Thank You for Smoking

be an option if I revealed his identity.'

'This stuff is so strong it's melting my hook,' Bobby Jay said, wiping off the thick coating of coffee grounds.

'Would you please stop doing that,' said Polly. A TV camera crew, hot on the heels of the morning's Mod Squad story, had shown up at her Sober Drivers 2000, shouting blunt questions at her during the Q and A. All she could do was to cast aspersions on the Moon for being owned by a Korean who said he was the Messiah. It was generally what people did whenever the Moon, a pretty good newspaper, published something true that they didn't like.

The strong Serbian coffee was not improving Polly's nerves. She was drumming her fingernails on the table. C-c-c-clink, c-c-c-click. 'Then why don't you tell us where Ms. World Class Tits got this.'

'I would guess,' Nick said mournfully, 'that she got that from Jeannette.'

'Oh?' Polly said, flaring. 'And how did Jeannette know about the Mod Squad?'

Nick sighed. 'You're not going to like it.'

'My day began ruined, so you won't be spoiling it.'

'She got it from you.'

'What are you talking about?'

'You remember leaving a message on my machine congratulating me on the killer cheddar cheese the night I went on Nightline?' 'Yes,' Polly said suspiciously.

'Well, uh, you, uh mentioned, uh the Mod Squad, and. '

'So I mentioned Mod Squad. People think that's a TV show in reruns.'

'Yeah, but, uh. '

'Will you stop saying 'uh'? I've already maxed out my Prozac today, and I can't take any more. Spit it out.'

'Well, Jeannette was there in the apartment and we were, uh, she asked me what it meant and…'

It was good that Polly was wearing her Jackie O sunglasses, because Nick didn't want to see what kind of looks she was giving him.

'First,' she finally said, 'you tell us that you were fucking this slut. And now you tell us that you were fucking us at the same time.'

'I'm not happy about this,' Nick said.

'You're not happy about this?'

'I'm really unhappy about this.'

'Oh, well then,' Bobby Jay said, 'in that case, no problem.' He added, 'Fornicator.'

'Maybe I'll get religion after all this,' Nick said. 'The Christian Prison Fellowship has chapters in most of the better penitentiaries.'

'Asshole,' Polly said, leaving.

They watched her go. Bobby Jay said, 'Nicely done, son. Before you arrived tonight, she told me she was going to liquidate her savings to help you with your legal expenses.'

'Why would she do that?'

Bobby Jay shook his head. 'Boy, you're dumber than a mud box.' Bobby Jay left.

'I'll get the check,' Nick said, to no one in particular.

At first he didn't recognize the extraordinarily awful taste in his mouth, nor did he have a clue as to where he was. Wherever it was, it had a spectacular view of Washington. He was on the Arlington side, this much he did know. The dawning fact that he was surrounded by identical tombstones, and many thousands of them, suggested that he was somewhere in Arlington National Cemetery. Then he was able to identify the revolting layer of scum on his tongue. Slivovitz. The residue of glass after glass after glass of it. Yes, it was coming back now: he had ended the evening singing Serbian fighting songs shoulder to shoulder with the waiters and kitchen staff. Somehow he had driven himself to Arlington Cemetery, and had gotten himself over the fence. His ripped trousers and the acute pain in his right kneecap implied that this had not been smartly done. But why Arlington?

That came back to him too. He had come here to kill himself.

He liked Arlington, sometimes came here on a nice day, just to stroll and check out who was who. There were over two hundred thousand people buried here, which was a lot of dead people, though it wasn't, it occurred to him uncomfortably, even half one year's smoking casualties. He remembered deciding not to kill himself at his apartment so his cleaning lady wouldn't have to find him. He remembered the speedometer hitting 110 mph and aiming for the concrete pillars of the overpass, but chickening out, just in time, when he remembered that the car had an airbag and he'd probably end up a quadraplegic for the rest of his life, and an extremely bitter one at that.

At which point he looked up and saw Arlington national cemetery. Why not? There was no rope in the trunk, so he decided to hang himself with the jumper cables. There they were, by his feet.

He picked them up. They felt kind of rubbery. He didn't relish hanging himself with the equivalent of a bungee cord. He saw himself bouncing up and down, his head banging against the branch.

He considered. The Metro stopped at Arlington. He could clamp the jumper cables to the third rail. Seven hundred fifty volts should do the trick nicely. That would give the headline-writing bastards material.

His watch showed 4:23 a.m. The trains weren't running yet. He stood, wincing from the pain in his knee, and hobbled up the hill. He could see a flickering light not far off that turned out to be the eternal flame on President Kennedy's grave.

Who better to share his final moments with? One young victim to another, cut off in the prime of life.

Whoa.

Hard to lie to yourself in a cemetery.

Let's be honest, kid—Gomez O'Neal seemed to be doing the voice-over for what was left of his conscience—you're a washed-out, forty-year-old snake-oil vendor on the payroll, until recently, of people who sell death for a living. On the Karmic food chain, you're somewhere between a sea slug and eel shit. You've fucked up two careers, one marriage, and two good friendships. Just think what you could have accomplished if you'd lived to a ripe old age.

So — a tragic career, happily cut short.

He stood at the fringe of the gravesite, apprehensive about being stopped by the park police.

Naylor Arrested with Jumper Cable at JFK Grave Claims His Car Battery Went Dead Was Seeking 'Inspiration' at Difficult Time

JUDGE ORDERS PSYCHIATRIC EXAMINATION

But there were no signs of police, so he walked closer to the flame, which glowed warmly in the predawn chill.

A rustle in the bushes. Movement. Oh God — did they let Dobermans patrol on the loose?

Remains at JFK Gravesite Are Identified as Naylor's

For a man who wanted to die, he was awfully scared. He hobbled over to a bush opposite and crouched and hid.

A bum stumbled out of the bushes. Nick peered. He was layered with rags, and seemed enormous and hunched over, like an apparition out of a Grimm fairy tale. The bum coughed. A great, deep baritone volcano of a cough — one of our clients, for sure — and then spat in Nick's direction. It landed with a vile, liquidy splat.

His pulmonary ablutions done, the bum reached into his pockets and after much rummaging produced a bent cigarette stub. He stuck it in his mouth and rummaged for a match. The search went on for quite a while; he seemed to have about a hundred pockets in all those layers.

No match.

He walked over to the eternal flame, got down on his hands and knees, and lit his cigarette.

As epiphanies go, a mixed signal.

Moon Exclusive: Naylor Says He Will Plead 'Guilty' To Charges in Self-Abduction Scheme Absolves His 'Mod Squad' Friends; Says 'Merchant of Death' Term Was 'Mine and Only Mine' by heather holloway

'The service here has improved,' Polly said.