Nick said, "I believe we were talking about my problem."
"I assume you're backing Finisterre's opponent," Polly said.
"Oh yeah. He's going to be rolling in soft money. And hard money. But that doesn't do us a whole lot of good. The election is in November, and this is now."
"Well," Polly said, "do you have anything on him?"
"He's a fornicator," Bobby Jay said. "Married and divorced three times, and Lord only knows how many pop tarts in between."
"Shocking as that may be to the American people, I was thinking something more, I don't know, lurid. Kink, whips 'n' things? God," she said, exhaling a long, philosophical stream of smoke, "listen to us. I was going to be secretary of state."
"What's the matter?" Bobby Jay said. "Can't stand the heat? Life is a dirty, rotten job and someone's got to do it."
"Go shoot a whale." She said to Nick, "Isn't your guy — Garcia? — on the case?"
"Gomez. Yeah. They're probably going over his credit card slips right about now."
"Don't forget his video rental records. Remember what those swine did to poor Judge Thomas."
"I'm confident," Nick said, "that Gomez O'Neal isn't one to overlook those."
"Won't do any good. They all use cutouts now. Probably has someone on his staff renting his dirty movies. Pharisee."
"He was a bit of a playboy when he was younger. And thinner. He did used to get drunk a lot. Got stopped for DUI once."
"Oh, please," Polly said, "stay off that if you can. Anyway, it's ancient history. He was the one who lowered Vermont's legal BAC to .08, hypocritical bastard. Typical. Just because he used to get loaded and drive, now anyone who takes two sips of chardonnay loses their license for six months. And what are you supposed to do, in Vermont? Call a cab?"
"You realize you're next, don't you?" Nick said. "If he gets away with putting skulls and bones on cigarettes, how long do you think it's going to be before he's going to want to slap them on scotch, beer, and wine?"
"There's no room for any more warning labels," Polly said bitterly. "I'm surprised we don't have to say that you shouldn't swallow the bottle."
"We're all finished," Nick said morosely.
"Despair is a mortal sin," Bobby Jay said.
"My entire product line is about to be moved from the cash register over to the "Household Poisons" shelf and the FBI thinks I covered myself with nicotine patches. I think frankly that I'm entitled to a little despair."
Polly put her hand on top of his. "Let's take it step by step."
"She's right," Bobby Jay said. "There's only one way to eat an elephant. One spoonful at a time."
"What is that supposed to be, redneck haiku? Can we please get real?"
Bobby Jay leaned in close. "We have friends inside the J. Edgar Hoover building. Lemme see what I can find out."
"About an ongoing investigation? Good luck."
"You might be surprised. A whole lotta bonding goes on at a firing range. Never know what you might pick up with the empties."
"Well," Nick sighed, "tell them to go arrest some more Islamic Fundamentalists."
"All right, we're making progress," Polly said. "Bobby Jay's taking care of your FBI problem. So now you only have to figure out what to do with Finisterre. He's got to have a weak spot. Everyone does."
"What am I going to do? Attack him on MacNeil-Lehrer for renting Wet Coeds?"
"Heyy," Polly said, taking him by the shoulder, "where's the old Neo-Puritan dragon slayer? Where's the guy I used to know who could stand up in a crowded theater and shout, 'There's no link between smoking and disease'?"
Nick looked at her, and was seized with the old swelling for Polly. But this was no time to think about that, as he was semi-involved with Heather and certainly involved with Jeannette. Pity. He and Polly would be… well, anyway, she was right. You want an easy job? Go flack for the Red Cross.
The waitress arrived to tell them about the dessert specials. She was new; Bert hadn't briefed her that table six was never, ever, to be told about the day's specials.
"We have apple pie," she said, "and it's served a la mode, with ice cream, or with Vermont cheddar cheese, which is real good."
"So," Polly said, once the waitress had been shooed away, "so what's the deal with Fiona Fontaine's hair? Nick? Nick?"
It felt like he was in an isolation chamber, being observed by scientists on closed-circuit TV. He didn't even get to watch his interrogator and the other guest on a monitor. All he'd get was audio — and that lens, staring at him unwinkingly like a great, glassy, fish-eyed, man-eating cyclops.
