The 38 Million Dollar Smile

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Текст книги "The 38 Million Dollar Smile "

Автор книги: Richard Stevenson

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CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

True to his soiled word, the deeply corrupt General Yodying

had Griswold escorted out of our cell at nine Saturday morning.

Griswold’s passport had been retrieved from his apartment in

Sukhumvit, and the police had picked up clean clothes for him

too. He was also handed ten twenty-dollar bills for his

immediate expenses once he arrived in Frankfurt. After that, he

was on his own. The general said he would not notify Interpol

that Griswold was a notorious sex offender, so long as

Griswold left Thailand forever and didn’t raise a fuss about his having been bilked out of thirty-eight million dollars.

We all said good-bye to Griswold, and I told him how sorry

I was that it had all turned out so badly for him. I asked him

what I should tell Ellen and Bill.

He thought about this, and said, “Just tell them I said mai

pen rai. And that I hope they enjoy the rest of their stay in

Thailand. It’s really a lovely country.”

Griswold was led away, and we thought we would be leaving

at the same time and stood ready to go. But a guard said, “You

wait.”

Around nine thirty, a whole squad of corrections officers

arrived at our cell. The sergeant in charge told us to take off all our clothes and hand them out. What was this? Were we going

to be deloused? Hosed down? Gang-raped?

Anxiously, we disrobed and handed out our garments,

including – as we were ordered to do – our underwear. One

of the guards then passed out large plastic garbage bags, one to each of us. Holes had been cut for our arms to protrude, and

when instructed to do so, we donned the garbage bags. Our

money, wallets and keys, confiscated the day before, were

returned to us.

We were then led out to a convoy of police vans and driven

to Wat Pho, the magnificent temple that housed the largest

reclining Buddha in Thailand. Hundreds of tourists were

270 Richard Stevenson

queued up outside in the sunshine waiting their turn to enter

the sacred shrine. They pointed and laughed as we were

dropped off and the police vans drove away, and the tourists all got some great snapshots.

We had enough money among us to take taxis back to the

safe house, where we had all left a few belongings. Timmy’s and

my plan was to return to the Topmost, clean up, and then track

down Ellen and Bill Griswold and try to explain how and why

they had lost control of the family company despite their not

being murderers, and why Gary Griswold was en route, or soon

to be en route, to Germany.

My cell phone was at the safe house, and it had one

message, from Ellen: “Call me at the hotel immediately.” I did call and when the Griswolds didn’t answer the phone in their room,

I left a message at the Oriental for them to try me again. Maybe, I thought, they were among the throngs at Wat Pho waiting for

a glimpse of the giant reclining Buddha and they didn’t

recognize Pugh, Timmy and me dressed in garbage bags.

Pugh got on his own phone, made a call to people close to

Seer Thammarak Visetchote, the soothsayer working with the

younger, anticorruption army officers. Then he hung up and

gave me thumbs-up. “Four nineteen!” he shouted and gave a

little hop.

Kawee, Mango and Miss Nongnat shared a cab back to

Sukhumvit, though Kawee said he wanted to drop by

Griswold’s condo on the way and water the plants and light

some candles.

Just after noon, as Timmy and I were walking back to the

Topmost, we noticed military vehicles moving in convoys up

ahead on Rama IV Road. We walked on past the hotel and

watched as the trucks soon pulled over on the main

thoroughfare and soldiers poured out of the trucks across the

road near the kickboxing arena and the night market. We could

make out other groups of soldiers down the road toward the

Silom metro station, as well as four tanks.

Timmy said, “Tanks. There’s something we don’t see on

Central Avenue in Albany.”

THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 271

People were coming out of all the restaurants now, and the

shops and 7-Elevens, and traffic was starting to clog up. Small

groups were forming, and some of the people in them had

radios and every few minutes a cheer went up. There were

occasional bursts of laughter. We overheard somebody say in

English that in just a few minutes His Majesty King Bhumibol

would be making a statement to the nation about the change in

government.

Timmy said, “It’s a Land of Smiles coup d’état. It’s the best

kind, if you’re going to have one.”

