"Lot of money, five million."
"You bet it is, Larry."
"Let me ask you something, Nick. Smoking's bad for you, right? I mean… "
"No, Larry, actually that's not really true."
"I used to smoke a lot and I had three heart attacks and bypass surgery. My doctor told me I could either go on smoking or die."
"I wouldn't be comfortable discussing your medical history, Larry. I don't know what the incidence of heart disease is in the King family. I'm certainly happy that you're feeling better. But if I could steer us a little away from the anecdotal and toward the more scientific, the fact is that ninety-six percent of heavy smokers never get seriously ill."
"Isn't that a little hard to believe?"
"They get colds and, you know, headaches and the normal sort of things, bunions" — Bunions? — "but they don't get seriously ill."
"Where does that figure come from?"
"From the National Institutes of Health, right here in Bethesda, Maryland." Let NIH deny it tomorrow; tomorrow people would be on to the next thing — Bosnia, tax increases, Sharon Stone's new movie, Patti Davis's latest novel about what a bitch her mother was. As long as he was at it, he threw in: "And from the Centers for Disease Control, in Atlanta, Georgia."
"That is news." Larry shrugged. Larry was basically too polite to accuse his guests of being shameless liars. It was probably why Ross Perot liked him so much. With any luck, no one from NIH or CDC would be watching.
"Of course," Nick said, "neither Secretary Furioso nor the surgeon general, both of whom continue to refuse to debate with me on the issues, want you to know that or their budgets will go down. Sad, but true."
"Interesting."
"There are a lot of things," Nick sighed, "that the government doesn't want people to know about tobacco. Such as… " — What?—". the indisputable scientific fact that it retards the onset of Parkinson's disease."
"So we should wait till we're sixty-five and then start smoking like crazy?"
"Well, Larry, we don't advocate that anyone should take up smoking. We're just here to provide the scientific facts. Like the report that just came out showing that tobacco smoke is replenishing the ozone that has been lost due to chlorofluorocarbons."
"Really?" Larry said. "Well, maybe I should take it up again, do my part for the ozone hole. I better check with my doctor first."
"Doctors tend to have their own agendas. I'd also like to call to your attention the report last week that smokers who are clerical workers tend to get less carpal tunnel syndrome, you know, the wrist thing, because they take more breaks. There's something else the quote medical science establishment unquote doesn't want you to know about."
"We're going to take some calls. Spokane, Washington, you're on the air.
"Hello?"
"You're on Larry King Live."
"Oh. Uh, yes, hello."
"Do you have a question?"
"Yes. I would like to ask your guest how he can live with himself."
"I take it you don't approve of what he does."
"I think he's a criminal, Larry. He should be locked up. Or worse. There should be a death penalty for what he does."
"Nick, care to comment?"
"Not really, Larry."
"Blue Hill, Maine, you're on the air."
"Yes, I smoked for many, many, many years. And then I developed these like, lumps?" Uh-oh. "And the doctor said it was from smoking, so I gave it up, but the lumps still didn't go away, so I'm thinking about taking it up again."
"Uh-huh," Larry said. "And your question?"
"The doctor who told me that was a young fellah and I think he just told me that to get me to give up. I don't think the lumps had anything to do with smoking."
"Okay, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, you're on the air."
"I smoke and it hasn't made me sick. I'll tell you what made me sick is drinking Milwaukee public water. I thought I was going to die."
"Thanks. No one has a question tonight?" Larry looked over at Sammy in the booth who gestured to say that the callers had said they had questions.
"Okay, we need a question. Atlanta, Georgia" — Nick's gut went into Condition Red—"you're on the air."
"Thank you, Larry. I work at the Centers for Disease Control and I would like to try to correct the extraordinary misimpression that this… individual is trying to create. While it may be true that as many as ninety-six percent of smokers never gets seriously ill, it simply does not follow that smoking is not dangerous. It is extremely dangerous. It is the number-one preventable killer in the United States. There have been so far over sixty thousand studies since the 1940s showing the link between smoking and disease. For this guy to claim that we're saying it's all right to smoke is just beyond immorality. It's grotesque."
