Thank You for Smoking

Agent Allman returned his greeting. Agent Monmaney did not.

"What can I do for you?" Nick said, dispensing with further pleasantries. "I've got a very full morning." Monmaney took out a notepad. "Six years ago, when you were working for WRTK, you went on the air live and said that President Broadbent had died."

"Uh-huh," Nick said.

"How did that come about?"

"An honest mistake."

This elicited one of Monmaney's slow-fuse stares.

"Does this have any bearing on finding my kidnappers?"

"No," Agent Allman said. "Well, you're busy. We can talk more later." They left. Nick wondered: could you request a change of FBI agents?

They were all waiting for him in the small auditorium. Nick was taken aback at the atmosphere in there, which was so full of smoke he could hardly make out the back row. These people did love to smoke.

They gave him a standing ovation. It was gratifying. My people, he thought. The head of United Smokers of America, Ludlow Cluett, gave him a rousing introduction, making it sound like he'd fought off his kidnappers with bare fists, and said how much the Academy meant to them. Litde did he know.

Nick took the podium and started in on the speech he'd composed in the shower, in which he likened them to a long line of American freedom fighters stretching all the way back to Ethan Allen's Green Mountain Boys. It required some rejiggering of American history, but it could be done.

He got as far as World War I and Pershing's urgent telegram to Washington saying the doughboys needed more cigarettes — leaving out the part about how that had produced the first cases of lung cancer in America — when all the smoke in the room started to get to him. His head spun and throbbed and he started to cough. Really cough, the kind where you have to hold a handkerchief in front of your mouth or people around you get sprayed.

"Excuse. " he gasped, "flu. harrrrrg …"

He managed to pull himself together and was in the midst of a little

Lucy Page Gaston-bashing when he was struck by a hurricane-force

coughing spasm that left him with stars in his eyes and his heart ap-

proaching paroxysmal atrial tachycardia. Tobacco Spokesman Suffers

Fatal Heart Attack While Addressing Pro-Smoking Groups. People would

laugh as they read his obituary. He had to get out of there.

"In conclusion," he wheezed, "let me leave you with the thought that. "

They were looking at him adoringly, hanging on his words. My people.

"… that it's people. like you. who are. righting the . harg harg. fires of freedom around this. harg harg harg. great nation of. wheeze. ours."

He reelingly stuck around to sign a few autographs, mostly on cigarette packs, and fled for the shuttle, where he opened his New York Times to the front page and read: "To save money, airlines in the United States are circulating less fresh air into the cabins of many airplanes." And they were mad at the cigarette companies?

He ducked into the men's room at National Airport while waiting for the shuttle. It was the one place his women bodyguards couldn't follow him into. He was standing in front of the urinal minding his business when he heard a voice behind him say, "Hello, Neek!" Peter Loire!

Nick whirled around, still holding his spigot, which was at this point in full flow, only to find himself spraying the pants leg of an innocent and very aggrieved businessman.

"Hey! Damnit!"

"Sorry. Sorry," Nick stammered. "I. "

The businessman furiously cleaned himself. Nick looked around. There was no one else in the bathroom. Nick spent most of the flight up staring at the back of the seat in front of him. He called Dr. Williams on the Airfone and described the episode. In his sympathetic way, Dr. Williams reiterated that Nick had undergone great trauma, and offered the number of a psychiatrist. Nick said he'd think about it, hung up, and went back to staring blankly at the back of the seat.

Lady Bent was installed on a high floor of the Hotel Pierre. To get to her floor a special key had to be inserted into the control panel by an assistant manager, and as you rode up you had the feeling that sensors were examining your body; every part of it.

The door dinged open to reveal three athletic men with bulging armpits; Nick recognized them immediately as Security, and they

fixed him with the usual evaulating stares. Though out of power, Lady Bent was still under Special Branch protection on account of what she'd done to the IRA after they blew up her bulldogs. They'd vowed to get her, someday.