Soon there were sirens, and traffic parted for an army

convoy of SUVs with flashing lights coming from the north. In

the mess of traffic, the convoy had to slow briefly to a crawl as it went by us, and we caught a glimpse of a big man in a police

uniform inside the middle vehicle seated between two smaller

army commandos. No other police were visible anywhere. The

senior police officer in the SUV appeared to be in army custody, and Timmy said, “Could that be who I think it is?”

“It does appear to be who you think it is.”

“It looks like he’s under arrest.”

“Yeah, unless this is yet another feint.”

“The politics here do resemble Albany politics in the mid–

twentieth century when the O’Connell machine ran it.”

“But the O’Connells didn’t smile so much.”

“I guess we’d better wait and see how all this shakes out,”

Timmy said. “But have our bags packed just in case.”

“You really like this place, don’t you? And these sweet,

formal, spiritual, humorous people.”

“I do like Thailand. A lot. If we had come here under any

other circumstances, I can imagine being totally smitten with

the place.”

“You predicted back home that we might get hurt by the

culture’s nasty underside. And we did. You especially. Will you

ever forgive me for almost getting you tossed off a balcony?”

272 Richard Stevenson

“I think I will. Not quite yet, Donald. But soon enough.

Anyway, I’ve become much more philosophical about dying

since I’ve been here. I can’t say I’ll ever believe in reincarnation, but being around people who do believe in it and who accept

death as a natural part of being human has been good for my

perspective. I feel more at peace here than anywhere I’ve ever

been.”

“And the undercurrent of violence and corruption doesn’t

just make you want to scream? Or run away?”

Timmy thought about this. Crowds were moving now

toward the soldiers gathered in front of the kickboxing arena.

From where we stood, we could make out people starting to

throw things at the soldiers. At first it seemed as if something was wrong and we had misunderstood the situation, and

perhaps violence would suddenly break out. Then we realized it

was flowers that people were tossing through the air, and some

of the soldiers had wrapped garlands of marigolds and jasmine

around their helmets.

Timmy said, “I hate the corruption in Thailand. I really do.

And I’m not prepared to mutter, ‘It’s Chinatown, Jake,’ and just gloomily move on. If I were Thai, I would definitely be up to

my receding hairline working with the good-government

groups, just like I did in Albany in the eighties. But the

corruption here isn’t what’s most profoundly Thai. What’s most

deeply Thai, I think, is Buddhist perspective and ethics and

sane-heartedness.”

“Don’t forget sanuk.”

“Maybe that especially.”

“And of course, lying down in the early evening with some

satiny-skinned butch lady-boy for a few kisses and a relaxing

mutual wank before enjoying a splendid green curry under a full

moon.”

“Those are definitely among the most enchanting forms of

Thai sanuk.”

I said, “It’s a shame about the Griswolds. Especially Gary —

the guy’s instincts were as pure as they could possibly be. He

THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 273

was oh so naive, but his heart was good. We have to track him

down when we get home and see if we can be of any help. It’s

the least we can do, since I was hired to get the guy out of any scrape he was in and I didn’t exactly succeed at that. Anyway,

without Griswold, it’s unlikely we would have come here and

rediscovered – discovered for the first time in your case —

this magical kingdom.”

“I wonder,” Timmy said, “what really happened with Sheila

Griswold? It was her disappearance that set all this craziness in motion in the first place.”

“Sometimes,” I said, “‘It’s Chinatown, Jake’ isn’t about a

strange and unknowable place. It’s about a strange and

unknowable family. The Griswolds may be one of those

families.”

Timmy said, “Do you think we’ll ever know the truth about

Sheila?”

“Maybe in our next lives,” I said. “We’ll just have to be

more patient than we’re used to.”

But then people all around us began to shush one another,

and us. For the king was about to speak.

EPILOGUE

Thailand was inexpensive enough for us to stay around for

another eight days without breaking the bank. The coup

discouraged new tourists from arriving, so it was never hard to

get a table in a restaurant, and there were fewer buff Bavarians to compete with during our predinner visits to Paradisio.

