Thank You for Smoking

"Glad to hear it. He comes from vending machines, you know. Rough part of our business. You need someone like BR these days. He's good with the Japs. Tough. The Far East is going to be increasingly important to us in the years ahead. That's why I made him an offer would've made Croesus blush. Not that anyone in corporate America has the capacity to blush these days. I did hate to let old JJ go. But, he's got his condominium down in Tarpon Springs right on the eighteenth hole. I suppose they'll be putting me out to stud soon enough. On the other hand," he grunted, "when you own twenty-eight percent of the stock you have the luxury of setting your own timetable. Still, I'm not getting any younger. Sometimes I feel like a Tyrannosaurus rex stumbling through the swamp one step ahead of the glaciers. Do you know," he said with an air of incredulity, "that the scientists are now saying that the dinosaurs died on account of their own

flatulence?"

"No," Nick said.

"They're saying all those dinosaur farts going up into the atmosphere created a kind of global warming effect that caused the ice cap to melt." He shook his head. "How do they know such things?"

"Where are the data?"

"That's right. That's right! Do you remember what Finisterre said?"

"Wake up, boys, it's Good Friday, let's go have a few beers?"

"Not that Finisterre. Romulus K. Finisterre. The president. You do remember him? He said, 'The torch is passed to a new generation.' He was talking about my generation. And now the time is coming to pass it to your generation. Are you ready to accept the torch, Nick?"

"Torch?"

"It won't be easy. It's a hostile world out there. I look around and all I see is muzzle flashes. What's more, I see muzzle flashes coming from where our friends sit. I had Jordan in to see me the other day.

That old whore, we put so much money into his campaigns over the years he put his children through college on the surplus. Hell, I couldn't even use my own corporate jet during his last campaign he was so busy using it. And what does he have the crust to tell me, in my own office, if you please? That he has to go along with this excise tax or the White House is going to shut down LaGroan Air Force Base."

Nick had to agree: it was a sorry situation indeed when the Honorable Gentleman from North Carolina, Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, was casting his vote in favor of a two-dollar-a-pack cigarette tax.

"Sometimes I feel like a Colombian drug dealer. The other day, my seven-year-old granddaughter, flesh of flesh of my own loins, says to me, 'Granddaddy, is it true cigarettes are bad for you?' My own granddaughter, whose private education, and horse and everything else is being handsomely provided for by cigarette money!"

The Captain stopped and said, "We got to do something. Something big, smart, and fast. This Hollywood project of BR's. I want you to work on it. And report to me, directly."

"It was BR's idea," Nick said. "I wouldn't want to offend him by taking over his brainstorm."

"Don't you worry about that. I'll handle BR. He seemed to think this gal Jeannette was the person to do it. Thinks the sun rises and sets on her. But I think you're our man." He put his hand on Nick's shoulder. "And I am seldom

wrong."

He signaled his driver. They got in. "HQ, Elmore," the Captain told him. "Then take Mr. Naylor here to the airport."

"I need to pick up my bags at the hotel."

"That's already been taken care of, sir," Elmore said. The Captain smiled. "Tobacco takes care of its own."

They pulled up in front of Agglomerated Tobacco. There had been no mention of Nick's five-million-dollar monkey wrench. Nick asked him about it.

The Captain nodded to himself thoughtfully. "That's a significant amount of money, of course. I must say that you do seem to have a penchant for causing extremely large sums of money to be spent." His face darkened, as if a severe emotional system were moving in over it, and for a moment or two Nick thought all bets might be off and he was headed for the unemployment line after all. But then the thunderclouds headed off. The old man chuckled, "Well I don't suppose five million dollars is going to bankrupt us. However, I do not expect to be swept off my feet by the persuasiveness of this particular advertising campaign." He extended his hand. "Thank you for taking the time to visit with me. I will be in touch."