Thank You for Smoking

65.

'Ohh, that's much better. Is that better for you, Nick?'

'Nick,' Jack Bein said with blasting intensity in the lobby early the next morning. The face that Nick had seen on the big-screen limo TV yesterday turned out to be connected to a short but muscular body in a linen suit with a bit of expensive turquoise silk protruding from the breast pocket. A watch worth a year's factory wages was gleamingly clasped outside the shirt cuff of his right hand. 'Saves time,' Jack said. 'You don't have to pull it out from under the cuff. I figure over the course of my life I'll save two hundred man- hours.'

Jack looked to the women bodyguards and made a question mark with his face, so it became Nick's turn to explain his odd accessorizing. Jack was very impressed.

'We had to do that for Jeff two years ago. Maybe you remember.'

Nick didn't. 'One of his former martial arts instructors went a little nuts. He had some idea that Jeff was going to make him into the next Steven Seagal. Personally, I think Jeff could've cleaned his clock, but when you're talking about a two-hundred-fifty-pound Korean with more black belts than Liz Taylor, you don't want to take chances, do you? Did you sleep okay? Did you get your massage? Was it Bernie who did you?'

Nick mumbled embarrassedly that yes, Bernie.

'Nice kid. And don't worry about the Navy boyfriend. He's big, but harmless. He was one of the ones they sent into Baghdad during Desert Storm to try to kill Saddam Hussein. They missed him by like five minutes. Know why? He was at his girlfriend's getting laid. Bombs coming down like rain and he's getting his rocks off. What a schmuck. No wonder he lost the war. No one's supposed to know that, by the way. I'm not even supposed to know that, but we're putting her through college. What's the matter, something wrong with your breakfast? You're jet-lagged. It's ten in D.C. Try some vitamin B, Jeff swears by it. Do you want an injection? How is it, living in D.C.? Is it all right? The new guy, is he going to make it?' Nick gathered he meant the President of the United States. 'Frankly, Jeff is a little disappointed in him. Jeff went all out for him. Introduced him to all the right people. Jeff is the one who introduced him to Barbra. Other people have taken credit for it, but it was Jeff who made it happen. I shouldn't be telling you that, but I like you, so I'm telling you.'

They drove in Jack's car, a red Dodge Viper, a muscle car on steroids. Jack explained that he was trying to do what he could for the U.S. economy. 'Jeff strongly believes in America. That's why he's so excited by this project. It's a chance to help a truly American industry. What could be more American than tobacco, right?'

'Absolutely,' Nick said, relieved finally to be talking about tobacco.

'So what do you think of the new building?'

It loomed, frantically, like a Mormon temple, occupying an entire city block, a crystal palace of curving mirrors.

'We had some problems after it was first built. The mirrors were reflecting the sun down onto the street in such a way that it was cooking the pedestrians. A couple actually had to be taken to Cedars-Sinai and treated for hyperpyrexia. Not that you get many pedestrians in L.A. But don't want to cook the ones you have. We had to redo a section of the outside, and let me tell you, it was not cheap.'

'It's very nice,' Nick said, sensing that a compliment was awaited.

'Tell Jeff how much you like it. He put a lot of himself into this building. And you know something? It shows.'

Nick looked up and saw the Viper reflected on the shimmery wall of ACT's headquarters. 'Not bad for someone who started out in the mailroom,' he said.

'I'll tell you something. We now have foreign governments coming to us.'

'Really? Which ones?'

'I really shouldn't be talking about this, Nick. Point is, you're right — Jeff is a very long way from the mailroom.'

They drove past the main entrance, which was flanked by significant Nanomako Yaha sculptures.

'Very nice,' Nick said.

'Those? Those were an office-warming present from Deke Cantrell.'

'That was generous.'

Jack laughed. 'Generous? Please. Deke Cantrell made enough from Spud to buy Nanomako Yaha's frozen corpse. Don't get me wrong. Deke is a tremendously talented human being and an extremely decent human being, despite what you hear, but the fact of the matter is, before Jeff took him on, he was a face. Now he's a name. He gets ten to twelve per film.'

'Still, nice presents.'

'It's not the thought that counts. It's the money.' Jack laughed. 'We're not going in the main entrance. We call it the Potemkin entrance. Very few people use it. Want to know why? The other agencies rent rooms in that building across, there. They keep people with binoculars and telescopes to see who's coming and going. Sometimes, just to fuck with their heads, we hire doubles of famous actors to walk in. Drives C.A.A., William Morris, and I.CM. crazy. They think their clients are defecting. I really should not be talking about that. Anyway, now that we're advising foreign governments, we'll probably get real spies watching across the street. Do you know any spies in Washington?'

'We have some former spooks on staff,' Nick said. 'I shouldn't be telling you that.'

'We've got this CIA movie deal project in the works, it's going to be very big. The idea is the CIA thinks Franklin Roosevelt is too cozy with Stalin, so they kill him so Truman will get in and nuke the Japanese. Fabulous film.'

'Sounds great. But I don't think the CIA existed back in 1945.'

'It didn't?'

'I think it started in '47.'

'It's a little late change the whole premise. Principal photography starts in two weeks. We'll have to fudge. What the hell, according to these surveys, high school students think Churchill was Truman's vice president. As a matter of fact, we were thinking of you in connection with the project.'

'How's that?'

'Roosevelt smoked, right?'

'Yes he did,' Nick said. 'But I think we're looking for someone more contemporary.'

'You're probably right. How many girls want to fuck a dead guy with polio?'

'Uh, right.'

They parked in the underground garage and took an elevator. So far, Nick had only ridden in private elevators since arriving in LA. 'By the way,' Jack said, 'don't be nervous when you meet Jeff. You'd be surprised at the names of some of the people who've frozen up when they met him for the first time.' He lowered his voice, which made Nick wonder if the elevator was bugged. 'Tom Sampson, Cookie Perets. Rocco Saint Angelo?'

'Rocco Saint Angelo? Really?'

'Comatose. I thought I was going to have to start cracking ammonia pellets under his nose. But you'll be fine. Jeff is basically a very human person underneath.'

The elevator doors opened to reveal a fish pond. Nick followed Jack across stepping-stones. Large white and red carp lazed beneath the surface. 'That one over there,' Jack whispered, 'seven thousand dollars.'

'Seven thousand? For a fish?'

'Go figure. No wonder sushi over there costs a hundred bucks apiece. Do you like sushi? I worry about worms. They can go into your brain. Every time I eat sushi now, which you kind of have to do — right? — I think I'm going to end up like John Hurt in Alien, with the thing coming out of my chest. Anyway, the fish was a gift from Fiona Fontaine. Another face Jeff made into a name. That one over there, with the black speckles? Twelve thousand. From Kyle Kedman. Jeff got him the lead in Mung, and Columbia was set, and I mean set, on Tom Cruise for that part.'

'Do you keep sharks in here?'

'Nah,' Jack laughed. 'We're very nice here.'

They were met at the end of the stepping-stones by an extremely attractive, fiftyish woman who introduced herself with a handshake and 'I work with Jeff.' She whispered into Jack's ear. Jack took Nick by the arm and led