Текст книги "The 38 Million Dollar Smile "
Автор книги: Richard Stevenson
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Текущая страница: 10 (всего у книги 17 страниц)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Up in Pugh’s office in Surawong, Griswold described for us
his worthy project. It was a massive complex of temples,
monasteries, and Buddhism study and meditation centers to be
built on a drained cobra swamp on the outskirts of Bangkok
near the new airport. A kind of Buddhism theme park would
adjoin the main campus to help educate many of Thailand’s
fifteen million yearly foreign tourists about Buddhism. The
monks from next door would participate in “monk chats” with
the visiting farangs, explaining the tenets of Buddhism.
Griswold said he had borrowed this last idea from an existing
monastery in Chiang Mai, in northern Thailand, but his monk
chats would be conducted on a much larger scale. Griswold
himself would finance the construction of the complex, and the
new business scheme he was planning along with Thai investors
would serve as an endowment for the institution for decades or
even centuries to come.
Pugh said, “Your audacious plan is largely meritorious, Mr.
Gary. You are to be commended. It will be compromised, of
course, if you are flung off the side of a high building before
your project reaches fruition.”
“That’s one reason I’m trying to stay alive. Not just for
myself but for the Sayadaw U Winaya project. That’s who the
project will be named after.”
Pugh nodded approvingly, but I was in the dark. Griswold
saw my puzzlement and explained. “A sayadaw is the abbot of a
monastery in Burma. Sayadaw U Winaya was the revered abbot
of the Thamanyat monastery in southeastern Burma until his
death several years ago. He was a supporter of democrat Aung
San Su Kyi and an opponent of the evil junta that rules the
country so savagely. After his death, the monk’s corpse was
placed in a glass box and put on display in a shrine near the
monastery, and was believed by Burmese Buddhists to have
supernatural powers. Pilgrims came to Thamanyat from all over
158 Richard Stevenson
the country. The paranoid ruling generals feared the dead
monk’s magic and were probably behind the theft of the corpse
by armed and masked intruders two years ago.
“At U Winaya Park, we’ll have a replica of the great monk’s
corpse in a box of glass and gold. It will serve as a place of
solace and spiritual power, not just for Thai pilgrims but for
millions of Burmese refugees who had fled the horrors of their
homeland. It’s just barely possible that this project could go
forward without me. But I’m providing most of the financing,
and even more importantly the endowment cannot be set up
without my guidance. So it’s best, Strachey, that not only should Timothy and Kawee be rescued, but that I also should continue
breathing and walking around upright, if at all possible.”
It all sounded grandiose to me, out of scale for a philosophy
with simplicity and humility at its moral core. But Pugh was
looking thoughtful and approving, so who was I to judge?
“How,” I asked Griswold, “were you planning on
overseeing this huge project while you were in hiding? That
sounds all but impossible, especially in a business culture that you don’t know as intimately as you know your own.”
“Later this month,” Griswold said with quiet smile, “I won’t
be in hiding anymore.”
“Oh? Why is that?”
“On April twenty-seventh, a number of changes will come
about in Bangkok. And among those changes will be the
effective removal of the leader of the original investment group.
He will no longer be in a position to either hurt me or even
hassle me.”
Pugh said, “Nine.”
“Not only,” Griswold said, “will two and seven add up to
nine, but my sworn enemy in all of this will on April twenthseventh have been in his present position for exactly six years.
And his wife will turn sixty years old on that day. They are
finished. I will be free.”
By now I expected Pugh to swoon over all this
numerological mumbo jumbo – lucky nines dueling with
THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 159
unlucky sixes – but he just looked at Griswold peculiarly and
said nothing. We were heading up Surawong Road now, nearing
Pugh’s office.
I asked Griswold, “How come you’ve been hiding out for
six months, not just from these people who are after your ass
but from all your friends and family back home? You could
easily have been in touch by e-mail or even phoned people once
in a while without compromising your safety. Your friends in
Key West have been worried sick about you, and so have your
brother and sister-in-law in Albany. That all strikes me as
unnecessary and, if I may say so, pretty selfish for a practicing Buddhist.”
Griswold’s face hardened now. “Something happened six
months ago that changed the way I see my life. This was a
personal blow, nothing business related. But afterward I needed
time to clear my mind of all the impurities I could possibly rid myself of. I have been mostly meditating for the past six
months and attempting to restore a kind of karmic harmony in
my life and in the lives of others.”
“Did this have something to do with Mango?” I asked.
