Текст книги "The 38 Million Dollar Smile "
Автор книги: Richard Stevenson
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“Why would the sixes be upside down and not the other
numbers?”
“You tell me.”
THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 61
I took a picture of the wall with my cell phone. Griswold’s
landline phone was dead when I lifted the receiver. He – or
someone – was paying the condo fees and the electric bill, but
not for a telephone. A desk in an alcove looked as if it had been where Griswold had set up a computer; a space that was now
empty was just right for a laptop. There were no personal
papers on the desk or in any of the drawers, just some art exhibition announcements and catalogs, none dated during the
previous six months. Nothing in, on, or around the desk looked
like an “investment” guide. I looked for a calendar, date book,
or address book and found none. Nor was there any reference
anywhere to Griswold’s bloodshed-forecasting seer.
I unlatched the sliding glass door to the terrace, and we
stepped out of the fiercely air-conditioned room into the
Bangkok night oven. Next to the rattan porch chairs was an
array of elegantly glazed ceramic pots, some holding feathery
young bamboo plants and some white azaleas. One pot
overflowed with purple and white orchids. Only a few dead
leaves lay around the plants – apparently sweeping up dead
leaves was still a Thai national pastime – and a watering can sat in a corner.
I said, “Somebody’s been looking after the plants.”
“Who?”
“We should find out.”
Timmy peered down at the shadowy driveway far below.
“I’d hate to fall off one of these things. Like Geoff Pringle.”
“It’s not how anybody wants to die.”
Griswold’s dining room had a well-crafted teak dining table
in the center and eight semicomfortable-looking teak chairs
around it. The most interesting object in this room was not the
dining table, however, but a carpeted two-foot-high platform
off to the side, upon which rested an elaborate shrine. It was a Hindu temple–style spirit house like the ones found outside
many Thai buildings, including modern office towers, where
offerings were left to appease the natural spirits displaced by the 62 Richard Stevenson
structures. Griswold’s building had one near the main entrance,
as did Pringle’s, and our hotel.
Griswold’s personal spirit house had a seated Buddha
statuette inside it, about a foot high, in the raised left palm
mudra. This is the attitude of the Buddha’s hand that means you are in the presence of the Buddha; do not be afraid. Freshly burned incense lay in a dish in front of the spirit house and its
pleasantly scratchy aroma still hung in the air. The garlands of marigolds, jasmine, and rose blossoms that lay in front of the
shrine, brownish and wilting, appeared a day or two old.
I said, “Griswold is really into it. He’s sincere.”
“So is somebody else with a key to this apartment.”
“We need to talk to the super again.”
In the bedroom, a king-size bed with cream covers was
pristinely un-slept-in. In the closet, there were plenty of
designer label, warm-weather clothes, but empty spaces too, and
no luggage. The bedroom art and decoration continued the
astrological motif, with more stars, planets, and numbers flying around. There were no rich-gay-guy paintings or prints with
muscular male nudes striking I’ve-been-waiting-for-YOU poses
or clutching a rope.
Timmy and I did not have to seek out Mr. Thomsatai to find
out who had been entering Griswold’s apartment, for now the
manager reappeared. He had quietly let himself in, found us in
the bedroom, and asked if we were finished with our visit.
I asked him, “Have other people been in the apartment
besides us? Someone has watered the plants. And left offerings.
Or do you do that?”
“No, no. Kawee has a key. Kawee comes sometimes.”
“Who is Kawee?”
“Kawee is Mr. Gary’s friend.”
“Thai?”
“Of course.”
“When does Kawee come?”
THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 63
“I don’t know. Sometimes I see him. He has a key.”
“No one else comes?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Have others such as myself come looking for Mr. Gary?”
“Of course.”
“Who?”
“Thai man. I don’t know his name. He comes sometimes
and asks where is Mr. Gary. He comes on a motorbike. He is
unfriendly. I don’t like him. He asked me to phone his mobile if Mr. Gary comes.”
“How much did he pay you?”
“One thousand baht. Like you.”
I produced another note. “Have you got this man’s phone
number?”
“Of course.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
“I’m confused,” I said to Rufus Pugh. “I thought you were
probably American.”
“Yeah, ha-ha. This happens all the time. Some clients get up
and walk out.”
“I find it reassuring that you’re Thai.”
“Yes, it helps to be Thai if you’re operating in Thailand.
You’ll see.”
