"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 di
sease, nationally. Any cho
lesterol 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."
"Nick," BR said in a parental tone, "I think it's time you had some representation. Just
...
in the event."
"In the event of what? I didn't do it
. It's the one thing in my life
about which I can say, with actual conviction—I am innocent."
"Nick, you don't have to convince me. I'm on your side. But let's at least do this thing right."
"Great,
tobacco spokesman hires lawyer."
BR winced. "I see your point. But if this goes any further, I'm calling Steve Carlinsky."
"Steve Carlinsky? Who defended whatsisname, the Dip 'n' Glow guy, Scarparillo?"
"He's the best. And he got him off, which, considering he was facing fifteen to twenty-five for selling repackaged radioactive waste as furniture stripper, was something of a legal triumph. Tom Salley told me it was the most brilliant defense he's ever seen, and he worked for Edward Bennett Williams. Where are you going?"
"To blow up the Holland Tunnel."
"What?"
"If I'm going to be arrested by the FBI," Nick said with asperity, "I might as well have some fun."
Nick was sitting in his office staring at the poster of the Lucky Strike doctor, stewing, when Jack Bein called.
"Nick!
You were tremendous."
"You saw it?" Nick said, surprised. Jack
didn't strike him as a Nightlin
e-watching type.
"Not personally. But you were fabulous. And I voted for the guy's uncle, so you know where
I'm
coming from. You know, I can't eat cheese. Gives me a headache. Listen, I was just with Jeff, and by the way, there's no hurt feelings about the dinner, so put it out of your mind."
"A great relief," Nick said.
"Now we've got some incredible news. Jerry and Voltan—the producers—have agreed to come down on their percentage of Mace and Fiona's product placement compensation, so that means Mace and Fiona will have to come down."
"Well there's certainly a lot of room for improvement, Jack. I gave my people those numbers and they went into cardiac arrest."
"Nick, Jeff wants this to happen, so it's going to happen. Don't worry about the numbers. We'll make the numbers fit. Now, Jeff met with Mace and Fiona's reps and here's the situation vis a vis them...."
* * *
Nick stared into Bert's fireplace and watched the rotating purple and yellow light pretending to be flames. Bobby Jay had not found out anything from his FBI contacts. And Polly thought he ought to hire Steve Carlinsky right away, which annoyed Nick so much he changed the subject.
"Mace McQuade and Fiona Fontaine have quote qualms unquote about quote glorifying smoking unquote."
Bobby Jay shook his head as he stirred his coffee with his steel hook, a custom Polly found uncouth.
"Qualms,"
he snorted, "from people who make their livelihood glorifying sex and violence."
"What about your Durk Fraser ad campaign?" Polly said. "He made
his
millions playing a savage policeman, and now he's your poster boy. 'I'm on SAFETY.' "
"Durk Fraser is a highly moral human being," Bobby Jay said, "who always stood up for what was right and fine."
"Right, while torturing confessions out of minorities."
"That was one movie, and the fact is that most crime is committed by minorities, a point that some bleeding heart liberals find difficult to admit."
"Just because I find Durk Fraser repellent—
and
a bad actor— doesn't make me a liberal."
"Durk Fraser," Bobby Jay said, "is five times the actor Mace McQuade is, and he never had to wiggle his bare butt on the screen. If I were Nick, I'd tell that boy and his agent to go straight to hell and don't even stop to clean the bugs off the windshield. And as for that Rahab . . ."
"Who?"
"The painted whore of Babylon." Two espressos and Bobby Jay became a flame-snorting Old Testament moralist. "I am familiar with the complete
oo
vre
of Fiona Fontaine, and while I do not deny that the Lord endowed her with natural beauty—which she defiled by having her tits pumped full of plastic—I do not frankly see what all the fuss is about. Not wearing underpants does not make you an actress."
"So," Polly said, "does this mean no smoking in
Sector Six?"
"Oh no," Nick said, "two million dollars—each—goes a long way toward qualm abatement. I have to hand it to Jeff Megall; for a guy who eats transparent sushi, he's ver
y smart. He came up with a bril
liant solution: shooting duplicate scenes, in which Mace and Fiona smoke, but only for foreign distribution. This way no one here at home will see them smoking. Just billions of Asians, who want to be just like Mace and Fiona. Jeff calls it 'product-smart placement.' Like the bombs."
"That
is
smart. So Mace and Fiona don't mind quote glorifying smoking unquote as long as it's for the benefit of. . ." "Gooks," Bobby Jay said. "I hate that word," Polly said.