Griswold gave me a funny look. “Mango? How do you even
know about Mango? Oh, I guess you would. You’ve spoken to
Ellen and you’ve broken into my laptop, and you’ve probably
been through my tax returns and my garbage pail. No, it had
nothing to do with Mango. Mango was a beguiling man I
thought for a while I might make a life with, until I found out
he had several other lives going on at the same time, including
one as a money boy. Another of his lives was accumulating real
estate in Chonburi with his Thai lover, a man named Donnutt,
who is also a very busy and accomplished money boy. In fact,
Mango wasn’t the first Thai man who turned out to be more
interested in my bank account than anything else about me. I’m
a bit disillusioned in that department, I have to admit. Thais are so sane about sexual orientation but far too casual about
relationships. I know I’m an anachronistic joke in this regard,
but I want the kind of marriage my parents had, except with a
human being of the same sex. Others, I know, share this old
160 Richard Stevenson
fashioned view, and it’s what I’m holding out for and what I
believe I’ll have some day.”
“Thailand might not be the best place for that, Griswold.
Relationships are far more fluid here,” I said, “more
accommodating of human nature and the varieties of human
need. Maybe you should have run off instead to North Korea
or Idaho. It’s not too late, of course. So what was this life-
changing event six months ago, if not romantic?”
The van pulled into a parking garage next to Pugh’s office,
and Griswold said, “None of that is anything you need to
concern yourself with in the present circumstances. Though
you’ll learn about a number of aspects of it soon enough.”
I supposed I was going to have to wait for some more nines
to turn up.
Two men met us at one of Pugh’s reserved parking spots,
and they along with Egg led Griswold through a passageway to
Pugh’s building and up to his office.” Pugh and I followed, and
soon he slowed our pace a bit until we were out of earshot of
Griswold and the others.
Pugh said to me, “Griswold knows his numerology. A big
man – the head of the investors who got screwed and are after
Griswold – is going to take a fall on April twenty-seventh. But
Griswold, I believe, gave something away. The esteemed seer
Surapol Sutharat will lead a birthday blessing ceremony on that
date on the plaza in front of the Central World Mall that will be open to the public and will be attended by many thousands of
merit-makers. It will be one of the major socioreligious
occasions in Bangkok to mark the beginning of Songkran, the
Buddhist new year. The television newsies and the Bangkok
papers have been burbling over with reports on this upcoming
solemn event. And the star birthday girl, Paveena Hanwilai, is
the wife of a considerable personage in Bangkok, a man whose
name will ring a major bell with you, Khun Don.”
Pugh had stopped walking and was looking at me now, and I
asked him, “Who’s that?”
THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 161
“Paveena Hanwilai is the wife of Police General Yodying.
She’s a Bangkok A-list celeb from an aristocratic family —
distantly related to Jack and Jackie, as she likes to remind folks
– who gets her name and her picture in the papers regularly.
She’s often seen in the company of soothsayer Surapol at merit-
making rituals at temples and upscale shopping centers around
Bangkok. Of course, there could be another wife of a Bangkok
pooh-bah with a sixtieth birthday on April twenty-seventh. I’ll
ask Khun Thunska to hack into city records and do a quick
search for other April twenty-seventh sixtieth birthdays. But
present circumstances do strongly suggest to me that Paveena is
our gal and General Yodying is our boy. I believe I assured you
earlier that General Yodying was our crook, not someone else’s.
You have my sincerest apologies for that miscalculation.”
I thought about this and said, “So, can I get my twenty-four
thousand dollars back?”
“Retrieving your money is the least of our worries,” Pugh
said. “Yodying is no doubt in touch with the kidnappers,
perhaps even directing them. It’s good that we did not involve
the police in the rescue effort we have planned.”
“You mean the rescue effort that might result in Timmy or
Kawee getting thrown off a building as a warning to us to back
off?”
“Yes, that very rescue effort. But we now have enough
information to deal with that particular thorny aspect of this
complex situation. Knowledge is power, after all.”
“I love your bromides, Rufus. I find them soothing. Back in
New Jersey, I may someday endow a bromide center at
Monmouth State and name it after you.”
“Thank you, Khun Don. You are a kind man.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Griswold phoned somebody he refused to identify to us and
tried to make a deal. First he offered 20 percent of the new
project, then 30, then 40, then 50. He told whoever was on the
other end of the line that that was as high as he could go. He
had told us before placing the call that offering 90 percent
would have been fine with him – after all, he’d be in the clear
with these people as of April 27 – but that doing so would
arouse suspicions about his sincerity. Also, he was unwilling to describe to the kidnappers the exact nature of the new can’t-gowrong project, and that probably did not inspire confidence.
Griswold hung up after a few minutes looking pale and
exhausted. “I’m sorry. They said no deal. They want me. I
suppose they think they can torture me and make me pay them
back the money they lost, and then they’ll kill me as a lesson to others not to fuck with them.”
I said, “Why not just give them the money? Three lives are
at risk here. How much did they lose?”
