Thank You for Smoking

11

The novocaine had worn off by now, but Nick still felt pretty good and loose as he roared out of the Saint Euthanasius parking lot ahead of his bodyguards, and after the way he'd handled the Rev, entitled to his sense of triumph. The Soma had crept in on its little cat feet and was now purring in his central nervous system, hissing away all bad thoughts. He lost Mike and the boys by executing a sudden left turn at a red light off Massachusetts Avenue, narrowly avoiding an oncoming dry cleaning van and almost flattening a group of Muslims returning from prayer at the mosque; at which point it occurred to him that Dr. Wheat had told him not even to drive, much less play Parnelli Jones in city traffic.

Jeannette reached him on the car phone to say that she needed to get with him on media planning for next week's Environmental Protection Agency's report on second-hand smoke. Yet another bit of good news on the tobacco horizon. Erhardt, their scientist in residence, was cranking up the report about tobacco retarding the onset of Parkinson's disease.

"I'll be there in ten minutes," Nick said, feeling a little tired at the prospect of another meeting. His whole life was meetings. Did they have this many meetings in the Middle Ages? In Ancient Rome and Greece? No wonder their civilizations died out, they probably figured decadence and the Visigoths were preferable to more meetings.

"I'm going to swing by Cafe Ole, pick up some cappuccino," he yawned, feeling a little Somatose. "You want some?"

"God, please."

He parked in the basement garage — no sight of Mike, Jeff, and Tom, he noted with satisfaction; some bodyguards — and made his was upstairs to the Atrium. There were a dozen food places here with names like Peking Gourmet (very low mein and chicken MSG), Pasta Pasta (sold by weight), RBY (Really Bodacious Yoghurt), and So What's Not To Like Bagel. There were tables around the fountain where people could eat. It was a nice place to eat lunch, especially during the Washington summers when no one wanted to venture out onto melting sidewalks.

Nick was standing in front of the counter at Cafe Ole waiting for his two double cappuccinos when he became aware of someone staring at him. He turned but didn't see anyone, except for a bum. Having been born in 1952, he still thought of them as "bums," rather than "the homeless," though he was careful never to call them that. In fact, he had tried to set up a program whereby the cigarette companies would distribute free cigarettes to homeless shelters, but the gaspers got wind of it and got HHS to stop it, so it was no free smokes for those who needed them most.

Nick recognized most of the bums who would pandhandle in the Atrium until Security chased them away, but not this one. Quite a specimen he was, a hulking, big figure, and talk about the Grunge Look — he was wearing the remnants of about a dozen overcoats. The hair hung down in greasy clumps over his face, which looked like it had last seen soap and water during the seventies. He approached.

"Gaaaquadder?" His eyes were clearer than most of these guys', which looked like bad egg yolks.

Nick gave him a dollar and asked him if he wanted a cigarette.

"Gaaaablessyoubruhh." Nick gave him the rest of the pack.

"Gaaaamash?" Nick gave him a disposable lighter. His cappuccinos were ready. He headed off for the escalator that led up to the lobby where the office elevators were. The homeless guy followed along. Nick wasn't looking for a relationship here, but being a lapsed Catholic, he would never be entirely sure, despite his certainty that it was all a crock, that one of these wretches wasn't the mufti Christ checking to see who was being charitable toward the least of his creatures, and who wasn't and was therefore going to have such a hot time in the eternal hereafter as to make a Washington summer seem Antarctic by comparison.

"What's your name?" Nick asked. "Reggggurg."

"Nick. You from around here?"

"Balmurrr."

"Nice town." They were on the escalator now. "Well," Nick said, "hang in there."

He felt something poke him in the middle of his back, like an umbrella tip. Then he heard a voice — it came from the bum but it was a whole new one — say, "Don't turn around. Don't move, don't speak. That's the muzzle of a nine millimeter, and if you don't do everything I tell you to, when I tell you to, you'll be on a slab at the morgue with a tag on your toe by the time that coffee cools."

As introductions went, it was attention-getting. They reached the top of the escalator. There were so many people all over the place Nick wanted to shout, Help! but the voice, the voice had been very emphatic that he not do that.

"See that limo over there?" said the bum. "Walk toward it very slowly. Do not run."

