Thank You for Smoking

"Nick wouldn't be doing his job if he didn't draw out the wackos," said Jeannette dismissively. She turned to Nick and said, "Really, you were amazing."

"Do you want to read what some of these people had to say?" Gazelle picked one out of her hand like a playing card. " 'I'm going to pour hot tar down your throat, you rotten scumbag. See how you like it.' 'You're a slick dick aren't you, Nick Naylor? I own a high-powered rifle could drop a sack of shit like you at 250 yards, so watch your ass.' "

"I just wanted to say how terrific you were," Jeannette said, giving Nick's elbow a little squeeze. She turned to the small crowd gathered in the doorway. "Wasn't he?" They applauded.

Gazelle all but slammed the door on Jeannette's caboose as she walked out. "Can't stand that bitch."

"I don't know," Nick said, "looked like she was waving the white flag."

"Oh? Yesterday she was in here with color swatches, redecorating. Now she's in here kissing your ass. And you liking it."

Nick looked at the boards and frowned. "Would you get me Sven Gland in Minneapolis. That is, if you're finished critiquing?" He flipped through his phone messages. Sammy Najeeb, Larry King's producer. Well well. "Who's Heather Holloway?"

"Washington Moon reporter," Gazelle snapped.

"What does she want?"

"To interview you."

"What about?"

Gazelle put her hands on her hips. "What do you think she wants to interview you about?

Peace in the Middle East?"

"Well why do you take down every word these, these drooling maniacs with high-powered rifles tell you, and you don't bother to take down what a reporter says? And why are you so surly today? What's the deal here, anyway?"

"Do you want me to get you Sven Gland on the phone, or what?"

"Yes, please," he said through gritted teeth. "And coffee," though he didn't want any; that was just for punishment.

"It's five-thirty, what do you want coffee for? You won't be able to sleep." She walked out. What a smart decision that had been, to go to bed with Gazelle that night after they'd been working late and they went out afterward to Bert's for a few pops. One thing had led to another — it always does — and before he knew it he was booking a room at the Madison Hotel from a smartass night clerk. No, no reservation. No, no luggage. Yes, for two people. No, not two single beds. Riding up in the elevator with the porter, who insisted on showing him how the minibar worked, the heat, the A/C, the TV, Christ, he was about to explain about the dry cleaning procedures when Nick shoved him out the door with a ten-dollar bill. Then the next day they had to go through the whole office awkwardness. Good morning, Miss Tully. Good morning, Mr. Naylor. Coffee? Yes, please, Miss Tully. Then the first time she got something wrong and he said something to her, boom, kettledrums, the evil eye, and a lecture about sexual attitude. And every time they'd worked late since and he'd said what about a few pops at Bert's it was, No, it's late, and I've got to pick up Jerome at my sister's, leaving Nick in the role of Caucasian sexual paranoid, to wonder if he had somehow. failed in what he seemed, anyway, to recall of that sweaty evening as a perfectly honorable performance. Series of performances. It was true what they said about black women, every word — they

were insatiable. No wonder black men fled their homes in droves. They needed sleep.

Nick turned his attention to the boards. They were compelling, brilliant, arresting. He was right to have fired the Academy's dull ad agency and gone to Buda/Munganaro/Gland, the hot-hot new, small-is-beautiful agency in Minneapolis that had taken a second-rate

Swedish vodka with an aftertaste of herring scales and turned it into the number-one selling liquor in the country. He sighed.

"Sven," he said into the speakerphone, "it's dazzling. I'm totally blown away."

"I know," Sven said. "So are we."

"That's the problem. It's a good news/bad news situation. The bad news is we've got to make it a turkey. It's going to have to gobble, or my people aren't going to go for it. The good news is, they're willing to spend five million dollars on this campaign." Between fees and commissions, BMG stood to make northward of $750,000.

"Sven? You there?"

"You want it to gobble"?"

"Yes. It must gobble."

"That's not really what we do, Nick."

"No, you convince millions of people to think they're hip because they drink vodka that tastes like any other vodka, only worse. I heard no one in Sweden in his right mind drinks that stuff. It tastes like fish. They must be rolling in the snow in Stockholm, laughing. So you want to tell me that for massive amounts of money you can't produce a dull anti-smoking campaign aimed at underage kids."

Pause. "We could do that."

"Then what's the problem?"

"No problem."