"Um," Nick said, sipping coffee, "that's a tough one."
"We're going to get creamed."
"I saw this piece on CNN about a woman who drank a gallon of vodka every day in her third trimester. Oddly, her child has problems."
"Got any ideas for me?"
Nick thought. "I don't know. Deformed kids are tough. I'm lucky. My product only makes them bald before it kills them."
"That's a big help."
"Challenge their data. Demand to see the mothers' medical histories. Her mother's m.h., her mother's mother's m.h. Say, 'Look, where's the science here? This is just anecdotal.' "
"Maybe you could hug the kids," Bobby Jay said, "like Mrs. Bush and the AIDS baby."
"They're not going to let me hug the kids, for Christsake, Bobby."
"Who's doing the segment? Donaldson or Sawyer?"
"Sawyer, I think. They're being cagey about it, but the producer we're dealing with is one of hers, so I'm pretty sure."
"That is tough."
"Why?"
'"Cause she's going to hug them. Look, if it looks like, if you see her reaching to hug one, try to get in a hug first."
"God, I'm really not looking forward to this."
"Set up a fund," Bobby Jay suggested. "The Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Foundation. F-A-S-F. Fasfuff."
"Bight, I can just see Arnie Melch's face, or Peck Gibson's or Gino Grenachi's faces, when I tell him I want money for the kids of drunken mothers. And we're going to have the words 'Fetal' and 'Alcohol' in the name. That's a brilliant goddamn idea. But excuse me. I forget I was talking to the master spin doctor of the Carburetor City Church Choir Massacre."
"Why not? It would show compassion, generosity of heart."
"Do you set up funds for people who get shot?" Polly said testily. "No, because you'd go broke."
"Guns don't kill people, Polly."
"Oh, yeah."
"No, he's right," Nick said. "Bullets kill people."
"I've got to go," Polly sighed heavily. "Jesus, this is going to be just awful."
Nick walked with her part of the way back to the Moderation Council. It was a beautiful Washington spring day — the hideous Washington summers are Nature's revenge for the loveliness of Washington's springs — and the magnolia tree on the corner of Rhode Island and Seventeenth was blooming. Nick noticed that Polly was wearing white stockings with a bit of silver sparkle in them that gave her long legs a shimmer of frost as they disappeared up into her pleated blue skirt. He found himself looking down at her legs. All that talk about Heather Holloway's tits, Gazelle at the Madison Hotel, the spring weather, it had Nick thinking. The white stockings, boy they were nice, reminded him of the night ten, no, twelve years ago, after he'd first come to Washington, in the summer, and he and Amanda had put away two bottles of crisp, cold Sancerre between them and strolled on down to the Lincoln Memorial. It was one of those steamy Washington July evenings. She was wearing this cotton, floral print dress that with all the humidity clung to her and, well, he couldn't say about Heather Holloway, but Amanda's body had no apologies to make, the way, um, and she was wearing white stockings, thigh-highs, the kind that didn't need garters, but allowed easy access to the dreamy area above, and um, yes, well, Nick had a definite thing about white thigh-highs. They went around to the back of the Lincoln, where it looks out onto Arlington Cemetery, and Amanda was leaning up against one of the massive granite columns, giggling about how the ridges were digging into her back. Nick was down on his knees, which wasn't so comfortable on the marble but he wasn't thinking about his knees, and lifting the floral print dress slowly, slowly, planting kisses until the cool thighs appeared, then a triangle of white— white again! — silk panties and.
"Do you want to have a drink tonight later, after the King show?" Nick asked.
Polly looked at him. "A drink?"
"The studio's down on Mass and whatever, Third or something. We could go to Il Peccatore." Senator Finisterre, nephew of the slain president, had recently made it famous when a waitress walked into the private back room with the food and found the senator filibustering a young female aide on the table. The incident made print and ever since the tour buses had been stopping there next to the sidewalk in front, where Il Peccatore's outside tables were set up and the tour guides would say over the loudspeakers, "That's where the incident involving Senator Finisterre took place," and people from Indiana would take their pictures while Il Peccatore's sidewalk patrons tried to eat their arugula and calamari without feeling that they were background in some live sex act show.
"I.."
"Aw, come on."
"I better not."
"Why?"
"I've got a Designated Driver Committee dinner."
"After the dinner, then. How late can a Designated Driver Committee dinner go?"
For a second there it looked like she was going to say yes, yes I will, yes. Then she said, "I really can't. Maybe some other time."
8
Sammy Najeeb, Larry King's producer and a force of nature, six-foot-something, big, hearty, came to fetch him in the reception area and take him to makeup. "I used to smoke like a chimney," she said.
"It's never too late to take it back up again. By the way, who's on the second segment?"
"You don't want to know," Sammy said.
Nick stopped. "Not the cancer kid?"
"No. This isn't Oprah. But you're in the right ballpark."
"Who?"
"Trust me, you won't have to be in the same room at the same time, I promise. It's all fixed. I gave instructions." "Who?"
"It's Lorne Lutch."
"I'm on with the Tumbleweed Man? Are you nuts?"
"You're not on with anyone. It's two completely different segments. Look, it's not a setup, Larry wanted you on, then Atlanta said he had to put someone else from the other side on after, for balance."
"Balance," Nick muttered.
"It's gonna be fine. Larry loved what you did on Oprah. He's a fan.
He used to smoke three packs a day."
"Hi there," said the makeup lady.
Fuming, Nick took his seat. "I take Innocent Bisque?"
"I'm out of Innocent," she said. "But Indigo is close."
"All right. And Tawny Blush highlight."
Jesus, the Tumbleweed Man. For over twenty years the very symbol of America's smoking manhood in the saddle, his rugged, granite face on the back cover of every magazine, on billboards, on TV, in those happy bygone days. Now he was breathing through a hole in his throat and with every breath he had left — which was not many, thank God, according to Gomez O'Neal, the head of the Academy's intelligence unit — paving his way to the Pearly Gate by warning everyone about the evils of smoking. Ironically, it was Nick who had talked Total Tobacco Company management out of suing him for breach of faith, on the grounds that it would do no good to the industry's image to sue a dying man with three kids and twelve grandchildren, especially since his croaky pleas to the nation's youth had made him a media darling (at least with the broadcast media since they couldn't accept cigarette ads anyway). Maybe, thought Nick, he could trot out this pathetic little detail in his defense tonight.
Sammy was hovering, as if she didn't trust him not to flee down the fire stairs with his makeup bib still on.
Larry King was very welcoming. "Good to see you. Thanks for coming."
"Pleasure," Nick said tightly. His trapezius muscles were hyper-contracting. He was going to need a session with Dr. Wheat soon. He could use a session with Dr. Wheat right now.
"I used to smoke three packs a day," Larry said. "And you know something, I still miss it. We're gonna have a good show tonight. Lot of calls. Very emotional issue."