Christopher Buckley - Thank You for Smoking

Nick said, "Let me try out a headline on you: dying tumbleweed man rejects tobacco lobby hush money. And that's The Wall Street Journal headline. The tabloid version would probably be something

like merchant of death to tumbleweed man: shut up and die!"

"It's not a bribe," the Captain said with feeling, "not at all. You're going out there on wings of angels, son. This is altruism at its finest." "Now, honestly. "

"Absolutely. A gesture of profound humanitarianism. Here's a man going around calling us merchants of death and how do we respond?"

"By trying to sue him for breach of contract."

"That's water under the bridge. We're proposing to put his grandchildren through college so that they won't have to pump gas and night-manage convenience stores like their parents. Plus we're throwing in a half million dollars just to say, 'No hard feelings.' Talk about turning the other cheek. I think Christ himself would say, 'That's mighty white of you, boys.' And he merely admonished us to love our enemies. He never said we had to make the sumbitches rich."

"You're saying," Nick said, "that we're just. giving him the money?"

"Well, what have I been saying? Of course that's what I mean."

"He doesn't have to sign anything?"

"Not a thing."

"No gag agreement?"

"What's your problem, son. Do you not understand the mother tongue? No. Though, obviously, you might tell him that we would appreciate it if he kept our gesture private. A family matter. You might add that if he'd come to us in the first place, instead of to the press, we would have helped him out. Tobacco takes care of its own."

"Well," Nick said, feeling relieved, "I don't have any problem

with that." The Captain, in his hospital bed, contemplating his own

mortality, must have decided to make his peace with his enemies.

"The way I see it," the Captain chuckled, "is the sumbitch'll be so damn overcome with gratitude he'll have to shut up. Or if we get truly lucky, he'll have a heart attack at the sight of all that money."

Gazelle buzzed him on the intercom to tell him that agents from the FBI were here to see him.

Agent Allman, the friendly-looking one, shook Nick's hand. Agent Monmaney, looking like he'd just had a lunch of ground glass and nails, merely nodded.

"Did you get them?" Nick said.

"Who?" Agent Monmaney said.

"The kidnappers. Who else?"

Monmaney stared. What was it with him? Nick turned to Allman, who seemed to be giving Nick's office the once-over. Strange bedside manners, these two.

"Am I missing something here?" Nick said.

"The investigation is proceeding," Monmaney said.

"Well," Nick said, "is there something I can help you with?"

"Is there?" Monmaney said. Great, more tough-guy Zen.

Nick said, "Is there something you fellows want to talk about? Or did you just drop by to reassure me?"

Agent Allman was looking at the poster of the Lucky Strike-endorsing doctor. He chuckled. "Funny."

"Yes," Nick said. "My job would have been a lot easier back then."

"My dad smoked Luckies." "Is that a fact?" Nick said.

"Uh-huh," Allman said, in a tone that made Nick suspect that his father had died a ghastly, protracted death from lung cancer. Swell, just what he needed on his side, an anti-smoking zealot.

"Is he," Nick groped, "was he… in law enforcement?"

"No, he owned a garage. He's retired, in Florida."

Nick felt great relief that Papa Allman was still among the living. Allman said, "The sun'll probably get him before the cigarettes."

"Hah," Nick said.

"Does anyone else use your office phone?" Agent Monmaney said. "My phone? Uh, sure, possibly."

" 'Sure, possibly'?"

"Maybe. Why?" "No reason."

Nick and Monmaney stared at each other. Allman said, "Have you ever used nicotine patches before, yourself?"

"Me?" Nick said. He was getting a very uncomfortable feeling from this line of questioning. "I used to enjoy smoking. I wish I still could."

"You certainly picked an extreme way to give up," Allman said, holding up Nick's World War I trench-knife paperweight. "This is mean."

"Excuse me?" Nick said. "You said, 'Picked'?" "I said that?"

"Yes," Nick said firmly, "you did." "Did I?" Allman said to Monmaney. "I didn't hear," Monmaney said.

Nick sucked in his chest. "Why," he said, "do I get the feeling this is an interrogation?"

"I just saw an article in one of the scientific journals on skin cancer," Agent Allman said. "Pretty scary. You've really got to watch it these days."

"Yes," Nick said with asperity, "you certainly do."

"Mr. Naylor," said Agent Monmaney, "you're getting a lot of favorable publicity as a result of this incident."

"Well, it's not every day a lobbyist is abducted, tortured, and nearly killed," Nick said, "though a lot of people probably think it should happen more often."

"That wasn't my point."

"What was your point, exactly?"

"You're portraying yourself as a martyr. A hero."

"Agent Monmaney," Nick said, "do you have a problem with cigarettes?"

The faintest trace of a smile played on Monmaney's lupine features, not a nourishing smile. "Not since I quit."

"I'd say this," Nick said. "For the first time since I took this job, I'm getting fair publicity. Now at least they wait until the fourth paragraph in the story to compare me to Goebbels."

"Funny," Agent Allman said. Agent Monmaney did not share in

the amusement.

The three held a staring bee. Nick was determined not to break the silence.

"You received a raise recently," Agent Monmaney said. "Uh-huh," Nick said.

"A very considerable one. They doubled your salary." "More or less," Nick said.

"I'd say," said Agent Allman, rising up off the sofa beneath the Luckies doctor, "that you deserve it. You seem to be doing a very competent job promoting cigarettes."

"Thank you," Nick said tardy.

"We'll be in touch," Agent Allman said.

Stress — which Nick was now distinctly feeling — tended to make him horny. He went out onto the balcony off his office and looked down at the fountain. It was a warm spring day outside and the office women were in their summer dresses. He found himself watching one, below, walking along as she ate her frozen yoghurt, a lovely, tall, busty blonde in a sheer sleeveless dress, stockings, and heels, taking long, slow licks of her cone. Even at this altitude he could make out her bra straps. Heather did the bra strap thing to very good effect. It was a trick among certain professional Washington women of bounteous endowment. They wouldn't go so far as to wear too-small sweaters or appear too decollete — sex had to be flaunted in a more subversive way here — so instead they'd make sure a bit of strap showed for the photographer and pretend to be embarrassed when they saw it.

Looking down on the atrium, he began to dream. He dimmed the lights, got rid of all the people eating yoghurt and calzone. Around the fountain he assembled a full orchestra consisting of stunningly toothsome women wearing nothing but their instruments. He put the cellists out front. Yes. There's just something about nude women cellists. He had them play the cigarette song from act I in Carmen, where the young Sevillian men are serenaded by their sweethearts, the girls who work in the cigarette factory. The Academy had underwritten the opera at the Kennedy Center two years ago. Ever since, Nick had been humming it in the shower.

C'est fumee, c'est fumee!

In the air, we follow with our eyes,

The smoke, the smoke,

that rises toward the sky, sweet-smelling smoke.

How pleasantly it goes, to your head, to your head,