Thank You for Smoking

About the time they estimated Peter Lorre would have removed his makeup and changed back into his regular clothes, Polly stepped out of the van, tugging down at her hot pants, which had ridden so high up in the car that half her southern hemispheres were on display. Very nice hemispheres, Nick observed. Bobby Jay chambered the round into the riot gun that he had borrowed from the SAFETY museum collection.

"That is a large bullet," Nick said.

"Brits use 'em on Irish Catholics." Bobby Jay grinned. "By regulation, they're supposed to aim at the legs. But this SAS major who came to lunch with me and Stockton told us" — he mimicked a British accent—" 'Sometimes we miss.' "

Nick winced at the thought of a hard-rubber projectile the size of a vibrator connecting with his tender vittles at five hundred feet per second.

Peter Lorre walked out the stage door and turned in their direction.

"He's alone, good." They'd observed, over two weeks, that the other actors didn't seem to gravitate toward him. Fine. Now they wouldn't have to follow him.

As Peter Lorre walked past the van, Nick opened the rear door just enough to give Bobby Jay aiming room.

On cue, Polly intersected with him on the sidewalk. "Got a match?" she said.

Peter Lorre looked her up and down. He smiled at her. "Don't you know smoking's bad for you?"

"Shoot that asshole," Nick hissed.

Bobby Jay took aim.

"Want to have some fun?" Polly asked him. "I don't pay for fun."

"Tell you what," Polly said. "You look like such a stud, I'll do you free."

Peter Lorre said, "I don't sleep with whores."

"Too bad," Polly said, moving away, "you'll never know what you missed."

Bobby Jay fired. There was a loud shotgun blast and ten ounces of hard black rubber hit Peter Lorre in the solar plexus, knocking every every cubic centimeter of air out of his lungs. He went down onto his back. Nick and Bobby Jay jumped out of the van and dragged him into it, Bobby Jay looping his hook through his pants belt. Polly jumped into the driver's seat, pulled off her wig, and drove.

"This boy is out," said Bobby Jay, checking Loire's vitals.

Nick gave him a kick in the ribs. "Now he's really out."

"I thought the point was not to kill him," Bobby Jay said.

"He'll live."

They cinched the plastic police bands tightly around his wrists behind him and put the black hood over his head.

They were under the river and into New Jersey before they heard him groan and start to shift around — painfully, Nick hoped. They waited another five minutes until they saw him lift up his head to try to take stock of his situation before they activated Phase Two. Satisfied that Peter Lorre was fully conscious, Nick pressed Play and the sound of their altered voices came over the speaker. They'd tested it several times to make sure that it would be audible in the rear of the van, where they had placed him, on the floor, right by the rear doors.

first voice: Slow down, let's not get a speeding ticket.

second voice: That'd be a fucking bummer.

first voice: He still out?

second voice: Yeah, he looks out.

first voice: Well, if he moves, pop him with the.45.

second voice: Hey, this is a rental. I don't wanna spend the rest of

the night scrubbing blood out of the back.

first voice: Is that an International House of Pancakes? I could really

go for some bacon waffles. second voice: Bacon? You know what that does to your arteries?

first voice: Frank, we gotta die of something.

second voice: I want to be screwed to death. You pass an International House of Pussy, pull over.

first voice: I got one of those cross-country ski machines. Twenty minutes on one of those and you sweat, let me tell you. You know who uses one of those things? Joey Two Stomachs.

second voice: Get out of here.

first voice: No, for real. He went to that Pritikin place, you know, where you eat crabgrass and they charge you ten thousand dollars a day. He's lost something like twenty-five pounds. And by the way, he doesn't want to be called Joey Two Stomachs anymore.

second voice: Fucking psychopath. I could tell you stories.

first voice: That's why I'm not calling him Joey Two Stomachs anymore.

second voice: Sir Joey. Laughter.

first voice: How much further is it?

second voice: Ten miles, about.

first voice: I don't see why we gotta take him all the way out to some abandoned quarry in New Jersey when we could weigh him down and throw him in the fucking wetlands. No one is gonna know.

second voice: I told you why. Because Team A said to take him to

the quarry, and this is on his time, okay?

first voice: He's not gonna know.

second voice: What's the fucking problem?

first voice: I'm hungry. Maybe there's a McDonald's. second voice: We're not pulling into fucking McDonald's, all right?

first voice: We'll do the drive-up.

second voice: What if he comes to and starts moaning?

first voice: I got my gun pointed right at his fucking heart. If he moans, it's going to be his problem, not ours.

second voice: You got it silenced?