Nick did not run. The limo's windows were opaque-black. They had about fifty feet to go. Here he was, all these people — he was being kidnapped in broad daylight, in front of hundreds of people. And— why?

He paused about five feet from the car. The gun dug into his spine. "Keep moving."

He should be remembering details. It was black. No, dark blue. Cadillac. No, Lincoln. No, Cadillac. That would be a big help. So few limousines in Washington.

The rear door opened.

All those Beirut hostage news stories flashed before him. He was last seen being forced into the trunk of a black sedan four years ago. At least they weren't putting him in the trunk.

Nick became aware of pain in his hands. He was holding his two cappuccinos in their Styrofoam cups. His heart was beating fast. No need for caffeine.

He turned round and threw the cappuccinos at the pistol-packing bum. They hit him on the chest and bounced off. The lids held. The cups fell to the ground and burst open, scalding his ankles with foamy cappuccino. How many times in his life had the plastic tops come off when they weren't supposed to, burning his hands, his lap, ruining the upholstery, making brown stains in the crotch of tan summer suit pants, usually before an important meeting. But no, now, the one time in his life it would have actually helped for the tops to come off, . they had held, the insolent, mocking little plastic bastards.

The bum shoved him backward into the limousine. Nick's head took a whack on the door jamb on his way in. Hands pulled him in, and while the lights of the Milky Way pulsated through his optic nerve, a black silk hood went over his head and his hands were efficiently cinched behind him with what felt like garbage bag ties. The car took off, slowly, into the traffic.

"Hello, Neek. It's so good to meet you finally."

It was a strange accent, mittel-European, creepy and oleaginous.

"What's the deal, here?" Nick said.

"Can you breathe okay under de hood? It would be terrible if you couldn't breathe, wouldn't it?" A little cackle of laughter. It sounded familiar, like.

"Where are we going?" Nick asked.

"What an incredibly unrealistic question, Neek. You're expecting maybe an address?" That accent. That's it — Peter Lorre, the actor who played whatsisname, the greasy little hustler in Casablanca, Uguarte. Only Lorre, as far as Nick could recall, was long dead.

"Is this for ransom money?"

"It's for de mortgage, Neek." Laughter. Nick decided to dispense with further conversational ice-breakers.

After about half an hour, the car stopped, doors opened, hands pulled him out, doors opened and shut, muffled voices spoke, they went up a flight of steps, down a hall, another door opened and shut, he was pushed down onto a chair, his ankles were tied to its legs. None of this was reassuring. The hood stayed on. That was reassuring, assuming they didn't want him to see their faces. The tie binding his wrist was undone, and now came a part he really didn't like at all, not one bit: they started to remove his clothes.

"Excuse me. What's happening?"

"Don't worry, Neek, dere aren't any women here. You don't have to be embarrassed." That voice. It was creepy and unnerving. That was it for Peter Lorre movies, never mind that Casablanca was one ofhis favorites. "Oh, I'm so sorry, you must be dying for a cigarette."

In fact, a cigarette would be good right about now, yes.

"On the udder hand, if you wait a leetle while, you'll have all de nicotine you can handle." Laughter. And not a nourishing kind of laughter either, more what you'd expect from someone with severe psychological problems. Maybe he should try to keep up some conversation.

"Can we talk about this? Usually, they let you know why they're kidnapping you. Otherwise, like, what's the point?"

"You know why, Neek. We want you to stop killing people. So many people. More dan half a million people a year. And dat's just in the United States."

"There's no data to support that," Nick said, who perhaps could be forgiven, this once, for using the singular rather than plural verb form.

"Neek! Dat's not going to woork. You're not on de Oprah Winfrey show anymore."

"Well, it's nowhere near half a million. Even hardcore gaspers only claim as high as 435,000."

"Gaspers. I like dat, Neek. Is dat what you call people who want the tobacco companies to stop committing human sacrifice for the sake of their profits?"

Nick was down to his boxer shorts now. He heard the sound of cardboard boxes being opened. With a black hood over your head, you become very curious about noises. More ripping, like plastic wrapping.

A hand pressed against his chest over his heart. He leapt up in his chair, straining at his ankles and wrists. The hand came away and he felt something left behind on his chest, something sticky and clinging, like a bandage.

