Thank You for Smoking

of their antennae? Frankly I'm not so crazy for it. Personally, I like fish you can't see through, but it's incredibly rare, and you cannot get this stuff in even the best restaurants. Jeff has a connection through Sumitashi International, which you didn't hear from me about. Usually, Jeff only serves it if like Ovitz or Eisner are coming, so it's a terrific tribute to his feelings for you.'

Nick explained that, honored as he was, he'd just been called back to Washington on urgent business. There was a long pause. Jack sounded mortally wounded. 'Nick, I don't know how to put this, but what could be more important than this?'

The bellman was knocking on the door. His flight left in — Jesus— fifty-five minutes. 'Trust me, Jack, it's big. I'll call you later, from my coast.'

20

The conversation over the table by the fake fireplace at Bert's was strictly sotto voce today. Nick, Polly, and Bobby Jay hunched inward, like revolutionaries discussing bombs in a Paris cafe.

Bobby Jay was livid over this news about Finisterre. When he was governor of Vermont, Finisterre had pushed through a very tough anti-handgun bill — as far as SAFETY was concerned — requiring a forty-eight-hour waiting period and limiting purchases to one per week. Now that he'd bought himself a Senate seat with family money, he could inflict his Neo-Puritanism on the national scene.

'There's nothing wrong,' Bobby Jay said, crunching into a large Italian pepper, squirting a bit of fiery green juice onto Polly's dress, 'with that little buck-toothed son of a bitch that a hundred grains of soft lead couldn't set right.'

Much as it did Nick's heart good to get such sympathy, Bobby Jay's reaction seemed a tad extreme, especially for a born-again Christian.

'Do you have any ideas for me,' Nick said, 'short of assassinating him?' Nick pulled the carnation out of the vase and examined it closely.

'What are you doing?' Polly said.

'Checking for bugs. As long as we're discussing shooting U.S. senators.'

Bobby Jay took the flower and spoke into it. 'I have the highest regard for Senator Ortolan K. Finisterre.'

'He's just in a bad mood,' Polly said, 'because another mail carrier went berserk this week and turned a post office into a slaughterhouse. By the way, I meant to ask you — how was he able to legally purchase a grenade launcher?'

'Do I get on your case every time some drunk teenager runs over a Nobel laureate?' Bobby Jay said. 'And by the way, pepper juice doesn't come out.'

Nick said, 'I believe we were talking about my problem.'

'I assume you're backing Finisterre's opponent,' Polly said.

'Oh yeah. He's going to be rolling in soft money. And hard money. But that doesn't do us a whole lot of good. The election is in November, and this is now.'

'Well,' Polly said, 'do you have anything on him?'

'He's a fornicator,' Bobby Jay said. 'Married and divorced three times, and Lord only knows how many pop tarts in between.'

'Shocking as that may be to the American people, I was thinking something more, I don't know, lurid. Kink, whips 'n' things? God,' she said, exhaling a long, philosophical stream of smoke, 'listen to us. I was going to be secretary of state.'

'What's the matter?' Bobby Jay said. 'Can't stand the heat? Life is a dirty, rotten job and someone's got to do it.'

'Go shoot a whale.' She said to Nick, 'Isn't your guy — Garcia? — on the case?'

'Gomez. Yeah. They're probably going over his credit card slips right about now.'

'Don't forget his video rental records. Remember what those swine did to poor Judge Thomas.'

'I'm confident,' Nick said, 'that Gomez O'Neal isn't one to overlook those.'

'Won't do any good. They all use cutouts now. Probably has someone on his staff renting his dirty movies. Pharisee.'

'He was a bit of a playboy when he was younger. And thinner. He did used to get drunk a lot. Got stopped for DUI once.'

'Oh, please,' Polly said, 'stay off that if you can. Anyway, it's ancient history. He was the one who lowered Vermont's legal BAC to .08, hypocritical bastard. Typical. Just because he used to get loaded and drive, now anyone who takes two sips of chardonnay loses their license for six months. And what are you supposed to do, in Vermont? Call a cab?'

'You realize you're next, don't you?' Nick said. 'If he gets away with putting skulls and bones on cigarettes, how long do you think it's going to be before he's going to want to slap them on scotch, beer, and wine?'

'There's no room for any more warning labels,' Polly said bitterly. 'I'm surprised we don't have to say that you shouldn't swallow the bottle.'

'We're all finished,' Nick said morosely.

'Despair is a mortal sin,' Bobby Jay said.

'My entire product line is about to be moved from the cash register over to the 'Household Poisons' shelf and the FBI thinks I covered myself with nicotine patches. I think frankly that I'm entitled to a little despair.'

Polly put her hand on top of his. 'Let's take it step by step.'

'She's right,' Bobby Jay said. 'There's only one way to eat an elephant. One spoonful at a time.'

'What is that supposed to be, redneck haiku? Can we please get real?'

Bobby Jay leaned in close. 'We have friends inside the J. Edgar Hoover building. Lemme see what I can find out.'

'About an ongoing investigation? Good luck.'

'You might be surprised. A whole lotta bonding goes on at a firing range. Never know what you might pick up with the empties.'

'Well,' Nick sighed, 'tell them to go arrest some more Islamic Fundamentalists.'

'All right, we're making progress,' Polly said. 'Bobby Jay's taking care of your FBI problem. So now you only have to figure out what to do with Finisterre. He's got to have a weak spot. Everyone does.'

'What am I going to do? Attack him on MacNeil-Lehrer for renting Wet Coeds?'

'Heyy,' Polly said, taking him by the shoulder, 'where's the old Neo-Puritan dragon slayer? Where's the guy I used to know who could stand up in a crowded theater and shout, 'There's no link between smoking and disease'?'

Nick looked at her, and was seized with the old swelling for Polly. But this was no time to think about that, as he was semi-involved with Heather and certainly involved with Jeannette. Pity. He and Polly would be… well, anyway, she was right. You want an easy job? Go flack for the Red Cross.

The waitress arrived to tell them about the dessert specials. She was new; Bert hadn't briefed her that table six was never, ever, to be told about the day's specials.

'We have apple pie,' she said, 'and it's served a la mode, with ice cream, or with Vermont cheddar cheese, which is real good.'

'So,' Polly said, once the waitress had been shooed away, 'so what's the deal with Fiona Fontaine's hair? Nick? Nick?'

It felt like he was in an isolation chamber, being observed by scientists on closed-circuit TV. He didn't even get to watch his interrogator and the other guest on a monitor. All he'd get was audio — and that lens, staring at him unwinkingly like a great, glassy, fish-eyed, man-eating cyclops.

Koppel preferred it this way — himself alone in the studio, his interviewees off in others. TV news's equivalent of the one-way mirror in police stations. It gave him the advantage of not having to cope with his subjects' corporeality. This way he would not be distracted by their nervous body language and take pity on them. Only special guests got to sit next to him, such as the disgraced former presidential candidate who, months later,