"Nick?"
Nick cleared his throat. "If this gentleman wants to debate the science, I'm all for it. Our attitude has always been… bring on the data."
"He's lying through his teeth, Larry. That guy is lower than whale-crap."
"Well," Nick said, "it's a little difficult to carry on a rational discussion while being verbally abused. But abuse does seem to be the lot of the modem-day smoker." Oh yes, please, let's do shift this steaming pile away from ourselves. "They're scorned, victimized, shunned — if they're lucky they're shunned, most of them are actively abused. They have to huddle in doorways in the dead of winter and shiver. I would like to ask the gentleman from the CDC, if that's really where he's from, about the recent rise in cases of pneumonia—"
"What rise in pneumonia? There's no rise in pneumonia."
"Hoh! Who's lying now? Larry, there has been an extraordinary increase in this ghastly, life-threatening disease, well documented by medical authorities, thank you very much, and it's happening because smokers are being forced out-of-doors in freezing temperatures. Let's face it, sir, you and your ilk have turned one-fifth of the population of the United States into lepers. Talk about your tyranny of the majority."
"I give up, Larry, I can't listen to this anymore, I'm going to get violent."
"Emotional issue," Larry said. "Hemdon, Virginia."
"Yeess," said a man's voice with a nervous air to it, "I have a question for Mr. Naylor. I would like to ask him his opinion of these nicotine patches that so many people are wearing."
"Good question," Larry said.
"Yes it is. Frankly, sir, we at the Academy of Tobacco Studies are a little concerned about these things."
"Why?" said Larry. "They dispense nicotine into the system, same as cigarettes, and your position is that cigarettes aren't bad for you, right?"
"Well," Nick said, "your typical cigarette delivers a relatively minute amount of nicotine into your system, a very minute amount. Whereas just one of these deadly little Band-Aids—"
"Hold on," Larry said, "you said 'deadly'?"
"Oh, absolutely. People have been dropping dead all over as a result of these patches. Even our previous caller, Dr. Doom down there in Atlanta, would admit to that."
"I read that some people who kept on smoking after they starting wearing the patches had had heart attacks," said Larry. "But—"
"Well there you go. Heart attacks. I tell you something Larry, and Mr., sorry, I don't know your name, there in Hemdon, I wouldn't let one of those things get near my skin."
"It's very interesting you say that," said the voice. "I will certainly be careful with them. Larry, has anyone ever announced that they're going to kill someone on your show before?"
"No," said Larry, "but we get a lot of angry calls."
"Then this is your lucky day, because I'm here to tell you that within a week, we're going to dispatch Mr. Naylor for all the pain and suffering he's caused in the world."
There was an awkward pause. "Wait a minute," Larry said, "are you threatening him?"
"Yes, Larry. I have really enjoyed talking with you. You have a very nice show." There was a click.
"Emotional issue," said Larry.
9
It was just a short item, in the "Reliable Source" section of the late edition of the Sun, slugged, caller to king show threatens to stub out tobacco smokesman. Nick felt a little short-changed. The guy was obviously just some nut with too much free time on his hands, but where did the Sun get off making puns out of a death threat? In this crazy, mixed-up world?
He called the Sun on his car phone to complain. After explaining to the operator that he had a complaint and wanted to speak to an assistant managing editor, he was put through to a recording.
"You have reached the Washington Sun's ombudsman desk. If you feel you have been inaccurately quoted, press one. If you spoke to a reporter off the record but were identified in the article, press two. If you spoke on deep background but were identified, press three. If you were quoted accurately but feel that the reporter missed the larger point, press four. If you are a confidential White House source and are calling to alert your reporter that the President is furious over leaks and has ordered a review of all outgoing calls in White House phone logs, press five. To speak to an editor, press six."
