Thank You for Smoking

The Mod Squad was no longer meeting at Bert's, but in a dark corner of the Serbian Prince restaurant in suburban Virginia. They deemed this a safe bet, since not many people went to Serbian restaurants anymore. It was so empty, in fact, that they wondered how it managed to stay open. Bobby Jay said that it was obviously a front for Serbian arms merchants. In any event, it was a suitable milieu for the Merchants of Death, for two reasons. The press wasn't likely to find them here; nor were the Muslims. The FBI, seeking revenge for Nick's escape in the taxi, seemed to have convinced Akmal that Nick was an agent provocateur working for the Israelis, and had provided him with his phone number, address, mother's maiden name, everything. What space was left on Nick's answering machine tape after all the calls from reporters was taken up with abuse and threats from a number of people with Middle Eastern accents.

"They cut off my medical insurance," Nick said into his black coffee. "Do you know how hard it is to get medical insurance when your previous place of employment was the Academy of Tobacco Studies?"

"Do you need health insurance if you're a federal prisoner?" Polly said. Polly, herself fleeing reporters, was in elegant mufti, sunglasses, and shawl. She looked like a cross between Jackie O and Mother Russia. And with the sunglasses, in this dark, she kept knocking things over.

"No," Bobby Jay said, stirring his coffee with his hook. "Prisons have their own doctors. Naturally, they're very highly qualified, all from Ivy League medical schools."

"Could we not talk about this," Nick said morosely.

"I'm sure it won't come to that," Polly said, touching his arm.

"That's what everyone's been telling me. Like, I might get really lucky and end up on a converted military base in a desert for ten years. It's a very consoling thought."

"Sounds a whole lot better to me than Lorton," Bobby Jay snorted. Lorton was the prison in Virginia where they sent the overflow hard cases from the D.C. jails. It enjoyed a reputation as a not particularly nourishing environment, especially for inmates of the Caucasian persuasion.

"You're not going to Lorton," Nick said, annoyed by the attempt at one-downmanship. "You're a handicapped Vietnam vet, it's a first offense. You'll get six months, suspended. So please, spare me the Ballad of Reading Gaol."

"Oh yeah? Then how come the lawyers tell me the prosecutor is just itching to put me away? First, I'm white, secondly, I work for the most hated lobby in America—"

"Whoa. The gun lobby is not the 'most hated lobby in America.' Do I need to remind you that I am personally responsible for the deaths of over half a million people each year, whereas you are barely responsible for thirty thousand—"

"Oh, Jesus," Polly said.

"I'm sorry," said Nick. "I'm not in a good mood right now." "How odd," Polly said.

"The Captain's funeral is tomorrow. I've been told in no uncertain terms that I'm not welcome. And guess who's giving the eulogy." He shook his head. "BR."

As the sweat pooled inside his fake beard and fake nose, Nick reflected that it was a good thing the Captain had asked to be buried up in Roaring Gap, where it was a little less infernally hot than Winston-Salem. It was sweltering inside the Baptist church, and jam-packed. Nick's rubber nose felt like it was going to drop off and the pinched, elderly woman sitting next to him was already looking at him strangely.

There were reporters in the back, some from the national press. The Captain's passing, amidst the kidnapping scandal, was being played as The End of an Era.

whither tobacco?

BR had just taken the pulpit.

"Doak Boykin," he began, "strode the world of tobacco like the colossus he was. He would give you the shirt off his back. He was, truly, the salt of the earth."

God, who'd written this swill for him? (Jeannette.) Vilified in his autumnal yean, his heart patched with parts from barnyard swine, and now eulogized by a Judas with a fondness for cliches. The man deserved better, even if he was a mass murderer.

"He was a man who believed in the Constitution of the United States of America, especially the parts about individual liberties and the right to the pursuit of happiness."

That was in the Declaration of Independence, but never mind.

"I think everyone gathered here would agree that, these days, it takes courage to stand up to the politically correct and the sanctimonious, who are trying to destroy a perfectly legal American product."

A deft bit of self-praise. Murmurs of approval.

"And the Captain had that kind of courage, in spades. I also know that many of you agree that he would have been saddened by the recent events in our own backyard. If there was a silver lining to his far too premature parting, it was this — that he will not have to endure the slings and arrows of misfortune that his misguided, overambitious, and perhaps mentally ill protege has brought down on our house."