Bobby Jay held up his hook. "I left twenty pints of blood and half an arm over there," he said, "so I suppose I can call them anything I
please."
"He's got a point," Nick said. "Megall came up with even another idea: shooting the scenes with blank cigarette packs, then they can digitalize in different brand names, according to country."
"Wow," Polly marveled.
"So in the movie print that goes to Japan, they're smoking a Japanese brand, in the one that goes to Indonesia, Indonesian, and in the Hungarian print, a Hungarian brand like
Th
roatscraper.
An actual name. In Eastern Europe they
want
more tar and nicotine."
"Smart."
"Actually," Nick said, "I don't know why we didn't think of it. It's already being done abroad, using transponders to superimpose logos on satellite TV transmissions. So the Madonna concert in Spain becomes the Salem Madonna concert in Hong Kong. You can do things over there you just can't here. Laura Branigan, Tiffany, Stevie Wonder, Roberta Flack, Huey Lewis, Luciano Pavarotti, Tom Berenger, Roger Moore, James Coburn, Jimmy Connors, and John McEnroe have all endorsed cigarettes overseas, either directly or indirectly. And they don't get any grief about it here, because nobody sees it."
"But what about here? The whole idea was to promote the product here, wasn't it?"
"Jeff says no problem. It's only the big actors who pull down eight, ten million a picture who can afford the luxury of quote qualms unquote. He says we'll be in three Christmas movies. By
this
Christmas."
"How would I go about getting in touch with Jeff Megall?" Polly said.
Under the circumstances, Nick thought it made
sense to meet Heather not at Il
Peccatore but at a more out-of-the-way place, so he picked the River Cafe in Foggy Bottom. He got there first. It had been a trying day, listening to threats by the governor of Vermont, among others. He ordered a vodka negroni on the rocks, but reminded himself, as it massaged its way up his brain stem, of the need for mental clarity. On tonight's agenda was not how to get Heather into the sack, but how to keep Heather from getting him sacked. At this point, she seemed hotter to impress her prospective employers at the
Sun
than she was for him.
She arrived, right on time, all smiles, and in a dress that surely had been put on after work, for his benefit. It would have created havoc in any newsroom.
"Hi!" she said. "Am I late? I came right from work."
They started with a
little
small talk, then moved on to major media gossip—who was going to replace Morton Kondracke on
The McLaughlin Group.
Boy, Nick thought, the things we care about in Washington. . . .
Finally, after they'd both refused dessert and settled in with their decaf cappuccinos, Heather ventured: "You know, the more I think about the FBI investigating you, the more burned I get."
"Appalling, isn't it?"
"That's why I think it's so important to get it out there. Your tax dollars at work. I think they'll back off the moment this sees print."
"Is
this seeing print?"
"Yes," she said nervously, "I was able to confirm independently that they're looking into you. So I wouldn't be violating any confidence."
Nick suppressed the urge to congratulate her on having sunk to his own chthonic ethical level. He merely nodded. "Fair enough."
Heather seemed surprised by his compliance. "You're not pissed?"
"No. Actually, I think you're right. I think they probably would back off. Write as you will. Though I'd certainly appreciate it if you didn't quote me."
"No, of course. You're sure?"
"Sure. In fact," he leaned forward in his best revolutionary hunch and whispered, "completely, utterly, and totall
y off the record, that
would be kind of. . . for the best."
"Oh?"
The hook was in.
"Let's get out of here," Nick said.
They walked down I Street toward the Watergate. An appropriate direction, given what he was up to. Heather said, "What did you mean, 'for the best'?"
"Well," Nick laughed, "would you want the FBI going through
your
drawers?"
"Nick, are you trying to tell me something?"
Nick grinned. "Only that people will do amazing things if the stakes are high enough."
"You did kidnap yourself?"
"I didn't say that."
He dropped Heather off at her front door with a chaste kiss, confident that there would be no story. She would now have her eyes set on a much bigger story, and there wasn't one. She'd end up stuck in gridlock.
22
Or
dinarily, Nick enjoyed appearing before Senate subcommittees. It made you feel that for a brief, shiny moment, you'd taken part in the great serial drama of American history. The bright TV lights, the pitcher and glass of water", the green felt tabletop, the hum and thrum of the spectators, the senators trying to look like Roman busts, the crab-scuttling of their aides as they pretended to avoid the TV cameras, and now, Nick noted, this new twist on stenography—stenographers speaking into cones held over their mouths.