Thank You for Smoking

"It's a little late change the whole premise. Principal photography starts in two weeks. We'll have to fudge. What the hell, according to these surveys, high school students think Churchill was Truman's vice president. As a matter of fact, we were thinking of you in connection with the project."

"How's that?"

"Roosevelt smoked, right?"

"Yes he did," Nick said. "But I think we're looking for someone more contemporary."

"You're probably right. How many girls want to fuck a dead guy with polio?"

"Uh, right."

They parked in the underground garage and took an elevator. So far, Nick had only ridden in private elevators since arriving in LA. "By the way," Jack said, "don't be nervous when you meet Jeff. You'd be surprised at the names of some of the people who've frozen up when they met him for the first time." He lowered his voice, which made Nick wonder if the elevator was bugged. "Tom Sampson, Cookie Perets. Rocco Saint Angelo?"

"Rocco Saint Angelo? Really?"

"Comatose. I thought I was going to have to start cracking ammonia pellets under his nose. But you'll be fine. Jeff is basically a very human person underneath."

The elevator doors opened to reveal a fish pond. Nick followed Jack across stepping-stones. Large white and red carp lazed beneath the surface. "That one over there," Jack whispered, "seven thousand dollars."

"Seven thousand? For a fish?"

"Go figure. No wonder sushi over there costs a hundred bucks apiece. Do you like sushi? I worry about worms. They can go into your brain. Every time I eat sushi now, which you kind of have to do — right? — I think I'm going to end up like John Hurt in Alien, with the thing coming out of my chest. Anyway, the fish was a gift from Fiona Fontaine. Another face Jeff made into a name. That one over there, with the black speckles? Twelve thousand. From Kyle Kedman. Jeff got him the lead in Mung, and Columbia was set, and I mean set, on Tom Cruise for that part."

"Do you keep sharks in here?"

"Nah," Jack laughed. "We're very nice here."

They were met at the end of the stepping-stones by an extremely attractive, fiftyish woman who introduced herself with a handshake and "I work with Jeff." She whispered into Jack's ear. Jack took Nick by the arm and led him back to the water's edge. "His Serenity just placed a call to Jeff."

"His Serenity?"

"The Sultan of Glutan," Jack whispered. "New client."

"Aha," Nick said. "Richest man in the world."

"Not anymore." Jack grinned. "Just joking." He led Nick over to what appeared to be a waiting area, by the pond. Nick looked at the man sitting there reading Golf Digest. No. Was it. wow, it was.

"Sean!" Jack said. "So where's the kilt?" Jack introduced Nick, and for the first time in his life, Nick felt the tongue-tying terror of encountering a true movie star hero. He'd grown up on the man's movies. He could recite some of them by heart, practically. He'd dreamed of being him. And now here he was, at the other end of a handshake. He couldn't have been more pleasant and courtly, even seemed interested in Nick. For his part, Nick could manage only a rictus of a smile and nod vigorously to every remark. He and Jack talked a bit about the golf tournament he'd just played in, and then obliquely about the project he was obviously here to discuss with Jeff. After about twenty minutes the attractive woman reappeared to say that Jeff was off the phone and would see them.

"You mean," Nick whispered to Jack as they followed her, "that we're ahead of him?"

"You should have seen the waiting room yesterday," Jack said.

"Goldie, Jack, and Mel."

Two doors of polished Burma teak carved with ideograms opened

to reveal a vast, cathedral-like space, with a mind-boggling view of the city and the Pacific Ocean beyond. Jack whispered, "On a clear day, you can see Tokyo." At the center of it was a glass-top desk with nothing on it — now that was power: a totally clean desk — and behind it a man in his mid-forties, short, tanned, thinning hair, extremely fit, chest muscles bulging under a blue shirt that looked one size too small. He had a bland face, sparkly, gapped teeth, and pale laser eyes.

He smiled broadly and rose from his crystal throne and came out from around the desk to shake Nick's hand. "Jeff Megall," he said, surprising Nick again; most of the exalted pooh-bahs Nick had experienced tended to dispense with self-identification. We all know who I am.

"How was your flight?" he asked. "Fine, thank you."

"Jack, would you see that Mr. Naylor travels back to Washington on our plane? What about your hotel?" "He's at the Encomium," Jack interjected.

"Good hotel," Jeff said. "Let us know what we can do." He gestured to a sofa. "May I offer you anything? Coffee? Tea? Mineral water?"

"If it's not too much trouble." "How do you take it?" "Black."