Thank You for Smoking

by Christopher Buckley

  "This boy is out," said Bobby Jay, checking Loire's vitals.

  Nick gave him a kick in the ribs. "Now he's really out."

  "I thought the point was not to kill him," Bobby Jay said.

  "He'll live."

  They cinched the plastic police bands tightly around his wrists behind him and put the black hood over his head.

  They were under the river and into New Jersey before they heard him groan and start to shift around — painfully, Nick hoped. They waited another five minutes until they saw him lift up his head to try to take stock of his situation before they activated Phase Two. Satisfied that Peter Lorre was fully conscious, Nick pressed Play and the sound of their altered voices came over the speaker. They'd tested it several times to make sure that it would be audible in the rear of the van, where they had placed him, on the floor, right by the rear doors.

  first voice: Slow down, let's not get a speeding ticket.

  second voice: That'd be a fucking bummer.

  first voice: He still out?

  second voice: Yeah, he looks out.

  first voice: Well, if he moves, pop him with the.45.

  second voice: Hey, this is a rental. I don't wanna spend the rest of the night scrubbing blood out of the back.

  first voice: Is that an International House of Pancakes? I could really go for some bacon waffles… second voice: Bacon? You know what that does to your arteries?

  first voice: Frank, we gotta die of something.

  second voice: I want to be screwed to death. You pass an International House of Pussy, pull over.

  first voice: I got one of those cross-country ski machines. Twenty minutes on one of those and you sweat, let me tell you. You know who uses one of those things? Joey Two Stomachs.

  second voice: Get out of here.

  first voice: No, for real. He went to that Pritikin place, you know, where you eat crabgrass and they charge you ten thousand dollars a day. He's lost something like twenty-five pounds. And by the way, he doesn't want to be called Joey Two Stomachs anymore.

  second voice: Fucking psychopath. I could tell you stories.

  first voice: That's why I'm not calling him Joey Two Stomachs anymore.

  second voice: Sir Joey. Laughter.

  first voice: How much further is it?

  second voice: Ten miles, about.

  first voice: I don't see why we gotta take him all the way out to some abandoned quarry in New Jersey when we could weigh him down and throw him in the fucking wetlands. No one is gonna know.

  second voice: I told you why. Because Team A said to take him to the quarry, and this is on his time, okay?

  first voice: He's not gonna know.

  second voice: What's the fucking problem?

  first voice: I'm hungry. Maybe there's a McDonald's…

  second voice: We're not pulling into fucking McDonald's, all right?

  first voice: We'll do the drive-up.

  second voice: What if he comes to and starts moaning?

  first voice: I got my gun pointed right at his fucking heart. If he moans, it's going to be his problem, not ours.

  second voice: You got it silenced?

  first voice: Yes I got it silenced. Will you — Jesus. What am I, a fucking amateur?

  second voice: We'll be there before you know.

  first voice: Who is Team A, anyway?

  second voice: Some guy in Washington.

  first voice: Washington? Yeah? Is this one of those government sub-contracts? This guy in the back important?

  second voice: Not anymore. Laughter.

  first voice: So, who's Team A?

  second voice: Some lobbyist.

  first voice: Lobbyist? What's that?

  second voice: An asshole with an expense account.

  first voice: Yeah, well, you want my honest opinion about Washington? They're all assholes. I'm getting sick of this shit. Couple more of these and I'm out. I'm going to start a restaurant.

  second voice: You'll poison them to death instead of shooting them?

  first voice: No, I'm serious.

  second voice: I'll make a reservation. They'd left in a few moments of silence.

  first voice: So is that why we're called "Team C"? Cause he's "Team A"?

  second voice: I guess so. It's a code. People in Washington like codes.

  first voice: Team C sounds like my kid's fruit drink. Why couldn't we be the Sons of Thunder?

  second voice: Okay, we're the Sons of Thunder. I think the turnoff is somewhere up—

  first voice: Look out for the truck!!!

  Polly had been practicing bootleg turns all week. With the speedometer at just under forty, she turned the wheel slightly to the left and at the same time stepped down hard on the parking brake, whose locking mechanism had been disabled. The van spun 180 degrees. As it did, Peter Lorre was hurtled back through the rear doors, which had been loosely shut with a piece of duct tape. Out he went onto the deserted country road, landing with a thump.

  The next snatch of dialogue was loudly amplified.

  first voice: Never mind him! Get the fuck out of here! Move it! Off they sped.

  "Did you hear that sound he made when he landed?" Nick said gleefully.

  "Sounded squishy," Bobby Jay said.

  "Do you think we killed him?" Polly asked. Nick was looking back through binoculars. Peter Lorre was rolling himself over to the shoulder of the road. "Nope. Almost a shame."

  "He's going to be sore tomorrow."

  "I need a drink," Polly said. "You know what I want?" Nick said. "What's that?"

  "A cigarette."

  New Head of Tobacco Lobby Is Found Dead of Smoke Inhalation at Home of Associate Friends Say Rohrabacher Was "a Health Nut" and a Non-smoker Jeannette Dantine, ATS Exec VP, Is Sought by Police for Questioning

  BY HEATHER HOLLOWAY WASHINGTON SUN STAFF WRITER

  Epilogue

  Good evening, I'm Larry King. Our guest tonight, Nick Naylor, who has been here before on several occasions, but tonight is not going to tell us that there is no link between smoking and lung cancer. Right?"

  "That's right, Larry."

  "This book you've written, Thank You for Smoking. Curious title. What does it mean?"

