"Why?" said Larry. "They dispense nicotine into the system, same as cigarettes, and your position is that cigarettes aren't bad for you, right?"
"Well," Nick said, "your typical cigarette delivers a relatively minute amount of nicotine into your system, a very minute amount. Whereas just one of these deadly little Band-Aids—"
"Hold on," Larry said, "you said 'deadly'?"
"Oh, absolutely. People have been dropping dead all over as a result of these patches. Even our previous caller, Dr. Doom down there in Atlanta, would admit to that."
"I read that some people who kept on smoking after they starting wearing the patches had had heart attacks," said Larry. "But—"
"Well there you go. Heart attacks. I tell you something Larry, and Mr., sorry, I don't know your name, there in Hemdon, I wouldn't let one of those things get near my skin."
"It's very interesting you say that," said the voice. "I will certainly be careful with them. Larry, has anyone ever announced that they're going to kill someone on your show before?"
"No," said Larry, "but we get a lot of angry calls."
"Then this is your lucky day, because I'm here to tell you that within a week, we're going to dispatch Mr. Naylor for all the pain and suffering he's caused in the world."
There was an awkward pause. "Wait a minute," Larry said, "are you threatening him?"
"Yes, Larry. I have really enjoyed talking with you. You have a very nice show." There was a click.
"Emotional issue," said Larry.
9
It was just a short item, in the "Reliable Source" section of the late edition of the Sun, slugged, caller to king show threatens to stub out tobacco smokesman. Nick felt a little short-changed. The guy was obviously just some nut with too much free time on his hands, but where did the Sun get off making puns out of a death threat? In this crazy, mixed-up world?
He called the Sun on his car phone to complain. After explaining to the operator that he had a complaint and wanted to speak to an assistant managing editor, he was put through to a recording.
"You have reached the Washington Sun's ombudsman desk. If you feel you have been inaccurately quoted, press one. If you spoke to a reporter off the record but were identified in the article, press two. If you spoke on deep background but were identified, press three. If you were quoted accurately but feel that the reporter missed the larger point, press four. If you are a confidential White House source and are calling to alert your reporter that the President is furious over leaks and has ordered a review of all outgoing calls in White House phone logs, press five. To speak to an editor, press six."
Exhausted, Nick hung up. His phone rang. It was Gazelle, concerned because Jeannette was going around breathlessly telling everyone in the office that five of the six major pharmaceutical companies that manufactured nicotine patches were threatening to sue unless Nick issued a retraction of his comments on the King show. The achievement of car phones is that your morning can now be ruined even before you get to the office.
People greeted him in the corridors. "Hey, Nick, way to go!"
"You gonna be okay, Nick?"
"Jesus, Nick, who was that guy?"
Gazelle handed him coffee and told him that BR wanted to see him right away.
Jeannette was there when he walked in. She jumped up and went over to him and — hugged him. "Thank God," she said.
"Nick," BR said, with this concerned, three-furrows-in-his-brow look, "are you all right?"
"Fine. What's the problem?"
"The problem," BR said, sounding a little surprised, "is that your life has been threatened."
Nick lit up a Camel. Nice, being able to smoke in BR's office now. "Oh, come on. Some nut."
"That's not how I see it. And that's not how the Captain sees it."
Nick exhaled. "The Captain?"
"I just got off the phone with him. He wants full security around you until this matter is… until we know exactly what we're dealing with here."
"That's crazy."
"Jeannette," BR said, "would you excuse us?" Jeannette left the room. "Nick, we got off to a bad start, and that was my fault, for which I hereby apologize. Sometimes I can be an asshole. It's… the world I come from, vending machines, it's a tough world. I have some edges. But never mind that. I've come to realize lately just how valuable you are to Team Tobacco. So," he smiled, "my concern for you isn't just warm and fuzzy feelings. Basically, I don't want to lose you. And certainly not to some nutcase."
Nick was quite overwhelmed. "Well," he stammered, "I appreciate that, BR."
"So it's settled. We're putting a security detail on you."
"Wait, I didn't agree to that."
"Nick, you want to tell this to the Captain?"
"But I get dozens, hundreds of threats. I've got a whole file labeled 'Threats.' It's under 'T.' One guy wrote that he was going to tar and feather me. He was going to collect an entire vat full of tar from those disposable cigarette-holder filters and cover me with it and then feather me. You can't take this stuff seriously."
"This is different. This was live, national — international — television. Even assuming the guy is just a crank, other people watching might get an idea. They're called copycat killers, I think. Anyway, we're just not prepared to take the chance."
"You're telling me," Nick said, "that I have to have a bodyguard?"
"Bodyguards, plural."
"Uh-uh. Not my style."
"Then you tell the Captain," BR said, holding out his phone. "Listen, in this town it's considered a sign of having arrived."
"I'll look like a drug lord, for crying out loud."
"Look, I don't want to sound like I'm capitalizing on a gruesome situation, but, how can I put this? — the fact that it's gotten to the deplorable point where a senior vice president for a major trade association, for God's sake, is reduced to needing security, in the nation's capital, to keep himself from being killed by a bunch of fanatic anti-smokers—"
"You're really getting into this, aren't you?"
"Nick, I know it's a sow's ear, but maybe there's a silk purse inside."
"Well, yeah, but…"
"All right, then. Aren't you having lunch with Heather Holloway of the Moon today?"
"Yes," Nick said, surprised at how well apprised BR was about his daily schedule. Jeannette.
"So, she's going to notice that you've got bodyguards and put that in her story. How bad can that be for our side?"
Nick left BR's office in a foul mood and went back to his office and called the Captain and asked him if this ridiculous order had come from him. In fact it had, and the Captain was adamant.
"Take it as a measure of our esteem for you, son. Can't go taking chances. I just got off the phone with Skip Billington and Lem Tutweiler and they want to put you in an armored personnel carrier." Billington and Tutweiler were heads of, respectively, Blue Leaf Tobacco, Inc., and Tarcom, two of the largest of the Big Six tobacco firms; by virtue of which they occupied seats — large ones — on the ATS board.
"I think," Nick said, "that we're overreacting to a crank call."
"You let us be the judge of that. Now what progress have you made on the Hollywood project?"
Nick fudged, the correct answer being none. The Captain, shrewd as he was, already knew. "I hope you'll be able to apply yourself to that as soon as possible. In fact, things being what they are, you being a ter'rist target…" This seemed to Nick a rather fraught way of looking at it, but paranoia rubs off and now he was getting sort of nervous. "… it might behoove you to get out of town for a few days and go out there and — don't they all hang out by pools, with their telephones and glamorous stars? That doesn't sound like such an unpleasant assignment," he chuckled. "On second thought, why don't you come down here and run the tobacco business and I'll go out to Hollywood and hang out by the pool with all the beautiful women." He added, "Don't tell Mrs. Boykin I told you that or she'll put a water moccasin in the toilet bowl."