Thank You for Smoking

He drove in the back of their sedan, imagining his next ride in it, handcuffed, on the way to being booked for possession of drugs. He foresaw it all: You say her name was Paula? What airline did she work for? Allman, the cheery swine, was intent on making small talk. It was difficult to rehearse your explanation for possession of narcotics while making small talk with a fed.

Wait a minute, that's not my refrigerator!

"1 don't see why you're so worried," Polly said.

Nick had convened an emergency meeting of the Mod Squad. Bobby Jay had been a bit put out since this was his bowling-prayer-and-pizza night with the born-agains, but recognizing the note of panic in Nick's voice, he was here. At night, the flames from the fake fireplace looked slightly more realistic.

Nick was sucking down his third vodka negroni.

"You're kind of guzzling that," Polly said.

"You still haven't explained what the problem is," Bobby Jay said. "Since they didn't find your drugs." "Shh," Nick said. "Jesus." "Let's leave Jesus out of this."

"He had his hand right on it," Nick said, reliving the horror afresh: Agent Monmaney opening the freezer, feeling around amidst the frozen bagels and the cookie-dough ice cream and pina colada concentrate. "I was going to try to grab it out of his hand and try to eat it when the other one, Allman, comes into the kitchen with this look on his face like he's saying, I found it."

"Found what? What could he have found?"

"I don't know. It was this silent thing between G-men. Whatever it was, Monmaney caught it. He stopped feeling around in my freezer. They said goodbye and left."

"But what could they have found?"

"Nothing."

"You're sure you didn't have any more drugs stashed away somewhere?"

"Will you please shut up, Bobby. And what happened to all that male bonding at the firing range? Instead I call you up and you're out bowling for Jesus."

"I'm working on it."

"Well work harder, would you, please? If this is the best you can do, no wonder the handgun control lobby is getting the upper hand."

23

The next night, Nick was riding in Mahmoud's great white whale, on the way from the airport to the Encomium, when he looked out the window at the Los Angeles skyline and saw the billboard, bold as one of his lies. It showed a huge skull with crossbones. The copy beneath read: don't smoke death cigarettes.

Nick knew all about Death cigarettes. Everyone at the Academy kept a pack, with its distinctive skull and bones logo, despite the fact that the industry's official attitude toward Deaths was not exactly collegial. It was the perfect cigarette for the cynical age. It said — shouted —Our product will kill you! What product advertised itself more honestly than that? The surgeon general's warning on the side was positively ludicrous. And they were flying off the shelves, though their appeal tended to concentrate on young urbans for whom coughing up blood was still a sign of manhood.

It was late in Minneapolis, but for a thirty-million-dollar-a-year account, your creative ad director should take your call even if it is late in Minneapolis. Nick explained his idea to a groggy Sven, who said he'd get his Skunk Works right on it and would fly to Washington on Friday.

Early the next morning, Nick found himself sitting next to Kevin Costner outside Jeff Megall's office. He barely had time to tell him how much he liked Dances With Wolves before he was ushered in by the efficient older lady.

They were all sitting around the malachite conference table.

"Nick," Jeff said warmly. Jack Bein made a sign to Nick that he should be impressed by the warmth of Jeffs greeting. "Nick, this is Jerry Gomick and Voltan Zeig, whom you know of. And this is Harve Gruson. Harve has been involved with the final polishes on Sector Six. Since the arrangements worked out by everyone's legal people are so specific as to the content of the extra scenes, it makes sense for all of us to get together. Harve, bring us up to speed."

"Okay," said Harve, a mostly bald, overweight, and exhausted-looking man in his early thirties. "We've got ten scenes where there's ambient smoking. They're doing whatever they're doing — navigating, eating, getting dressed, whatever — only they're also smoking. Then we've added scenes. So far, we've got two postcoital scenes, at almost a minute per."

"Is that where he does the thing with the smoke rings?" Jeff asked.

"No. She does the thing with the smoke rings. She teaches him how to blow smoke rings. It's hot. My computer screen went into meltdown."

"May I?" Nick held out his hand for the script.

POV over Slade's shoulder. SLADE

Bull's-eye. Where did you learn to do that? ZEENA

My programmer was into horseshoes.

"You mean," Nick said, "that she's blowing smoke rings at his…" "Told you. Hot."