Both General Yodying and Anant na Ayudhaya, choosing

exile over jail, had flown to Singapore for extended stays, so it was unclear what would become of Gary Griswold’s condo.

Meanwhile, Kawee, Mango and Miss Nongnat moved into the

apartment. All three had been hired by Pugh to work as

operatives for him, so among them they could afford the

maintenance on the condo.

A few months later, we heard from Pugh, the condo was

sold for a good price. Pugh took a commission, but the bulk of

the proceeds went to Griswold back in the US. He used the

money to open up a Sayadaw U storefront Buddhist meditation

and study center on Duvall Street in Key West. Somebody also

established a Sayadaw U center in Bangkok, but it wasn’t a

thirty-eight-million-dollar operation. That money had flown

away, into Algonquin Steel stock and elsewhere. The Bangkok

center was just a stall in the lobby of the Grand Hyatt, and

Griswold’s request for a visa to attend the formal opening was

denied. He never returned to Thailand, although he told us later that he had become involved with a Thai-American

orthodontist in Miami who was into ballroom dancing and

model railroading. Also, a friend in Massachusetts ran into the

two men when they got married on a beach in Provincetown in

a Buddhist ceremony.

Timmy and I were startled to read in the Albany Times Union

a month or so after we returned from Thailand that two men

had died when they somehow fell from the roof of the high-rise

apartment building where they lived together on Central

Avenue in Albany. The two were identified as Duane Hubbard,

276 Richard Stevenson

a local personal trainer, and Matthew Mertz, a businessman and

sometime actor. Police said it looked like an accident – tests

showed that the two men were high on crystal meth when they

fell – although officials were not ruling out a double suicide.

Friends said both men had been despondent after losing money

in a business investment that had not worked out.

Bill Griswold was just barely able to wrest back control of

Algonquin Steel. A sizable minority share of the company

remained with a group whose base was in Singapore, although

Griswold found out that this organization was almost certainly a front for unidentified Thais.

I learned about Algonquin Steel’s fate when I ran into Ellen

Griswold at the Subway shop down the street from my office in

the early fall of that year. She was a morning-shift volunteer at the fund drive for the public radio station across from my

building, and she had stopped in at Subway to pick up some

eats to take home for her kids’ lunch.

“Well,” she said, “if it isn’t the man who swindled me out of

– how much was it?”

“I actually lost money on your case,” I said. “Or broke even

at best. And I didn’t appreciate your trying to have my business-class plane ticket back to New York downgraded to coach.

Somebody Rufus Pugh knows at Thai Airways tipped him off,

and he told me what you were trying to pull.”

“The airline basically told me to go fly a kite. I was just

terrifically upset at that point. So was Bill.”

“But he’s still CEO at Algonquin, I see. So you two landed

on your feet well enough, it looks like.”

It was then that she told me about the legal machinations —

as well as a sizable cash payment to the group in Singapore —

that enabled the family to retain control of the company.

“So you must have some fairly bitter feelings about

Thailand,” I said. “Your experience with the place was less

happy than mine was in the end.”

“Yes, for a while that was true. But it’s all worked out for

the best between Bill and me and Thailand. Bill is opening three THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 277

Econo-Build stores in Bangkok next year and one in Chiang

Mai. In fact, he’s in Bangkok right now working on the

financing. Three of the younger army generals are investing, as

well as a few others. I’m actually looking forward to going along on Bill’s next trip. Both of us have always loved travel, and we travel well together. It’s one of the best things about our

basically good marriage. Speaking of significant others, how is

your partner Timothy? Has he fully recovered from his nearplunge-off-a-balcony ordeal?”

“Timmy came through all of that less traumatized than you

might expect,” I said. “In fact, he’s so enthusiastic about

Thailand that we’ll probably take a winter vacation there.”

“If we’re there at the same time, maybe you could join us for

dinner at the Oriental. You could pay. On second thought, that

might not work. Bill still holds you responsible for siding with Gary in his absurd attempt to give away Algonquin Steel to a

group of religious fanatics.”