Koppel preferred it this way — himself alone in the studio, his interviewees off in others. TV news's equivalent of the one-way mirror in police stations. It gave him the advantage of not having to cope with his subjects' corporeality. This way he would not be distracted by their nervous body language and take pity on them. Only special guests got to sit next to him, such as the disgraced former presidential candidate who, months later, selected Nightline to try to explain why — on earth — he had blown his kingdom for a blow job.
"Thirty seconds," Nick heard in his earpiece. He was nervous. He'd been on Nightline before but the stakes had never been this high. He could feel himself being watched, could sense on the other side of the lens the Captain, BR, Polly, Jeannette — watching in the greenroom, a few doors away — Heather, Lorne Lutch, Joey, his proud mother — my son, the tobacco spokesman — Jack Bein and maybe even Jeff Megall, who would be hoping that Nick would fail miserably, for the Lese majeste of having declined his meal of transparent raw fish.
Be cool, he told himself. In a hot medium, coolness is all, limpidity is better, and not picking your nose is key. He did his breathing exercise, a ten-second breath let out in twelve. He closed his eyes and tried to empty his mind. Somewhere he had read that it takes Japanese monks twenty years of silence, green tea, and brown rice to empty theirs. Tonight, however, he wasn't looking for enlightenment, just a reduced pulse rate.
Suddenly through the earpiece he heard — violent coughing. Was it the engineer?
Oh no, for up came the familiar voice-over: "Cigarettes… some estimates are that as many as half a million Americans will die this year from smoking."
Swell, Nick thought, we're off to a fine start: an image of a terminal cancer patient spitting up burst alveoli.
"Yet despite," Koppel continued, "the Federal Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act of 1965 requiring stiff warning labels on cigarettes, people continue to smoke. Now, a U.S. senator. "
Nick did another breathing exercise.
"Good evening. From Washington, I'm Ted Koppel and this… is Nightline."
That trademark pause reminded Nick of the beat that Edward R. Murrow used to insert in his famous wartime radio dispatches from London during the blitz. "This… is London." Dear old chain-smoking old Edward R. Murrow. Dear old, dead old Edward R. Murrow.
"… later, we'll be joined by Vermont Senator Ortolan K. Finisterre, author of the Senate bill, and by Nick Naylor, chief spokesman for the tobacco lobby. But first, this report from correspondent Chris Wallace… "
Wallace's wretchedly thorough report brought up the Lancet study predicting 250 million deaths worldwide from smoking by the end of the century — one in every five people in the industrialized nations. Bitch of a study, that one. Nick made a mental note to try, anyway, to cast aspersions on the world's most respected medical journal.
"Let me start with you, Senator. Cigarettes already carry explicit warnings. Why do you need this additional label?"
"Well, Ted, as you pointed out in your excellent introduction…"
Brown-nose. But — a miscalculation! Koppel was too proud to be blatantly sucked up to, especially by a politician.
"But surely the warning is already dramatic," he riposted. Nick cheered him on. "It states the risks. 'Lung cancer,' 'emphysema,' 'heart disease,' 'fetal asphyxiation.' Why do we need a skull and bones?"
"Unfortunately, Ted, many people in
America can't read, or can't read English, so this measure is very specifically intended for their benefit. I think we have a responsibility to those people."
"All right. Mr. Naylor, and I should point out that however people feel about smoking, you've certainly been a front-line warrior for your industry, by virtue of having been recently kidnapped and nearly killed by an apparently radical anti-smoking group—"
"Apparent to me," Nick said.
"Perhaps I should start by asking you if you believe that cigarettes are harmful." A softball.
"Well, Ted, I take what I'd call the scientific position, namely that a lot more research is needed before we come to any responsible conclusion on the matter."
Good, excellent. In a single sentence he had allied himself with Responsible Science.
"Even though there have been to date more than sixty thousand studies showing a link between smoking and cancer alone?"
Nick gave a world-weary nod of the head to indicate that he was not surprised that this raggedy-ass canard had been dragged out. "I think I recognize that figure you just cited, Ted. If I'm not mistaken, it comes from former Surgeon General Koop's book, the one he got a rather substantial advance for."
