Thank You for Smoking

"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.

"Off the record?"

"No," she smiled, "on the record. I'm sure that you're good company, but this isn't a social lunch."

That was encouraging. Nick explained, emphasizing that they were unnecessary.

She said, "I have spoken to a number of people who don't… I wouldn't call them major fans of yours."

"Well, that's tobacco for you." He picked up a menu. "The sole in flagrante is good."

" 'In flagrante'?"

"It's named after Senator Finisterre." Heather stared.

"You remember, he was interrupted in the middle of… in the back room here? Maybe you read about it?" Maybe sexual jokes of questionable taste — or wit — within sixty seconds of having met were. not such a good idea? With all that red hair she might be Catholic. "Everything's good. Pasta. Veal chop Valdostana, very good. The trout is excellent. Lot of almonds, if you like almonds."

She ordered salad and San Pellegrino water, which made him feel like a spurned waiter. Nick, feeling trapped inside his own recommendation, ordered the trout, though he did not particularly like trout with a lot of almonds.

"So," he said, "how long have you been a Moonie?

I mean, how long have you been with the Moon?" Very good, two gaffes in two minutes. Why not follow up with something suave like "Your breasts are really incredible. Are they real?"

"A year," she said. "Do you mind if I tape?"

"Please," Nick said magnanimously.

She put her tape recorder on the table between them. "I'm always convinced that I'll get back to the office and there'll be nothing but static on it."

"I know." Perfume. Dioressense? Krizia? Fracas? Fracas, definitely.

"Is that Fracas you have on, by any chance?"

"No."

"Oh?"