"Where are we going?" Nick asked.
"What an incredibly unrealistic question, Neek. You're expecting maybe an address?" That accent. That's it — Peter Lorre, the actor who played whatsisname, the greasy little hustler in Casablanca, Uguarte. Only Lorre, as far as Nick could recall, was long dead.
"Is this for ransom money?"
"It's for de mortgage, Neek." Laughter. Nick decided to dispense with further conversational ice-breakers.
After about half an hour, the car stopped, doors opened, hands pulled him out, doors opened and shut, muffled voices spoke, they went up a flight of steps, down a hall, another door opened and shut, he was pushed down onto a chair, his ankles were tied to its legs. None of this was reassuring. The hood stayed on. That was reassuring, assuming they didn't want him to see their faces. The tie binding his wrist was undone, and now came a part he really didn't like at all, not one bit: they started to remove his clothes.
"Excuse me. What's happening?"
"Don't worry, Neek, dere aren't any women here. You don't have to be embarrassed." That voice. It was creepy and unnerving. That was it for Peter Lorre movies, never mind that Casablanca was one ofhis favorites. "Oh, I'm so sorry, you must be dying for a cigarette."
In fact, a cigarette would be good right about now, yes.
"On the udder hand, if you wait a leetle while, you'll have all de nicotine you can handle." Laughter. And not a nourishing kind of laughter either, more what you'd expect from someone with severe psychological problems. Maybe he should try to keep up some conversation.
"Can we talk about this? Usually, they let you know why they're kidnapping you. Otherwise, like, what's the point?"
"You know why, Neek. We want you to stop killing people. So many people. More dan half a million people a year. And dat's just in the United States."
"There's no data to support that," Nick said, who perhaps could be forgiven, this once, for using the singular rather than plural verb form.
"Neek! Dat's not going to woork. You're not on de Oprah Winfrey show anymore."
"Well, it's nowhere near half a million. Even hardcore gaspers only claim as high as 435,000."
"Gaspers. I like dat, Neek. Is dat what you call people who want the tobacco companies to stop committing human sacrifice for the sake of their profits?"
Nick was down to his boxer shorts now. He heard the sound of cardboard boxes being opened. With a black hood over your head, you become very curious about noises. More ripping, like plastic wrapping.
A hand pressed against his chest over his heart. He leapt up in his chair, straining at his ankles and wrists. The hand came away and he felt something left behind on his chest, something sticky and clinging, like a bandage.
Another hand, or the same hand, clamped down on his skin next to the first spot and left another whatever it was. Again, again, again, till his entire chest was covered, then the arms, the back, the legs from below the boxers to the ankles.
Then his forehead and cheeks. Every square inch of him was covered. When he shifted in his chair, he felt like one adhesive mass, a Band-Aid mummy.
"Look, can we get a little dialogue going here?"
"Don't you remember, Neek, how I told you on de Larry King show dat we were going to dispatch you?"
Dispatch? Dis? Patch? Nick grasped, reluctantly, that this lunatic had just covered him head to toe in nicotine patches. Which meant that a massive, indeed, probably lethal amount of nicotine was at this moment being delivered, through his skin, into his bloodstream. Not that there was any scientific proof that nicotine was bad for you.
He made some calculations. Were there twenty-two milligrams in a patch? Something like that. And a cigarette contained about one milligram, so one patch was about one pack… felt as though they'd plastered him with about forty of them… which made… forty packs… four cartons? Even by industry standards, that was a serious day's smoking.
"Let me read you something," Peter Lorre said. "Dis comes with the patches, in de boxes. Under 'Adverse Reactions.' Dis is my favorite part. I don't care so much about the incidence of tumors in the cheek pouches of hamsters and forestomachs of F344 rats. I don't even know what an F344 rat is. Anyway, dere are so many adverse reactions here, I don't hardly know where to begin. Why don't I read only de big ones?"
Nick was starting to feel a little queasy. And his pulse seemed… well, he was nervous, for sure, but it was starting to beat pretty fast.
"Look, I think it's perfectly legitimate that non-smokers feel they're entitled to breathe smoke-free air. Our industry has been working hand in hand with citizens groups and the government to ensure that—"
"Neek. Just listen, okay? 'Erythema,' it says. Do you know what dat means? I had to look it up in a dictionary. All it means is redness of the skin, like from chemical poisoning or sunburn. I would say you are going to have very red skin, Nick. Maybe you can get a part in a movie playing an Indian. Heh heh. Oh, I'm sorry, Neek. Dat was in very poor taste."
"My industry does forty-eight billion a year in revenues. I think we're looking at an attractive opportunity situation here. I think everyone in this room is looking at early retirement in Saint Barth's, or wherever."
"Now dis I can understand. 'Abdominal pain, somnolence'—dat's sleeping, isn't it? — 'skin rash, sweating. Back pain, constipation, dyspepsia, nausea, myalgia.' Here we go again with dese words. Ah, okay, dizziness, headache, insomnia.' I don't understand, they tell you sleepiness then they tell you insomnia. We'll just have to find out. You know, you could be making an incredible contribution to science. You could be written up in de New England Journal of Medicine. What else? 'Pharyngitis'? I think dat must mean when your pharynx is broken, don't you? 'Sinusitis and… dysmenorrhea.' I don't even want to know what dat means, it sounds so horrible. You can tell me about it later."
Burning. His skin was burning. "I would guess that you could start by asking for five million. And work your way up from there. I don't want to boast, but I'm an extremely important part of our overall media strategy, so—"
"But I don't want any money, Neek."
"Well, what do you want? I mean, I'm all ears, here." His heart. Whoa. Ba-boom, ba-boom.
"What does any of us want? A little financial security, de love of a good woman, not too big a mortgage, crisp bacon."
Nick's mouth was starting to go very dry and taste like it was wrapped in tinfoil. His head began to pound. His heart was going like a jackhammer. And something was brewing down there in his stomach that was going to come up… soon.
"Uuuh."
"By de way, did you see de story in Lancet? About dis incredible fact that in de next ten years 250 million people in the industrialized world are going to die from smoking? One in five, Neek. Isn't dat amazing? Dat's five times how many died in de last world war."
Boomboomboomboom. "Urrrrrrrg."
"Dat's the entire population of de United States."
"I'll quit. I'll… work for the. Lung. Association."
"Good, Neek. Boys, don't you think Nick is making excellent progress?"
"Urrrrrr."
"You don't sound so good, Neek."
"— rrrrr—" Bumbumbumbum. His heart was knocking on his rib cage, saying I want out.