  "It's meant to be ironic, Larry. Though my former employers, the tobacco lobby, for whom I used to lie on shows like this, actually have signs printed that say that."

  "This book you've written is very controversial. It's got a lot of people angry."

  "Yes it has, Larry."

  "Let's run down the list. Jeff Megall, head of the most powerful talent agency in Hollywood. He's called it 'Beneath comment.' "

  "I'll take it as a compliment, Larry. As you may know, his former executive assistant, Jack Bein, has bought the movie rights to the book. He and Jeff had a falling out."

  "Senator Ortolan K. Finisterre, very powerful man here in Washington, says that you wrote the book to quote clear your troubled conscience unquote."

  "Actually, Larry, it was prison that pretty much cleared my conscience."

  "So why the book?"

  "Money, Larry. I wrote the book for money."

  "That's refreshing to hear."

  "My wife, Polly, and I are expecting a child and, well, you know, tuition and all. "

  "Congratulations. What about your other 'Mod Squad' friend— that stands for 'Merchant of Death,' right?"

  "Right."

  "Tell us what's become of Bobby Jay Bliss, the former gun lobby spokesman?"

  "He's very big in the Christian Prison Fellowship organization. You know, the organization founded by Chuck Colson. He's happy. Still shoots. We see him. Of course, we don't call ourselves that anymore, since we now recognize the wickedness of our former ways."

  "And Polly, does she work?"

  "Yes, since becoming pregnant, she's gotten very interested in prenatal health issues. She's with the Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Foundation here in Washington. Fasfuff."

  "You say in the book, which by the
way, I recommend to our viewers, a very good book—"

  "Thank you, Larry."

  "— that you pleaded guilty even though you didn't kidnap yourself and cover yourself with nicotine patches. Question — Why?"

  "Well, Larry, for two reasons. First, I was told that it would cost something like a million and a half dollars in legal fees to fight that, and I don't have that kind of money. Secondly, I came to the conclusion that I deserved to be put away for all the horrible things I did when I worked for the tobacco industry. By the way, if any of our viewers have lung cancer from smoking or anything, or have relatives who do, I'd like to apologize. And if any kids are listening, listen, don't smoke. It'll kill you. Also stains your teeth, which is totally uncool."

  "Any idea, then, who did kidnap you?"

  "None at all, Larry. I guess I'll go to my grave wondering."

  "What was prison like?"

  "Oh, not too bad. It was one of those minimum security places, Pleasanton, California, where they send insider traders and such. Mostly, it was boring. Really, really boring."

  "And you were there for two and a half years?"

  "Uh-huh. I did meet some interesting people. Lot of bankers."

  "So what are you doing now that you've finished the book?"

  "I'm working for an organization called Clean Lungs 2000, Larry. It's a very fine organization that, basically, tries to get people to stop smoking."

  "Satisfying work?"

  "Oh, very. And I'm learning things. For instance, did you know that smoking causes impotence?"

  "No."

  "It's a scientific fact, Larry. There's some very interesting research going on right now. Of course, the tobacco lobby doesn't want you to know that."

  "In your book you depict your former boss, BR, Budd Rohrabacher, as a pretty devious person."

  "May he rest in peace, he was a thorough swine, Larry."

  "What about his assistant, Jeannette, the one the police suspect may have had something to do with his death by smoke inhalation."

  "I understand from some former — from some people that she's probably in the Far East somewhere, working for an escort service that caters to particular tastes."

  "Do you think that she killed him?"

  "Who knows, Larry. These things do happen, of course. People get careless with cigarettes. Of course, the most careless thing you can do with any cigarette is to light it in the first place."

  "The subtitle of the book—-Jujitsuing the Neo-Puritans—what does that mean?"

  "Well, as you know, jujitsu is the Japanese art of self-defense in which you use your opponent's weight and strength against him. That was really all I ever had to do. Though I certainly don't advocate smoking, there are some very sanctimonious people lined up on the non-smoking side. So it was just a matter of giving them a little shove and putting my foot behind them. I was actually pretty good at it. It was the only thing I was ever really good at. Well, the Nazi war criminals were fairly normal, too. A lot of them were family types, you know, take the kids to the zoo on Sundays. Mondays, go back to exterminating people, invading countries, goose-stepping. The new head of the Academy of Tobacco Studies, for instance, is very big in the Boy Scouts, the Kiwanis, Rotary International, Elks. If you met him and didn't know what he did, you'd probably think, nice guy, regular sort."

  "You dedicate the book to two people: Doak Boykin—'the Captain'—former chairman of the board of the tobacco lobby, and Lorne Lutch, the former Tumbleweed brand model."

  "Fine people, Larry. I think they should be forgiven for their role in tobacco, because they were of a previous generation that didn't really know just how bad it was for you. And by the end of their lives, they both saw the light, as it were, and regretted their… well, they felt badly about it. I spoke to the Captain the night before he died and he told me as much. As for Lorne, who died a couple of years ago— BR actually sent me out there with a briefcase full of five hundred thousand dollars cash to bribe him to stop denouncing tobacco, and you know what he did — this is in the book — he kicked me right out of there."

  "That's a lot of temptation, five hundred grand."

  "It certainly was, Larry. Courageous man."

  "We're going to take some calls. Winston-Salem, North Carolina, you're on Larry King."

  "Larry, I want to say that I think that man is lower than the slime on a catfish's belly. And I apologize to the catfish."

  "Nick, care to comment?"

  "Not really, Larry."

  "Emotional issue."

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