“Forty-three million US. I haven’t got that much. And what
I do have I will need for the Sayadaw U project. And also to
right a wrong that has festered for far too many years.”
He sat there beside Pugh’s desk in his shiny biking outfit,
reeking of stale sweat, and suddenly I wanted to pick him up
and toss him out a window myself. Here was a man who had
employed six month’s worth of meditation to empty his mind
of impurities and locate the peaceful core within, and yet he was going around wreaking bloody havoc wherever he turned. His
wheel of life was like some kind of rampaging buzz saw.
Surprising both Pugh and myself, I said, “Griswold, you
really have to consider giving yourself up to these people.
Maybe your present life just isn’t going to work out for you.
Plainly, your heart is generally in the right place, and if I
understand the rules of reincarnation correctly, you’ve earned a pretty good karmic report card overall. You’ve donated to lots
164 Richard Stevenson
of good causes over the years – Amnesty International and so
forth, and I’ll bet the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Fund.
And your Buddhist study center and theme park, even if it
never gets built, will surely earn you about a zillion points for good intentions. Your next life is bound to be both noble and
cushy. So maybe the right thing for you to do is to just call it quits for this particular incarnation and let Kawee live out his current putrid existence as he sees fit, and the same goes for
Timothy Callahan. Just give yourself up and let the karmic chips fall where they may. What do you think?”
Griswold sat glowering at me – he really would have to
speak to his ex-wife about the hired help – but Pugh looked
bemused.
Pugh said, “Khun Don, there is a certain Buddhist common
sense to what you say. But I am thinking that it really need not come to that.”
“So what do you have in mind, Rufus?”
“We can talk some more about that. Meanwhile, let’s get
Khun Gary spruced up a bit and into some fresh duds. Egg has
some clothes in the outer office that should fit you, Khun Gary.
There’s a shower, and if you like we can call in a masseur and
send out for a sack of grasshoppers in fish sauce for you to
nibble on. Be assured you shall have whatever your heart
desires, short of absconding. Egg will be following you
wherever you go and he will not hesitate to crack a few ribs to
sustain your cooperation. You are an extremely valuable
property for us, so there’s no chance we can allow you to slip
away. For now, Egg, please remove Khun Gary’s handcuffs.”
Griswold’s look softened, and he said, “This has turned into
quite a mess, I know. I do apologize for that. It’s not at all what I had in mind.”
“Apology accepted,” Pugh said. “Think nothing of it. Oh,
there is one thing you can do to express your regrets in a more
tangible way, and your doing so will be appreciated all around.
Your former wife has discharged Investigator Strachey and will
shortly cease paying his fees and underwriting his expenses. He
has already spent many thousands of dollars trying to save you
THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 165
from a particularly unattractive form of dying fairly young.
Acting as Khun Don’s subcontractor, I also have incurred
expenses. If you could kindly cough up about fifty K, this
would go a long way toward easing any remaining bad feelings
in this room. We know you’re worth about thirty-eight mil, so
fifty thousand would be no skin off your back. How about it?
Good form is always appreciated in Thailand, as I’m sure you
know. Economic justice is farther down on our list of social
graces, but we here in this room like it, and we happen to own
your sorry ass.”
All serene again, Griswold said, “I can help you out, yes.”
He was back in Lady Bountiful mode.
“It would not be a charitable contribution, Khun Gary. It
would be a fee for a service rendered. That service being:
preventing three people, one of whom would be you, from
meeting the same sad fate as Khun Khunathip and your old
friend Geoff Pringle. Though please do understand. While we
are professionals at bailing out the hapless, we can only do what we can do. Your coughing up the fifty K in the next half hour,
if you please, does not guarantee success. We will, however, do
our darnedest.”
“The next half hour?”
“There are banks nearby. Or if you have a cash stash —
which surely you must – you can direct us to it.”
Griswold said, “Get me my bag.”
Pugh had already been through Griswold’s shoulder bag. It
contained a bottle of water, some vile PowerBar sort of thing
with a Malaysian label, and Griswold’s wallet. Griswold selected an ATM card from the six or seven in his wallet and wrote the
password on a piece of paper Pugh provided.
“If you think you might help yourself to a million or two
I’ve got sitting around in that account,” Griswold said, “you can forget it. That account holds no more than US seventy
thousand dollars.”
“And your withdrawal limit is?”
“There is no limit.”
166 Richard Stevenson
“Khun Gary, you are a god.”
“No, just a good businessman.”
I said, “And the son of Max and Bertha Griswold. That
helped.”
At the mention of family and money, Griswold grew
solemn. “Yes, my parents worked hard and became wealthy,
and I was the beneficiary of nearly half their wealth. I have
never felt anything but grateful for, and unworthy of, my
inheritance. And I’ve always tried to share that wealth in a
responsible way. And I intend on continuing to do so if I possibly can.”
