ablutions done, the bum reached into his pockets and after much rummaging produced a bent cigarette stub. He stuck it in his mouth and rummaged for a match. The search went on for quite a while; he seemed to have about a hundred pockets in all those layers.

  No match.

  He walked over to the eternal flame, got down on his hands and knees, and lit his cigarette.

  As epiphanies go, a mixed signal.

  Moon Exclusive: Naylor Says He Will Plead "Guilty" To Charges in Self-Abduction Scheme Absolves His "Mod Squad" Friends; Says "Merchant of Death" Term Was "Mine and Only Mine" by heather holloway

  "The service here has improved," Polly said.

  "Yes," Nick said. "The staff and I are all old friends now. They told me if I wanted to go over there and help them wipe out the remaining Bosnian Muslims, they'd be happy to arrange it. But I told them I needed to stay on the good side of Muslims. Lot of Muslims in the U.S. prison system."

  Bobby Jay said, "Maybe the judge'll… he's got to give you something for pleading guilty."

  "I wish you'd checked with us before you did this," Polly said, looking fraught.

  "You weren't speaking to me."

  "There might have been an easier way of getting us off the Mod Squad rap."

  "It's a little late for alternative suggestions. Anyway, don't flatter yourself. Maybe I didn't just do it for you two."

  "Then why," Polly said, "are you pleading guilty if you're not guilty? Assuming…"

  "I am guilty," Nick said. "I'm just not guilty of that."

  "Hell is that supposed to mean?" Bobby Jay said.

  "Crimes against humanity. Maybe it's just a mid-life crisis. I don't know. I'm tired of lying for a living."

  Polly and Bobby Jay stared. "You going soft on us?" Bobby Jay said.

  "No, but let's be real. Who's going to believe me in court?"

  "Got a point."

  "And who's got a million and a half dollars for legal expenses? Do I want to work for a law firm for the rest of my life?"

  "So," Bobby Jay said, "BR and Jeannette get a free ride after this world of hurt they dumped on you?"

  "Well," Nick said, "that depends."

  "On what?"

  He grinned. "On whether you've gone soft."

  "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord. I will repay. Romans twelve, nineteen."

  "What about you, Split-tail?" Nick said. "You want to be the designated driver?"

  "Split-tail?" Polly said.

  "I don't know if I'm cut out for this," Polly said. She and Nick were sitting in a rented sedan parked fifty yards from the Two-Penny Opera House, a converted warehouse in a part of lower Manhattan that was still some years away from having art galleries and coffee shops. Polly was chain-smoking, filling the car with so much smoke that Nick had to keep the windows open. It was steamy out, and it would have been nicer to have the air-conditioning on.

  "You're doing fine," Nick said comfortingly. "But you shouldn't smoke like that. You're going to kill yourself."

  Polly looked at him.

  A snoring sound came from Bobby Jay in the back seat. He'd fallen asleep. Nick and Polly could hear the Bible tape playing on his Walkman.

  "How can he sleep?" Polly said with annoyance. "He was in Vietnam," Nick said, sipping coffee.

  "But this person is a contract killer."

  "So were the Vietcong," Nick said. He checked his watch. "They're running late tonight."

  "It's the dress rehearsal," Polly said. "Maybe the director told them they all sucked and they're going to go through it again." She lit another cigarette. Nick groaned and rolled down the window. She said, "Why don't we just do it tonight and get it over with."

  "Polly," Nick said, touching her arm, "just relax."

  "Relax," she shuddered. "Two weeks following this… person around New York and you tell me, 'Relax.' "

  "Do you want me to rub your neck?"

  "Yes," Polly said. "There. Ah."

  "What's going on?" Bobby Jay said from the back seat.

  "Not much," Nick said. "They're running late."

  "I'm glad opening night's tomorrow," Bobby Jay said. "I couldn't take another night of this. This town is not beloved of God."

  "Why would anyone want to see H.M.S. Pinafore set in the twenty-seventh century aboard the Starship Enterprise?" Polly said.

  "I don't know," Nick said, "but he's playing the right part. Dick Deadeye."

  "Do you think he's any good?"

  "How good an actor could he be if he has to kill people for a living?" Bobby Jay snorted.

  The next night the three of them sat not in a sedan but in a rented panel truck. Polly was behind the wheel, tapping her feet nervously and chewing gum, as Nick had forbidden her to smoke until after the operation was over. She was dressed up as a New York City hooker, gold hot pants, heels, bustier, and so much makeup that her mother might not have recognized her; or, if she had, would have cried. Actually, Nick thought she looked kind of… good. For his part, he was once again sweltering underneath a disguise, a nylon stocking pulled down over his head. Bobby Jay was also uncomfortable, but having spent many a night lying in ambush in warmer places, was keeping cooler than Nick. He was doing a crossword puzzle with a tiny flashlight.

  "They're coming out," Polly said, as the doors opened and opera-goers began to spill out onto the trash-strewn sidewalks.

  "Do they look uplifted?" Bobby Jay said. "More like relieved," Nick said.

  Bobby Jay checked his watch an
d went back to his crossword puzzle. "Three-letter word for air pollutant beginning with E." "ETS," said Nick. "Environmental Tobacco Smoke."

  "Fits."

  About the time they estimated Peter Lorre would have removed his makeup and changed back into his regular clothes, Polly stepped out of the van, tugging down at her hot pants, which had ridden so high up in the car that half her southern hemispheres were on display. Very nice hemispheres, Nick observed. Bobby Jay chambered the round into the riot gun that he had borrowed from the SAFETY museum collection.

  "That is a large bullet," Nick said.

  "Brits use 'em on Irish Catholics." Bobby Jay grinned. "By regulation, they're supposed to aim at the legs. But this SAS major who came to lunch with me and Stockton told us" — he mimicked a British accent—" 'Sometimes we miss.' "

  Nick winced at the thought of a hard-rubber projectile the size of a vibrator connecting with his tender vittles at five hundred feet per second.

  Peter Lorre walked out the stage door and turned in their direction.

  "He's alone, good." They'd observed, over two weeks, that the other actors didn't seem to gravitate toward him. Fine. Now they wouldn't have to follow him.

  As Peter Lorre walked past the van, Nick opened the rear door just enough to give Bobby Jay aiming room.

  On cue, Polly intersected with him on the sidewalk. "Got a match?" she said.

  Peter Lorre looked her up and down. He smiled at her. "Don't you know smoking's bad for you?"

  "Shoot that asshole," Nick hissed.

  Bobby Jay took aim.

  "Want to have some fun?" Polly asked him. "I don't pay for fun."

  "Tell you what," Polly said. "You look like such a stud, I'll do you free."

  Peter Lorre said, "I don't sleep with whores."

  "Too bad," Polly said, moving away, "you'll never know what you missed."

  Bobby Jay fired. There was a loud shotgun blast and ten ounces of hard black rubber hit Peter Lorre in the solar plexus, knocking every every cubic centimeter of air out of his lungs. He went down onto his back. Nick and Bobby Jay jumped out of the van and dragged him into it, Bobby Jay looping his hook through his pants belt. Polly jumped into the driver's seat, pulled off her wig, and drove.