Exhausted, Nick hung up. His phone rang. It was Gazelle, concerned because Jeannette was going around breathlessly telling everyone in the office that five of the six major pharmaceutical companies that manufactured nicotine patches were threatening to sue unless Nick issued a retraction of his comments on the King show. The achievement of car phones is that your morning can now be ruined even before you get to the office.
People greeted him in the corridors. "Hey, Nick, way to go!"
"You gonna be okay, Nick?"
"Jesus, Nick, who was that guy?"
Gazelle handed him coffee and told him that BR wanted to see him right away.
Jeannette was there when he walked in. She jumped up and went over to him and — hugged him. "Thank God," she said.
"Nick," BR said, with this concerned, three-furrows-in-his-brow look, "are you all right?"
"Fine. What's the problem?"
"The problem," BR said, sounding a little surprised, "is that your life has been threatened."
Nick lit up a Camel. Nice, being able to smoke in BR's office now. "Oh, come on. Some nut."
"That's not how I see it. And that's not how the Captain sees it."
Nick exhaled. "The Captain?"
"I just got off the phone with him. He wants full security around you until this matter is… until we know exactly what we're dealing with here."
"That's crazy."
"Jeannette," BR said, "would you excuse us?" Jeannette left the room. "Nick, we got off to a bad start, and that was my fault, for which I hereby apologize. Sometimes I can be an asshole. It's… the world I come from, vending machines, it's a tough world. I have some edges. But never mind that. I've come to realize lately just how valuable you are to Team Tobacco. So," he smiled, "my concern for you isn't just warm and fuzzy feelings. Basically, I don't want to lose you. And certainly not to some nutcase."
Nick was quite overwhelmed. "Well," he stammered, "I appreciate that, BR."
"So it's settled. We're putting a security detail on you."
"Wait, I didn't agree to that."
"Nick, you want to tell this to the Captain?"
"But I get dozens, hundreds of threats. I've got a whole file labeled 'Threats.' It's under 'T.' One guy wrote that he was going to tar and feather me. He was going to collect an entire vat full of tar from those disposable cigarette-holder filters and cover me with it and then feather me. You can't take this stuff seriously."
"This is different. This was live, national — international — television. Even assuming the guy is just a crank, other people watching might get an idea. They're called copycat killers, I think. Anyway, we're just not prepared to take the chance."
"You're telling me," Nick said, "that I have to have a bodyguard?"
"Bodyguards, plural."
"Uh-uh. Not my style."
"Then you tell the Captain," BR said, holding out his phone. "Listen, in this town it's considered a sign of having arrived."
"I'll look like a drug lord, for crying out loud."
"Look, I don't want to sound like I'm capitalizing on a gruesome situation, but, how can I put this? — the fact that it's gotten to the deplorable point where a senior vice president for a major trade association, for God's sake, is reduced to needing security, in the nation's capital, to keep himself from being killed by a bunch of fanatic anti-smokers—"
"You're really getting into this, aren't you?"
"Nick, I know it's a sow's ear, but maybe there's a silk purse inside."
"Well, yeah, but…"
"All right, then. Aren't you having lunch with Heather Holloway of the Moon today?"
"Yes," Nick said, surprised at how well apprised BR was about his daily schedule. Jeannette.
"So, she's going to notice that you've got bodyguards and put that in her story. How bad can that be for our side?"
Nick left BR's office in a foul mood and went back to his office and called the Captain and asked him if this ridiculous order had come from him. In fact it had, and the Captain was adamant.
"Take it as a measure of our esteem for you, son. Can't go taking chances. I just got off the phone with Skip Billington and Lem Tutweiler and they want to put you in an armored personnel carrier." Billington and Tutweiler were heads of, respectively, Blue Leaf Tobacco, Inc., and Tarcom, two of the largest of the Big Six tobacco firms; by virtue of which they occupied seats — large ones — on the ATS board.
"I think," Nick said, "that we're overreacting to a crank call."
"You let us be the judge of that. Now what progress have you made on the Hollywood project?"