"I'm not sure what you're suggesting."
"Just that Mr. Koop, like many other political figures, is not without his own agenda."
A bit tortured, perhaps, but he'd at least kicked a little putative dirt onto the shoes of a venerable doctor, a pediatric surgeon, at that. A man who saved the lives of… little children. Don't think about that! Thank God Koop looked like Captain Ahab with that scary beard of his.
He could sense Ortolan K. Finisterre frantically waving his arms in the air at Teacher. "Ted, may I comment on that?"
Koppel, however, was not about to yield his conch shell to a brown-noser who owed his political career to some nut who'd blown up his president-uncle thirty years ago at Disney World.
"I'm not sure if I understand, Mr. Naylor. You're saying that after tens of thousands of studies and, frankly, an overwhelming amount of scientific evidence that cigarettes are harmful, that it's still an open question as to whether or not they're harmful?"
"Ted, twenty years ago the scientists were telling us that we were all going to die of artificial sweeteners. Now they're telling us — we goofed, never mind. The more cyclamates, the better. So I think any scientist worth his or her salt — or in this case, sugar — would tell you that the first principle of science is — doubt."
Koppel sounded amused, in a disgusted sort of way. "All right, let's for the sake of argument suppose that it is still an open question. But would you agree that until such a time as there is conclusive evidence that smoking is harmful, that we ought to err on the side of prudence and protect society against the possibility — to use as neutral a term as I can — that it might be harmful, and therefore put Senator Finisterre's labels on cigarettes?"
Subtle bastard.
"Well," Nick laughed softly, tolerantly, "sure, but we're going to have to print up an awful lot of warning labels to cover all the things in fife that might not be a hundred percent safe." But enough palaver. It was time to pull the pin on the hand grenade that the waitress had given him. "But the irony in all this, Ted, is that the real, demonstrated number-one killer in America is cholesterol. I don't know any scientists who would disagree with that. And here comes Senator Finisterre, whose fine and beautiful state is, I regret to have to say, clogging the nation's arteries with Vermont cheddar cheese, with this proposal to plaster us with rat-poison labels."
"That's absolutely absurd. Ted, may I—"
"if I might be allowed to finish?" Nick said, snatching back the mike. "I was merely going to say that I'm sure that the tobacco industry would consent to having these labels put on our product, if he will acknowledge the tragic role that his product is playing, by putting the same warning labels on these deadly chunks of solid, low-density lipoprotein that go by the name of Vermont cheddar cheese."
"Ted! — "
21
He picked up Jeannette in the greenroom after the show. There were other people milling around, mostly trying to get her phone number. She was looking very sleek tonight. With Nick she was the soul of cool professionalism, confining herself to complimenting him on having made "some very important points." Then when they were alone in the elevator, she grabbed him by the neck and put a kiss on him like a NASA air lock.
"You were incredible. I'm going to make you moan."
Jeannette sure knew how to make a guy feel like he'd done an honest day's work. She kept attacking him in the car on the way back to Nick's place. Disinformation was certainly an aphrodisiac to Jeannette. They tumbled through the door and onto the bed. As usual, the lights stayed out and Jeannette did her kinky latex number with the gloves and condoms.
Just as things were getting truly sweaty, the phone rang. Polly's voice came over the answering-machine speaker. It was distracting, making love to one woman while listening to another.
"Killer cheese?" Polly laughed. "Well done. Finisterre looked like he was having an outbreak of shingles. Bobby Jay said to tell you that you did the Mod Squad proud tonight. Congratulations. Give me a call when you get back. I have to do a panel tomorrow, so I'm cramming about the effects of alcohol on neural function. Did you know that alcohol actually strengthens the flow of ions through the GABAA ion channel and produces a calming effect, much like Valium? In moderate doses of course, but I can fudge that. If it's one thing the Moderation Council hates, it's moderation. Anyway, kiddo, you were really great. You made my ion channels hum. Bye."
"Who was that?" Jeannette said.
"Don't stop. Oh."
"She sounded kind of friendly."
"Polly Bailey. Just a friend."