“This is where our interests intersect,” I said. “Keeping you
alive to perform more good works, and keeping Timothy and
Kawee alive so they can scratch around in the dust in their far
humbler ways.”
“You’re a somewhat bitter man,” Griswold said. “If you
remain in Thailand, I could direct you to people who would
help you do something about that.”
“My bitterness is temporary, and my bitterness is rational. It
has to do with the possibility of the sweet man I have made my
adult life with ending up as a pile of broken bones and useless
bloody tissue on a Thai sidewalk or roadway.”
Griswold looked momentarily stricken and said, “You know,
my parents died in a fall. In an airplane that crashed.”
“I heard about that. From Lou Horn.”
“Oh. Lou. How is he? Is Lou all right?”
“Yes, except for wondering why you totally cut him off and
acted like you had just…”
I let the words hang, and Pugh said it. “Fallen off the face of
the earth.”
“All that will be cleared up soon enough,” Griswold said. “I
do feel very, very bad about the way I treated my old friends.”
“You should.”
THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 167
“I really need to get a competent reading soon. All this
falling. It’s hard to believe. My parents. Khun Khunathip.
Geoff. And now these threats against Kawee and your
boyfriend. It’s just too much falling to write off as what most
people might call coincidence.”
“You’re a faller too, Griswold. A couple of years ago you fell
off your bike. And got a good whack to your noggin. Don’t
leave that one out.”
“Funny,” Griswold said. “Lou and my friends Marcie and
Janice in Key West talked about that. A bike accident. But I
really have no memory of it happening.”
By now, Pugh had one of his crew in the office and was
instructing her on how and where to extract the fifty thousand
dollars worth of baht from an ATM. Griswold began to make a
move toward the outer office and the bathroom when Pugh
asked him to wait just one moment.
Before Griswold left the room with Egg at his side, Pugh
said, “In addition to the funds, I need one other thing from
you, Khun Gary, if we’re going to fish your butt out of the
soup. I need to know who exactly we are dealing with here. I
have reason to believe that Police General Yodying Supanant is
the head of the investors who got screwed and who want you to
make good on their lost investments. Am I correct?”
Shaking his head, Griswold said, “Oh God. I should never
have mentioned that part of it. You know about Paveena and
her birthday celebration, don’t you?”
“I read the Post, just like you.”
“Yes. Damn. But it’s just as well. I suppose you do have to
know everything if you’re going to get all of us out of this fuckall with no more falling from high places.”
“Precisely. And no more of this falling-off-the-face-of-theearth hugger-mugger.”
Griswold was led out of the room, looking dazed.
As soon as Griswold was gone, Pugh got on the phone with
Khun Thunska. He asked him to do a quick check of
computerized city records of who in Bangkok besides Paveena
168 Richard Stevenson
Hanwilai would have a sixtieth birthday on April 27 and had a
powerful husband.
Next, Pugh called Ek and they had a quick exchange in Thai.
Pugh explained to me that he had instructed Ek to locate the
abandoned building in which Timmy and Kawee were being
held. A helpful employee in the Bangkok building inspector’s
office had come up with a list of nine buildings that fit Timmy’s
“Millpond” description. Ek would narrow the list down through
surveillance and trustworthy contacts at security firms, but he
would not act until told to do so by Pugh. Pugh told me he now
had a plan for rescuing Timmy and Kawee that involved some
risk for them and for us, and would have repercussions we
would all have to cope with.
I said, “So, you don’t like my idea of having Griswold turn
himself over to the kidnappers and leaving it up to him to talk
his way out of this? I thought you might see a kind of karmic
logic to that one.”
Pugh shot me a quick, tight smile. “It wouldn’t work. They
would likely grab Griswold and renege on their promise to
release their captives. As Khun Gary predicted, they would
torture him and extract as much cash from him as they could in
a short time. Then they would throw all of them off a building
– Griswold, Timmy and Kawee – as a kind of fuck-you
gesture to all of us. Then the police would miraculously appear
on the scene and arrest you for some type of visa violation and
me for trout fishing without a license. A financial settlement of perhaps fifty K or so would soon be agreed to, and we would
both be released. Life would go on for me, and you would be
placed on a Lufthansa flight for Frankfurt in the middle of the
night, coach class. So, Khun Don, commonsensical as your
ostensibly hardheaded formulation might be on its face, you’d
better forget it. Here in the Land of Smiles, it just ain’t gonna fly.”
I said to Pugh that if my desperate, fatalistic and admittedly
selfish solution was not the answer, then what was? The
scenario he laid out for me over the next three minutes sounded
THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 169
outlandish, although it occurred to me that it would not have
surprised Timmy.
