Christopher Buckley - Thank You for Smoking

"Who are they?" she said after the introductions, pointing to Mike, Jeff, and Tommy, his bodyguards.

"Off the record?"

"No," she smiled, "on the record. I'm sure that you're good company, but this isn't a social lunch."

That was encouraging. Nick explained, emphasizing that they were unnecessary.

She said, "I have spoken to a number of people who don't… I wouldn't call them major fans of yours."

"Well, that's tobacco for you." He picked up a menu. "The sole in flagrante is good."

" 'In flagrante'?"

"It's named after Senator Finisterre." Heather stared.

"You remember, he was interrupted in the middle of… in the back room here? Maybe you read about it?" Maybe sexual jokes of questionable taste — or wit — within sixty seconds of having met were. not such a good idea? With all that red hair she might be Catholic. "Everything's good. Pasta. Veal chop Valdostana, very good. The trout is excellent. Lot of almonds, if you like almonds."

She ordered salad and San Pellegrino water, which made him feel like a spurned waiter. Nick, feeling trapped inside his own recommendation, ordered the trout, though he did not particularly like trout with a lot of almonds.

"So," he said, "how long have you been a Moonie? I mean, how long have you been with the Moon?" Very good, two gaffes in two minutes. Why not follow up with something suave like "Your breasts are really incredible. Are they real?"

"A year," she said. "Do you mind if I tape?"

"Please," Nick said magnanimously.

She put her tape recorder on the table between them. "I'm always convinced that I'll get back to the office and there'll be nothing but static on it."

"I know." Perfume. Dioressense? Krizia? Fracas? Fracas, definitely.

"Is that Fracas you have on, by any chance?"

"No."

"Oh?"

"I interviewed Mick Jagger last year," she said, turning on the recorder, "when the Stones played at the Cap Center. When I got back all there was was hissing. I thought they were going to fire me. I had to reconstruct everything he said. I had to put it all in italics."

"Well," Nick said, "he's never said anything interesting." From the look Heather gave him he realized he was probably not going to score points with her by denigrating rock and roll's biggest icon. Not that being a Washington trade association spokesman wasn't incredibly sexy… "I mean," he said, "I am a Stones fan. It's just. " Move on, Nick.

"So," he said, "what's the focus of your piece?" Yes, let's talk about me. "You are."

"I suppose I should be flattered."

"I started out with the idea of writing about what I'm calling 'The New Puritanism.' "

"Oh yes. Lot of that going around. Olive?"

"No, thank you. I was going to talk to lobbyists for unpopular industries. Tobacco, guns, liquor, lead, asbestos, whaling, toxic waste dumpers, you know…"

"Your basic planet- and human-race — despoiling swine."

"Not necessarily," said Heather, blushing. "Then I saw you on the Oprah show and thought. something interesting going on in there."

"The idea being to find out how I'm able to live with myself." Nick tore into a bit of oven-hot bruschetta.

"No," she smiled, "I don't imagine that's a problem. Any more than it was for…"

"Goebbels?"

"I wasn't thinking of him," Heather said delicately, "but that is an interesting analogy. Is that how you see yourself?"

LOBBYIST SEES HIMSELF AS A GUCCI GOEBBELS.

"Not at all. I see myself as a mediator between two sectors of society that are trying to reach an accommodation. I guess you could say I'm a facilitator."

"Or enabler?"

"Beg pardon?"

Heather flipped through some pages of her notebook. " 'Mass murderer,' 'profiteer,' 'pimp,' 'bloodsucker,' 'child killer,' 'yuppie Mephistopheles,' here it is, 'mass enabler.' "

"What is that you're reading from?"

"Interviews. In preparation for our meeting today."

"Who did you talk to? The head of the Lung Association?"

"Not yet."

"Well, frankly, this doesn't sound like a very balanced article you're writing."

"You tell me — who else should I talk to?"

"Fifty-five million American smokers, for starters. Or how about some tobacco farmers whose only crime is to be treated like cocaine producers when they're growing a perfectly legal product. They might have a different view, you know."

"I hurt your feelings. I'm sorry. Actually, I was going to talk to a tobacco farmer."

"I know a lot of them. Fine people. Salt of the earth. I'll give you some phone numbers."

"I guess what I'm trying to get at is, why do you do this? What motivates you, exactly?"

"I get asked that all the time. People expect me to answer, 'The challenge,' or, 'The chance to prove that the Constitution means what it says.' " He paused thoughtfully. "You want to know why I really do it?" Another thoughtful pause. "To pay the mortgage."

This manful statement appeared to make no impression on Heather Holloway, other than mild disappointment. "Someone told me that's probably what you'd say."

"Did they?"

"It's a kind of yuppie Nuremberg defense, isn't it?" "What is it with the Y-word? That's a very eighties word. This is the nineties." "Excuse me."

"And, I mean," he said, looking offended, "are you calling me a Nazi?"

"No. Actually, you're the one making Third Reich analogies."

"Well, it's one thing to call yourself a Nazi. That's self-deprecation. For someone else to call you one is deprecation. And it's not very nice."

"I apologize. But a mortgage isn't much of a life goal, is it?"

"Absolutely. Ninety-nine percent of everything that is done in the world, good and bad, is done to pay a mortgage. The world would be a much better place if everyone rented. Then there's tuition. Boy, has that been a force for evil in the modern world."

"You're married?"

"Divorced," Nick said a bit too quickly. "Kids?"

"One son. But he's practically grown up."

"How old is he?"

"Twelve."

"He must be quite precocious. So how does he feel about what you do?"

"Frankly, twelve-year-olds don't care where the money comes from. I could be a vivisectionist and I don't think it would make a whole lot of difference as long as I keep him in Rollerblades and snowboards. Not that I equate vivisectionists and the tobacco industry. As a matter of fact, I feel very strongly about animals being, you know, used for dubious scientific purposes. The ones they torture out at NIH. My God, those poor little bunnies. It would break your heart to see them in their little cages, puffing away."

"Puffing?"

"Those smoking machines they attach to them. Criminal. Listen, if I had to smoke like seven thousand cigarettes a day, I'd get sick, probably. And I consider myself a heavy smoker."

"But doesn't it bother you being vilified like this? There are easier ways of paying mortage and tuition."

"If it makes other people happy to have me play the role of villain, when all I really do is provide information about a legal and, I might add, time-honored industry, fine, no problem. Whatever."

She flipped through her notepad, making Nick suspicious.

"You were a reporter at WRTK."

"Um-hum," Nick said, lighting up. "Do you mind if I smoke?" Heather seemed to find this amusing. "No, please. Isn't their nickname W-Right To Know?" "Um-hum."

"Is this an uncomfortable subject for you?"

"Not at all," Nick said, thoughtfully exhaling straight up so it wouldn't go in her face, though this made him feel like a metal dolphin in a fountain.

"I looked up the news clips," she said delicately, "but if you're agreeable, it would be better if you could tell me about it. So I get everything right."