Thank You for Smoking (18 page)

She sat at the foot of Nick's bed, wearing a light summer dress with her hair up in a Gibson girlish sort of way, strands of hair dribbling down her neck. She looked quite alluring. Nick, however, lacked the energy to talk amorally, her kind of verbal foreplay, so he just listened to her talk about how she'd gotten a job interview with Atherton Blair, the rather self-satisfied, bow-tie-wearing, Ivy League assistant managing editor of the
Sun,
Washington's legit paper. She was working on a story about the new image guy that the President had hired; she had information that he'd once done some consulting for a close relative of Erich Honecker, the former East German dictator who'd built the Berlin Wall.

Jeannette called the next day to say that she had "convinced" Katie Couric of the
Today
show to do a live remote interview from his hospital bed. Nice as Jeannette had been, Nick doubted she'd had to do much arm-twisting to bring about an interview. Nick was frontpage, above-the-fold news, for crying out loud. They'd been
deluged
with interview requests.

"I don't want you to think that we're in any way capitalizing on this," she said, "but if you're feeling up to it, I don't think we should pass this up."

True enough, Nick's kidnapping had been a godsend, after a fashion. The gasper groups were falling all over themselves trying to distance themselves from the "nico-terrorists"—as the perpetrators had been dubbed by the tabloid press—and were busily denouncing this "deplorable," "extreme," "repellent," "intolerable" act. Even Nick's Oprah punching bag, Ron Goode, was quoted in
Newsweek
as saying that no matter what his personal opinion of Nick was, he certainly didn't deserve to be murdered for his views. Doubtless, he'd been coached, swine; and just as doubdess, it had killed him to say it.

"Thanks, Bryant. Four days ago, Nick Naylor, chief spokesman for the tobacco lobby, was abducted outside his office in Washington,
D.C. He was found, later that night, with a sign around his neck that

said he had been, and I quote, 'Executed for crimes against humanity.' His body was covered with a lethal number of nicotine patches, the kind prescribed for smokers who want to give up. According to doctors at George Washington University Hospital, he was near death when he was brought in. The FBI is investigating the case, which seems to indicate that at least one element of the anti-smoking movement has adopted the tactics of terrorists. Mr. Naylor joins us this morning from his bed at George Washington University hospital. Good morning."

"Good morning, Katie."

"I know this has been quite an ordeal for you. My first question to you—How
did
you survive? Reports are that you were literally covered with patches."

"Well, Katie, I guess you could say that smoking saved my life."

"How?"

"As a smoker, a pastime I happen to enjoy along with fifty-five million other adult Americans, I was able to absorb the dosage, though it did almost kill me. If those policeman hadn't found me when they did, I wouldn't be chatting with you today."

"We'll get back to the issue of smoking—"

"If I might point out, Katie, this just goes to prove what we've been saying for some time now, namely, don't mess with these nicotine patches. They're killers."

"But not if you use them as directed, surely."

"Katie, out of respect for your viewers, I won't go into what these things did to me, the nausea, the projectile vomiting, the paroxysmal atrial tachycardia, the cutting off of blood to the brain, the numbness and cold in your extremities, the horrible skin rash, the blurred vision and migrainous neuralgia. So I won't go into all that, except to say, If that's what a bunch of these patches can do, well, huh, I can only imagine what
just one
could do to a normal, healthy smoker. So put me down for a big resounding, Just say no."

"We understand that a note from the kidnappers was delivered to the
Washington Sun."

"I'm not sure I'm supposed to comment on that, Katie."

"It's in today's edition."

"It is?"

"So it's already out there. Would you like to hear what it says?" "Uh . . ."

"Quote, Nick Naylor is responsible for the deaths of billions—" "Billions? Millions, surely." "No, it says billions."

"Well, that's absurd. I've only been with the Academy for six years, so even if you accepted the 435,000-a-year figure, which of course is completely nonsense anyway, I would only have been quote responsible unquote for what, two-point-six million. So I don't know where this individual is getting 'billions' from? What am I, McDonald's?"

"Should I go on?"

"Please, yes, by all means, I'm fascinated."

"He was dispatched as a warning to the tobacco industry. If they don't stop making cigarettes right now, we will dispatch others."

"Was this by any chance written on the surgeon general's letterhead?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"I thought I recognized her style. No, of course, I'm kidding, Katie. Humor, you know. The best medicine.
..."

"Do you have any idea who might have done this to you?"

"No, but if those people are listening, as I'm sure they are, being probably big fans of yours as I certainly am, I'd like to say to them, Come forward, turn yourselves in. I'm not going to press charges."

"You
won't?"

"No, Katie, I think people who would do something like this need help, more than anything."

"That's a very tolerant point of view."

"Well, Katie, you can't s
pell tolerance without the t
in
tobacco.
Our position all along has been, we understand there are people who care strongly about smoking. We're saying, Let's work together on this. Let's get some dialogue going. This is a big country, and there's plenty of room in it for smoking
and
nonsmoking areas."

The first call was from the Captain. "Brilliant, son,
brilliant."

BR called. "I gotta hand it to you, Nick, you blew us all away. We're out of breath here."

Jeannette came on. "Nick, you give
great
talking head."

Polly called, laughing. "What was
that
all about?" "It's not up to
me,"
Nick said. "I just hope it turns out to be Virginia they took me to and not Maryland." "Why?"

"Because," Nick said, "Virginia has the death penalty."