“I know you’re not in touch with Gary,” I said. “I’ve spoken

to him a few times in Key West. He seems to be doing okay,

but he did not speak well of either of you two.”

“No, the misunderstandings between us were just too ugly

and complicated to sort out. It’s all just kind of sad and

pathetic, is what it all is.”

“Gary was especially disturbed to find out that the two men

who extorted two million dollars from him, Duane Hubbard

and Matthew Mertz, died in falls from a building half a dozen

blocks from here not long after we all got back from Thailand.

He thinks you and your husband had something to do with

their deaths.”

She sighed theatrically and slowly shook her head. “Here we

go again!”

“I guess it is far-fetched,” I said. “Unless, of course, the sex-movie DVD you showed Pugh and me in Bangkok wasn’t the proof-of-murder recording those guys claimed to possess, and

there was a second, very different CD somewhere that some of

us have never seen. And Hubbard and Mertz tried to blackmail

278 Richard Stevenson

you and Bill a second time. And you had had just about enough

of those two bozos, and you hired somebody else – is there a

Thai community here in Albany? – to get those two pests out

of your hair once and for all.”

She looked at me evenly and said, “You know, Strachey,

when I hired you, I have to admit I wasn’t sure what my own

motives were. I really did care what happened to Gary. I loved

him once – for his moral seriousness and for his truly good

heart. And I really did not want anything terrible to happen to

him or to his money. But I confess I was also worried at the

time about whether Duane and Matthew had turned up in

Bangkok and maybe planted some screwy ideas in Gary’s head.

Idiotic ideas like the one you have just outlined. And lo and

behold, it turned out that that’s precisely what happened. I

thought you might smoke all that out, and you did. So I guess I

must be some kind of soothsayer myself, wouldn’t you say?”

“I want you to know, Ellen,” I said, “that Timothy and I live

just over on Crow Street in a two-story townhouse. We don’t

plan on moving into a high-rise building in the foreseeable

future. Or maybe even visiting one for a while.”

She seemed to decide that I was joking, and let loose with a

good-natured snort.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

RICHARD STEVENSON is the pseudonym of Richard Lipez,

the author of nine books, including the Don Strachey private

eye series. He also co-wrote Grand Scam with Peter Stein, and contributed to Crimes of the Scene: A Mystery Novel Guide for the International Traveler. He is a mystery columnist for the Washington Post and a former editorial writer at the Berkshire Eagle. His reporting, reviews, and fiction have appeared in Newsday, the Boston Globe, The Progressive, The Atlantic Monthly, Harpers, and several other publications. He grew up in

Pennsylvania, went to college there, and then served in the

Peace Corps in Ethiopia from 1962 to 1964. The Don Strachey

books are being filmed by here!, the first gay television network.

The first in the series, Third Man Out, starring Chad Allen as Don Strachey, aired in September 2005, followed by A Shock to the System in 2006, and On the Other Hand, Death and Ice Blues in 2008. More film adaptations are planned.

THE TREVOR PROJECT

The Trevor Project operates the only nationwide, around-theclock crisis and suicide prevention helpline for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning youth. Every day, The

Trevor Project saves lives though its free and confidential

helpline, its website and its educational services. If you or a

friend are feeling lost or alone call The Trevor Helpline. If you or a friend are feeling lost, alone, confused or in crisis, please call The Trevor Helpline. You’ll be able to speak confidentially with a trained counselor 24/7.

The Trevor Helpline: 866-488-7386

On the Web: http://www.thetrevorproject.org/

THE GAY MEN’S DOMESTIC VIOLENCE PROJECT

Founded in 1994, The Gay Men’s Domestic Violence Project is

a grassroots, non-profit organization founded by a gay male

survivor of domestic violence and developed through the

strength, contributions and participation of the community. The

Gay Men’s Domestic Violence Project supports victims and

survivors through education, advocacy and direct services.

Understanding that the serious public health issue of domestic

violence is not gender specific, we serve men in relationships

with men, regardless of how they identify, and stand ready to