Boston's not exactly Big's favourite city at the moment. These days it's far too blue for his liking, its pansy-assed, ungrateful liberal legislators settled firmly in opposition of his agenda. It's been four years now since smoking was banned from virtually all workplaces in the state, including bars and restaurants, and even in such a short span of time the effect has been notable. Heart attack death have plummeted. Air pollution from second-hand smoke has fallen. Teenagers in the state are less likely to start smoking. The city's even considering banning cigar and hookah bars. It's hardly going to kill him, but it's irritating all the same.
It's all this which brings him to Massachusetts, in the capacity of a lobbyist for a large tobacco firm which has made generous campaign contributions to several sitting state legislators. Seems to Big it's about time he remind these fellas exactly who got them elected.
But all that's for tomorrow. Tonight finds Big Tobacco seated at the bar in a little Irish pub, smoke curling from the lit cigarette between his fingers in blatant defiance of the city's laws.
Suddenly, there's a change in the pub's atmosphere. It's a subtle shift, undetectable to human senses, but to the canny immortal eye... Somehow in that moment the bar seems a more pleasant place to be, the beer a slightly more pleasing shade of amber, the bottle that bit more inviting. He traces that feeling easily to a brunette sitting a couple of stools away - and smiles. "'Lo there, sweetheart."