"What's the Mod Squad?"
"Merchants of Death. We do lunch. Oh, yes, definitely. Ohhh."
The phone rang again. "Hi Nick, it's Heather. Cheese? I gotta hand it to you. You could make the Serbs sound like humanitarians. Give me a call, okay? We need to talk about this piece. Can you do dinner tomorrow night?"
"Was that Heather Holloway?"
"Ohhhhhhhhh. Yeah."
"Aha. I knew you were her Deep Throat. Naughty boy. You should be spanked. Do you want me to spank you?"
"No."
"So, are you fucking her?"
"Who?"
"Heather Holloway."
"Can we talk about this later? Ow! Hey!"
The next call was from the Captain. "Nick, son. You were magnificent! That buck-tooth, pimply-assed son of a bitch looked like he was going to shit his britches. In fact I think I heard him do just that. Well done, sir. You're the only good thing's happened to tobacco in the last ten years. And don't you think I don't plan to show my appreciation."
"Was that — the Captain?"
"Oh, oh, oh, oh…"
"Nick."
"What? Yes."
"He certainly sounded happy."
"Mrrmph. Baby, baby—"
"What did he mean by showing his appreciation?"
"Rrmmm. Oo, oo, oo. Yesyesyesyesssssss."
She was gone, as usual, by the time he woke up, and once again had cleaned up, sparing him having to dispense with nookie detritus. Very orderly woman, Jeannette. Probably went with the S&M fetish. What a littered scene it would have been this morning, boxes, wrappers, little limp love zeppelins lying all over the floor. Five times! Reassuring, in your forties, to know that the old cobra could still stand up and hiss five times in one night.
The phone rang. It was Gazelle, panicking because it was 9:15—he hadn't gotten to sleep until after four — and his phone was already in meltdown from outraged calls, mostly from Vermont, including from the governor's office. "You better tell those dykes they got protecting you to look sharp," she said, " 'cause these people sound like they're going to drive down here in their cheese trucks and park them on top of your ass."
When he got to the office, it was high-fives in the hallway and hurrahs for the conqu
ering hero. Tobacco might be going down in flames, but its paladin was wielding a sharp lance.
BR was a tad subdued. A tad cool, even. "I just got off the phone with the Governor of Vermont," he said. "I would not describe him as a happy camper."
"That'll teach him to ban smoking in his prisons." Nick shrugged, pouring himself some coffee. After intense internal debate, the Academy of Tobacco Studies had decided not to go to court on behalf of the smoking rights of the Green Mountain State's murderers, rapists, and thieves.
"Legal Affairs says that we're going to be sued by every cheddar cheese manufacturer in the state," BR said. " 'Tragic role of cheese'?"
"Let them sue." Nick said. "Let cheese take the witness stand for a change. For the first time since I can recall, we're on the attack instead of circling the wagons."
"We are that. I only wish we were attacking on better ground than cheese."
"Such as? Health?"
BR frowned.
"I thought you wanted a challenge. We're going to need to get our research ducks lined up. You better get Issues Intelligence cranking. You know what we're looking for."
"Cheese fatalities?"
"Atherosclerosis rates in Vermont. No reason we can't correlate Vermont cheddar production with heart disease, nationally. Any cholesterol injuries will do. Hell, we can probably attribute every heart attack in the country to Vermont cheddar cheese. Get Erhardt on the case. Erhardt could make oat bran sound lethal."
"I wouldn't plan on doing any leaf-peeping in Vermont this fall unless you put on a fake beard and register under an assumed name."
"Yeah, well, there's always New Hampshire," Nick said, turning to go.
"Nick," BR said uncomfortably, "something's come up that I need to talk with you about. Those two FBI agents, Monmaney and Allman, came in to see me yesterday late afternoon and, well, why don't we say that you and I never had this conversation."
"What's the problem?"
"They want to see your phone records."
"Uh-huh," Nick said. "And why would they want to do that?"
"I don't know. But it was pretty clear that if I didn't volunteer your phone records, they'll come back with a subpoena. I don't think either of us wants that. But I wanted to talk with you first." He gave Nick a pained look. "What do you want me to do?"
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