Nick fudged, the correct answer being none. The Captain, shrewd as he was, already knew. "I hope you'll be able to apply yourself to that as soon as possible. In fact, things being what they are, you being a ter'rist target…" This seemed to Nick a rather fraught way of looking at it, but paranoia rubs off and now he was getting sort of nervous. "… it might behoove you to get out of town for a few days and go out there and — don't they all hang out by pools, with their telephones and glamorous stars? That doesn't sound like such an unpleasant assignment," he chuckled. "On second thought, why don't you come down here and run the tobacco business and I'll go out to Hollywood and hang out by the pool with all the beautiful women." He added, "Don't tell Mrs. Boykin I told you that or she'll put a water moccasin in the toilet bowl."
In a serious tone of voice, he said, "Now you listen to the security people and don't you go taking any chances. By the way, did BR convey to you my expression of confidence?"
"Yes sir, he did," Nick said, embarrassed that he hadn't thanked the Captain for his extremely generous raise. "Thank you. It was extremely generous."
"Tobacco takes care of its own. Call me from the pool and tell me all about the women. I like that what's her name, blond gal, in that movie they have the ads for about those fellahs throw themselves off cliffs with rubber bands tied to their ankles…"
"Fiona Fontaine."
"That's her. Fine specimen. Now if you could get her to light up, well, that would be something."
Nick went to see Carlton. Carlton was a former FBI agent who looked like anything but. More like a goofy friendly-faced ice cream vendor, thin, short, and mild, except that his eyes had this tendency to widen and widen as you talked to him, so that by the time you were finished he was looking at you like you were a serial axe murderer.
"Tell you the honest truth, Nicky" — security people had this tendency to use the diminutive in order to achieve instant intimacy—"I think we're overdoing this."
"Hey, I know that," Nick said.
"Big guy says you get security, so we're going to give you a detail."
"A detail? No one said anything about a detail."
"The big guy said a detail. It's expensive, let me tell you. Somebody up there must like you." Nick groaned. Carlton said, "Look at it this way — you'll save a fortune on cab fare."
>
"Oh no," Nick said. The company had given him use of a BMW, which Nick liked to drive. "I drive myself. They want to follow me, that's fine. But I drive myself, alone."
"Nicky, Nicky, Nicky."
"Carlton, could you please not call me that, okay?"
"Look," Nick said to Mike, head of his three-man detail, "could you not come into the restaurant with me? I'm meeting a reporter and I'm going to look like a total wimp if I walk in there with you guys."
"Can't do it, Nicky. Orders."
So Nick walked into Il Peccatore, trying to keep as far ahead of his three obvious bodyguards as he could. They had the little pigtail radio cords that came up the back of their collars and went into their ears. Though with whom were they supposed to be communicating? Nick suspected they wanted to be mistaken for Secret Service agents.
He scanned the room. Senator Finisterre was not there — he was pretty much avoiding Il Peccatore since the incident. But his nephew, Senator Ortolan K. Finisterre, was there, lunching with Alex Beam, the Sun columnist, no doubt telling him how he really wasn't interested in running for governor of Vermont when there was so much work to do right here in the Congress yada yada yada.
Heather Holloway was already there, at the corner table, looking over her interview notes.
Hm. Very nice indeed, bit of a cross between Maureen O'Hara and Bonnie Raitt, without the gray thing in the hair. Glasses. Nick found glasses sexy on a woman. The shrink he went to during the divorce said this was significant but wouldn't tell him why, wanted him to figure it out for himself. Nick told her, for seventy-five bucks an hour — fifty minutes — she could goddamn well tell him, but she wouldn't. Great skin, smattering of freckles. The figure, well, yes, Bobby Jay was right about that, it was a very attractive figure, rounded yet exercised, StairMaster voluptuous. And what was this peeking out beneath the table? Pale, ivory stockings? Whoa. She was in a short green suit, open collar, and gold earrings. She smiled up at him through the glasses. Dimples. Dimples!
"Who are they?" she said after the introductions, pointing to Mike, Jeff, and Tommy, his bodyguards.
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