13

On
Nick's first day back at work, BR gave him a welcome-back speech in front of the whole staff. He made it sound as though Nick had outwitted his captors and escaped. In fact, Nick still had no idea how he had ended up on the Mall, but he doubted that he had outwitted them as it's difficult to outwit while having a heart attack and projectile vomiting. The staff treated him like a returning war hero. All the attention was starting to make him a little squirmy, and now here was BR suddenly sounding like Henry V at the b
attle of Agin
court, exhorting his happy band of brothers. Then he quoted Churchill during Britain's darkest hour: "Never give in," he said. "Never. Never.
Never!"

The staff stood up and applauded. Some had tears in their eyes. Well, he'd never seen anything like
this
at the Academy of Tobacco Studies. His kidnapping had had an amazing, morale-boosting effect. It was as if the long, uneasy truce between tobacco and the hostile world out there had finally broken down into open warfare, and by God, if this was war, then let it start here. They were ready. People who had never been inside a military base, much less on the business end of a gun, were walking around using phrases like
lock and load
and
incoming.
It was galvanizing, truly. Talk about esprit de corps. Nick was moved.

"Nick," said Gomez O'Neal, "a question." Gomez, tall, dark, pockmarked, with arms like bridge cable, was head of Issues Intelligence, the division in charge of coming up with personal information
about the private lives of prominent gaspers and tobacco litigants. He'd been in some unspecified branch of the government, and did not invite questions about his past. For vacations, he went on one-man survival treks in places like Baffin Island and the Gobi Desert. BR seemed not to like Gomez, but then Gomez did not seem to care; he was not the sort of person one casually fired, any more than presidents had been able to get rid ofj. Edgar Hoover.

"Shoot," Nick said, a figure of speech one used carefully around Gomez.

"You gonna quit smoking?"

There was nervous laughter. The truth of it was that Nick had not had a cigarette in over a week; the thought of putting any more nicotine into his system held little appeal. It occurred to him that this might even qualify him for workmen's comp.

They were all looking at him expecta
ntly
. He couldn't let them down. He was more than their spokesman now; he was their hero.

"Anyone got a smoke?" he said. Twenty people produced packs. He accepted a Camel, lit up, took just a little down into his lungs, and exhaled. It felt quite good, so he took another puff and let it out. People smiled approvingly.

Then spots appeared. Soon the whole Milky Way galaxy was pulsing through his optic nerve and he was in a cold sweat and the room and—oh no, not again, not in front of the whole staff. . . .

"Nick?" BR said.

"I'm fine," he said wobbily, putting the Camel down in an ashtray. The taste in his mouth. Uch. "Take it slow at first," BR said.

"Maybe you should start with filters," someone said helpfully.

There was this awkward silence as Nick stood there in front of them,
blinking, quietl
y reeling.

"Hey Nick," Jeff Tobias said. "Did you see the figures on female eighteen to twenty-ones?"

"Uh-uh." My kingdom for a wintergreen Life Saver. . . .

"Up twenty percent."

"Wonderful," Nick murmured.

BR added, "Wait until after Nick's anti-smoking campaign." Quite a few chuckles. "By the way, when do we get to see boards?"

"I'm videoconferencing with Sven this afternoon," Nick said, noticing that his fingers had gone cold again. Should he call Dr. Williams?
You smoked a cigarette?

"I'm sure we're all eager to see what he's come up with. Okay," BR said, "now I'd like to turn the meeting over to Carlton, who is going to brief us on some new security procedures."

Carlton warmed up his audience with a joke about two guys who go camping and a grizzly bear attacks them in the middle of the night and one guy puts on his sneakers and starts lacing them up. The other guys says, "Why are you putting on sneakers, you can't outrun a grizzly bear." And his friend tells him, "I don't have to outrun the bear, I only have to outrun you." The point, Carlton said, was that in anti-terrorism, a ph
rase that put everyone into buttl
ock, you win by making the terrorists pick on the other guy. People glanced uneasily at each other.
We few, we happy band of brothers.

Warming to his message—and was Carlton ever in his element— he emphasized the importance of
not setting patterns.
Everyone should leave for work at a different time every day, take a different route every day, be alert to strangers, especially ones wearing uniforms. He pas
sed out photocopied sheets entitl
ed
what to do if you find yourself locked in a car trunk
. People stared at it, hemorrhaging macho.
Locked . . . in a trunk?

"Now let's talk about explosives." This part of his presentation went on for a full quarter-hour, during which he enumerated some three dozen types of bombs, including one that was attached to your windshield wiper blades. "Turn on the wipers and boom, eye-level, in the kisser." Betty O'Malley went pale.

BR interjected, "Now give us the good news." Carlton opened a case and passed out little black things that looked like beepers. They were electronic locator devices, like the ones in life rafts that send out emergency signals. If anyone was snatched, they should push the two
little
buttons together and the whole U.S. government would be alerted. Then he opened another case and gave everyone little canisters of pepper gas. These were to be spritzed into the faces of any suspicious individuals. But only after they'd made the first move. And only if it looked like they were about to kill you. Otherwise, do exa
ctly
what they said, even if they wanted you to get into that locked
trunk.

Any questions? By now you could have heard a pin drop, and the floor was carpeted.

"I'm not sure I understand," said Charley Noble, from Legislative Affairs, "are we
all
targets?"

"I don't know the answer to that," BR said, "but I'm not prepared to take any chances. Carlton has arranged for everyone here, and I mean everyone, no exceptions—except of course for you, Nick—to spend next weekend at a facility in West Virginia where they train government people in anti-terrorist driving tactics."