Thank You for Smoking

my mail is hate mail. I don't even open my mail anymore. I just assume it's a letter bomb. My mail goes directly to the FBI lab. Technicians in lead suits steam-open it. Please, don't even try to one-up me on the subject of mail.'

'Why don't we put away the gloves and order,' Bobby Jay said, 'I'm starved.'

'Fine,' Nick said, grinding his teeth. Expect a little sympathy… wait, she was being sympathetic until you told her she sounded like a get-well card. There was that awful taste in his mouth again, like there was a cigarette butt under his tongue. The doctors had told him that his system was going to be flushing nicotine for the next three months. Food wasn't tasting very good these days, and spices made it taste like Drano.

Nick forced himself to say, 'I wasn't trying to be unholier than thou.'

'No big deal,' Polly said tersely. The two of them concentrated on their menus so that they wouldn't have to look at each other.

It fell to Bobby Jay to make conversation in the form of a monologue. He bemoaned the upcoming anniversary of the assassination of President Finisterre, as these occasions always occasioned an orgy, as he put it, of calls for gun control on the op-ed pages of newspapers, never mind the fact that Finisterre had been blown away with a scope-mounted hunting rifle. 'What are they going to do, take away our deer rifles?'

'Not until they pry them from our cold, dead fingers,' Nick murmured, settling on pasta in the hopes that it wouldn't taste like stump dissolver. Bobby Jay said SAFETY was planning some proactive publicity in anticipation of the anniversary. They were also trying to get their friendlies in the Congress to get the White House to sign off on a Firearms Safety Awareness Week that would bracket the anniversary day. The White House was so far stonewalling them, but by their doing so, SAFETY was maneuvering them into a box: We asked the White House, begged the White House, to get behind a national, week-long consciousness-raising initiative, and what happened? Nothing. Additionally, Stockton Drum, having been recently accused on Face the Nation of perpetrating 'genocide' among black inner-city youth, had given orders that all senior SAFETY staff were to perform one hour a week of public service with black inner-city youth. This way, the next time some prissy-ass liberal accused him of enabling mass murder, he'd be able to cut him off at the balls. Drum's executive order was being met with mixed enthusiasm by most of the staff though with genuine civic-mindedness by some. One staffer had proposed giving free handgun instruction in the inner city. If these kids were going to turn the city streets into free-fire zones, he reasoned, they might as well be taught how to be accurate so that they'd kill fewer innocent bystanders. Bobby Jay had nixed the proposal. 'The sad thing,' he said, fixing his special knife into his hook as the food arrived, 'is that it's probably not such a bad idea.'

The iced coffee had arrived. Polly hadn't said much over the food. Nick was feeling worse about how he'd acted and was working up to a rapprochement when Bobby Jay brought up a story in that day's Washington Moon.

'So,' Polly said in a studiously casual way, 'how's Feather?'

'Feather?'

'Heather.'

'Fine,' Nick said. 'I guess. I don't know. She's trying to get a job on the Sun. She's interviewing with Atherton Blair.'

'That asshole. He's probably the one who decided to put the fetal-alcohol convention above the fold. You know he doesn't drink.'

'A newspaperman who doesn't drink,' Bobby Jay said. 'Things have changed.'

'Not only that, he's in AA.'

'He is?' Nick said.

'Our information is that he's in AA. He goes all the way out to Reston, so no one will know.'

'No kidding,' Nick said. 'I should mention that to Heather.'

Polly frowned. 'What do you mean?'

'I don't know. Could come in handy. Maybe she should pitch him a story on how great AA is or something.'

'And score points off alcohol-bashing? That's privileged information. Like everything that gets said around this table.'

'Well, don't get your panty hose in a knot. I was just—'

'About to pass confidential information to your squeeze.'Bobby Jay put in, 'I don't think any of us supposes, for a second, that anything that's said at this table goes any further than the sugar shaker.'

'Right,' Nick said.

'Right,' Polly said.

Nick added companionably, 'Nothing's, you know, happened, anyway. I've had other things on my mind these last few weeks, like wondering if I'm ever going to get the feeling back in my fingers. Or am I going to need a liver transplant.'

'You better get to work if you're developing her as a mouthpiece,' Polly said. She looked at her watch and said she had to go. Her wine people were in town from California to work the Ag Committee on phylloxera. Also to brainstorm with their ad agency on how to counter the disastrous misimpression that only French red wine kept you from getting a heart attack.

Nick and Bobby Jay watched her walk out, her bag slung over her shoulder, cellular antennae sticking out of it, heels going clickety-click on the floor. She was wearing a shorter skirt than usual, Nick noticed; sexy, with pleats.

Nick said to Bobby Jay, 'Something going on with Polly? She seemed kind of bent out of shape.'

Bobby Jay said, 'She got a letter from Hector. He wants to try again. But he wants her to come live with him in Lagos.'

'Oh, well, hell,' Nick said, 'no wonder.'

Back in his office, Nick was squirreled away with a stack of paperwork when Gomez O'Neal came in and shut the door behind him. 'What's up?'

'I don't know,' Gomez said gravely.

At a loss, Nick said, 'Is this some Zen thing?'

'Watch your back, kid,' Gomez said, and left.

14

Nick put in a call to the Captain. He was alarmed when his secretary told him that the Captain was in the hospital. 'Nothing to worry about,' she told him, 'just in for repairs.' Apparently some of the fetal pig valves that had been installed in other people had been giving out, and the Captain's doctors didn't want to take any chances. He did not sound well.

'Hello? No, goddamnit, I do not wish to move my bowels. Told you that four times already, it's none of your business. Hello? Nick, son! Bless my heart but it's good to hear your voice. How am I doing? I was doing fine until I was dragooned into this medieval house o' horrors. I'll tell you what's wrong with health care in this country. Hospitals.'

In the background Nick could hear the Captain's nurse, who sounded like a large, middle-aged black woman of supreme authority, demanding that he postpone his phone call until he had transacted more urgent business. Being a southerner, the Captain was helpless before her. It made no never mind to her that he was the Captain, titan of industry, the most important man in Winston-Salem. 'I'll call you right back,' he said, 'after I have dealt with this female.'

He called back ten minutes later. 'It'll be a cold day in the infernal regions before she gives another order.' In the background Nick heard, 'I'm not going anywhere until you take that pill.'

'I took the damn pill. I watched you on the Larry King show last night. You did fine. Superb job. Too bad that fellow kidnapped you didn't call in.'

'He probably figured the FBI had a tap on all incoming calls. Say, I'm calling about two things, Lady Bent and