Another hand, or the same hand, clamped down on his skin next to the first spot and left another whatever it was. Again, again, again, till his entire chest was covered, then the arms, the back, the legs from below the boxers to the ankles.

Then his forehead and cheeks. Every square inch of him was covered. When he shifted in his chair, he felt like one adhesive mass, a Band-Aid mummy.

"Look, can we get a little dialogue going here?"

"Don't you remember, Neek, how I told you on de Larry King show dat we were going to dispatch you?"

Dispatch? Dis? Patch? Nick grasped, reluctantly, that this lunatic had just covered him head to toe in nicotine patches. Which meant that a massive, indeed, probably lethal amount of nicotine was at this moment being delivered, through his skin, into his bloodstream. Not that there was any scientific proof that nicotine was bad for you.

He made some calculations. Were there twenty-two milligrams in a patch? Something like that. And a cigarette contained about one milligram, so one patch was about one pack… felt as though they'd plastered him with about forty of them… which made… forty packs… four cartons? Even by industry standards, that was a serious day's smoking.

"Let me read you something," Peter Lorre said. "Dis comes with the patches, in de boxes. Under 'Adverse Reactions.' Dis is my favorite part. I don't care so much about the incidence of tumors in the cheek pouches of hamsters and forestomachs of F344 rats. I don't even know what an F344 rat is. Anyway, dere are so many adverse reactions here, I don't hardly know where to begin. Why don't I read only de big ones?"

Nick was starting to feel a little queasy. And his pulse seemed… well, he was nervous, for sure, but it was starting to beat pretty fast.

"Look, I think it's perfectly legitimate that non-smokers feel they're entitled to breathe smoke-free air. Our industry has been working hand in hand with citizens groups and the government to ensure that—"

"Neek. Just listen, okay? 'Erythema,' it says. Do you know what dat means? I had to look it up in a dictionary. All it means is redness of the skin, like from chemical poisoning or sunburn. I would say you are going to have very red skin, Nick. Maybe you can get a part in a movie playing an Indian. Heh heh. Oh, I'm sorry, Neek. Dat was in very poor taste."

"My industry does forty-eight billion a year in revenues. I think we're looking at an attractive opportunity situation here. I think everyone in this room is looking at early retirement in Saint Barth's, or wherever."

"Now dis I can understand. 'Abdominal pain, somnolence'—dat's sleeping, isn't it? — 'skin rash, sweating. Back pain, constipation, dyspepsia, nausea, myalgia.' Here we go again with dese words. Ah, okay, dizziness, headache, insomnia.' I don't understand, they tell you sleepiness then they tell you insomnia. We'll just have to find out. You know, you could be making an incredible contribution to science. You could be written up in de New England Journal of Medicine. What else? 'Pharyngitis'? I think dat must mean when your pharynx is broken, don't you? 'Sinusitis and… dysmenorrhea.' I don't even want to know what dat means, it sounds so horrible. You can tell me about it later."

Burning. His skin was burning. "I would guess that you could start by asking for five million. And work your way up from there. I don't want to boast, but I'm an extremely important part of our overall media strategy, so—"

"But I don't want any money, Neek."

"Well, what do you want? I mean, I'm all ears, here." His heart. Whoa. Ba-boom, ba-boom.

"What does any of us want? A little financial security, de love of a good woman, not too big a mortgage, crisp bacon."

Nick's mouth was starting to go very dry and taste like it was wrapped in tinfoil. His head began to pound. His heart was going like a jackhammer. And something was brewing down there in his stomach that was going to come up… soon.

"Uuuh."

"By de way, did you see de story in Lancet? About dis incredible fact that in de next ten years 250 million people in the industrialized world are going to die from smoking? One in five, Neek. Isn't dat amazing? Dat's five times how many died in de last world war."

Boomboomboomboom. "Urrrrrrrg."

"Dat's the entire population of de United States."

"I'll quit. I'll… work for the. Lung. Association."

"Good, Neek. Boys, don't you think Nick is making excellent progress?"

"Urrrrrr."

"You don't sound so good, Neek."

"— rrrrr—" Bumbumbumbum. His heart was knocking on his rib cage, saying I want out.

"Look at de bright side, Neek. After dis, I bet you're never going to want to smoke anodder cigarette again."

"— roop."