Thank You for Smoking

'You were incredible. I'm going to make you moan.'

Jeannette sure knew how to make a guy feel like he'd done an honest day's work. She kept attacking him in the car on the way back to Nick's place. Disinformation was certainly an aphrodisiac to Jeannette. They tumbled through the door and onto the bed. As usual, the lights stayed out and Jeannette did her kinky latex number with the gloves and condoms.

Just as things were getting truly sweaty, the phone rang. Polly's voice came over the answering-machine speaker. It was distracting, making love to one woman while listening to another.

'Killer cheese?' Polly laughed. 'Well done. Finisterre looked like he was having an outbreak of shingles. Bobby Jay said to tell you that you did the Mod Squad proud tonight. Congratulations. Give me a call when you get back. I have to do a panel tomorrow, so I'm cramming about the effects of alcohol on neural function. Did you know that alcohol actually strengthens the flow of ions through the GABAA ion channel and produces a calming effect, much like Valium? In moderate doses of course, but I can fudge that. If it's one thing the Moderation Council hates, it's moderation. Anyway, kiddo, you were really great. You made my ion channels hum. Bye.'

'Who was that?' Jeannette said.

'Don't stop. Oh.'

'She sounded kind of friendly.'

'Polly Bailey. Just a friend.'

'What's the Mod Squad?'

'Merchants of Death. We do lunch. Oh, yes, definitely. Ohhh.'

The phone rang again. 'Hi Nick, it's Heather. Cheese? I gotta hand it to you. You could make the Serbs sound like humanitarians. Give me a call, okay? We need to talk about this piece. Can you do dinner tomorrow night?'

'Was that Heather Holloway?'

'Ohhhhhhhhh. Yeah.'

'Aha. I knew you were her Deep Throat. Naughty boy. You should be spanked. Do you want me to spank you?'

'No.'

'So, are you fucking her?'

'Who?'

'Heather Holloway.'

'Can we talk about this later? Ow! Hey!'

The next call was from the Captain. 'Nick, son. You were magnificent! That buck-tooth, pimply-assed son of a bitch looked like he was going to shit his britches. In fact I think I heard him do just that. Well done, sir. You're the only good thing's happened to tobacco in the last ten years. And don't you think I don't plan to show my appreciation.'

'Was that — the Captain?'

'Oh, oh, oh, oh…'

'Nick.'

'What? Yes.'

'He certainly sounded happy.'

'Mrrmph. Baby, baby—'

'What did he mean by showing his appreciation?'

'Rrmmm. Oo, oo, oo. Yesyesyesyesssssss.'

She was gone, as usual, by the time he woke up, and once again had cleaned up, sparing him having to dispense with nookie detritus. Very orderly woman, Jeannette. Probably went with the S&M fetish. What a littered scene it would have been this morning, boxes, wrappers, little limp love zeppelins lying all over the floor. Five times! Reassuring, in your forties, to know that the old cobra could still stand up and hiss five times in one night.

The phone rang. It was Gazelle, panicking because it was 9:15—he hadn't gotten to sleep until after four — and his phone was already in meltdown from outraged calls, mostly from Vermont, including from the governor's office. 'You better tell those dykes they got protecting you to look sharp,' she said, ' 'cause these people sound like they're going to drive down here in their cheese trucks and park them on top of your ass.'

When he got to the office, it was high-fives in the hallway and hurrahs for the conquering hero. Tobacco might be going down in flames, but its paladin was wielding a sharp lance.

BR was a tad subdued. A tad cool, even. 'I just got off the phone with the Governor of Vermont,' he said. 'I would not describe him as a happy camper.'

'That'll teach him to ban smoking in his prisons.' Nick shrugged, pouring himself some coffee. After intense internal debate, the Academy of Tobacco Studies had decided not to go to court on behalf of the smoking rights of the Green Mountain State's murderers, rapists, and thieves.

'Legal Affairs says that we're going to be sued by every cheddar cheese manufacturer in the state,' BR said. ' 'Tragic role of cheese'?'

'Let them sue.' Nick said. 'Let cheese take the witness stand for a change. For the first time since I can recall, we're on the attack instead of circling the wagons.'

'We are that. I only wish we were attacking on better ground than cheese.'

'Such as? Health?'

BR frowned.

'I thought you wanted a challenge. We're going to need to get our research ducks lined up. You better get Issues Intelligence cranking. You know what we're looking for.'

'Cheese fatalities?'

'Atherosclerosis rates in Vermont. No reason we can't correlate Vermont cheddar production with heart disease, nationally. Any cholesterol injuries will do. Hell, we can probably attribute every heart attack in the country to Vermont cheddar cheese. Get Erhardt on the case. Erhardt could make oat bran sound lethal.'

'I wouldn't plan on doing any leaf-peeping in Vermont this fall unless you put on a fake beard and register under an assumed name.'

'Yeah, well, there's always New Hampshire,' Nick said, turning to go.

'Nick,' BR said uncomfortably, 'something's come up that I need to talk with you about. Those two FBI agents, Monmaney and Allman, came in to see me yesterday late afternoon and, well, why don't we say that you and I never had this conversation.'

'What's the problem?'

'They want to see your phone records.'

'Uh-huh,' Nick said. 'And why would they want to do that?'

'I don't know. But it was pretty clear that if I didn't volunteer your phone records, they'll come back with a subpoena. I don't think either of us wants that. But I wanted to talk with you first.' He gave Nick a pained look. 'What do you want me to do?'

'I'm not sure I'm tracking here, BR. Am I under suspicion of something?'

'I asked them just that.'

'And?'

'They gave me some bullshit boilerplate non answer out of the G-man's training manual. Made me madder than a hornet and I gave it to them, believe me. But obviously, yeah, they seem to be… curious about you at this point.'

'What do they think happened? I kidnapped and almost killed myself with, with, with nicotine patches?'

'I suppose for the same reason that it occurred to me. All the great press we got afterward. At the time, you'll recall I told you I wished I'd thought of kidnapping you. The same motive seems to have occurred to them.'

'Let them have my phone records. I don't have anything to hide. They can have my dry cleaning bill, too.'