He kept reaching into his linen sport coat as if he were going for a gun. He wasn’t, of course, but this was Beirut. The gesture rattled the hotel staff.“Someone’s going to call for backup if you do that again,” I said, walking up to him.“It’s my cigar case.”“Pull it out, then. Kill the suspense. You’re in a smoker’s paradise.”“I can’t.”“Can’t?”“I stopped. Doctor’s orders.”“You never took a doctor’s order in your life.”“I’m a new person. I want to live to be a hundred.”He didn’t look it: bags under his eyes, drawn face. It couldn’t have been jet lag or lack of sleep: O’Neill was an alien out of Men in Black. “You get to sleep when you’re dead,” he liked to say.I suggested we pace through the tiny courtyard in front of the hotel as we talked. The Albergo itself was above intrigue, but you never knew if the lobby was wired.O’Neill got things started by bitching and moaning about the hoops he’d had to crawl through just to show up: the embassy, the ambassador.
What do You think about Blow The House Down (2006)?