Pugh, Timmy, and I were in the Topmost dining room for
the breakfast buffet. Timmy had his papaya and yogurt, I my
omelet, and Pugh four slices of pineapple and a side of bacon.
“So, is Rufus your real name?” Timmy asked. “It sounds
so…I guess American.”
“No, the name my parents gave me was Panchalee
Siripasaraporn.” Pugh spelled it out, letter by letter. “But we
Thais are not so rigid about names as you foreigners are. It can be confusing, I know. Sometimes Thais change their names.
And we have different nicknames for different situations and
relationships. Am I making myself unclear?” He laughed.
Pugh was a wiry little man who looked tough as old
lemongrass. I could imagine somebody trying to fish bits of him
out of their tom yam kung. He had the dark-faced, flat-nosed
look of the North, meaning he was a man who got what he
needed in Thai society with his wits and industry and not with
his looks or his family history. What he had that was almost
universally Thai was his humor.
“But why ‘Rufus Pugh’?” Timmy asked. “It doesn’t sound
anything like your real name.”
“I picked the name up when I went to Duke,” Pugh said.
“Oh, you went to Duke? I went to Georgetown.”
“How long were you there?” Pugh asked.
“How long? Four years.”
66 Richard Stevenson
“Well, I was only at Duke for a week. I was visiting my
friend Supoj. He had a roommate named Rufus Pugh. I liked
the sound of it. Oh, have I confused you gentlemen again?
When I say I went to Duke, I mean I went to Duke on a
Greyhound bus.” He chuckled.
I said, “Where did you take the bus from, Rufus? Not
Bangkok.”
“From Monmouth College, in West Long Branch, New
Jersey. I was there for one semester. Then I came home and
completed university at Chulalongkorn in Bangkok. It was
cheaper. That way, my three sisters had to fuck only three
thousand seven hundred and twelve overweight Australians to
put me through college instead of five thousand two hundred
and eleven.”
Timmy said, “I’m sorry. God.”
“No need. This was twenty years ago. Now two of them are
back in Chiang Rai with their lazy husbands, and the other
married one of the large mates and lives in Sydney. I help them
out – I look forward to getting my hands on some of the
Griswold megabucks – and my wife and children are not big
spenders. Neither is my girlfriend. But I do need to hustle.
That’s why we’re here, isn’t it?”
“How did you turn into a PI?” I asked.
“I was in the police, but eventually I started feeling guilty
about being on the wrong side of the law. How about you,
Mister Don?”
“Army Intelligence originally. I also had ethical issues.”
“I’ll bet. That must have been the US Army.”
“In the seventies. I was here a few times.”
“In Bangkok?”
“Bangkok and Pattaya.”
“I was a child at the time. But maybe you fucked one of my
sisters. Or me. I picked up some spare change on a few
occasions.”
THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 67
“No, no youngsters for me. Anyway, I’d remember you.
You make an impression, Rufus.”
He smiled again, briefly, then said, “If you were in the
American military, then you must know that the Thai military
has its corrupt elements.”
“I do know that.”
“Parts of it are busy ruthlessly stamping out the drug trade,
and parts of it are busy buying and selling drugs. Some elements do both. The police are often involved, and also our
authoritarian neighbors, the Burmese generals, as well as the
Burmese generals’ authoritarian friends, the Chinese.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“I bring this up,” Pugh said, “because you told me that your
Mr. Gary Griswold planned on investing thirty-eight million US
dollars and making a quick killing.”
“That’s what he told someone. It may not be true.”
“With that kind of money, we may be talking drug deal.
Heroin, yaa-baa, who knows? If that is the case, his family is correct to fear for his well-being. So let’s hope he was up to
something else.”
“A drug deal,” I said, “would be seriously out of character
for this guy.” I told Pugh about Griswold’s discovery of
Buddhist philosophy and meditation, his deepening interest in
past lives, astrology and numerology, and on top of all that his infatuation and then de-infatuation with the mysterious Mango.
“I think,” I said, “that Griswold would consider heroin dealing, what with all the social harm involved, unethical if not
downright evil. Unless, of course, it’s Mr. Mango who’s the
gangster here, and it was Griswold’s discovery of that that led to his disillusionment with Mango. And he actually believed he
was investing in something else.”
Pugh chewed on a slice of bacon. I had some too, with my
omelet. It was the most flavorsome bacon I had ever eaten. I
had once seen listed on a Thai menu “deep-fried pig vermiform
appendix.” Bacon seemed like a classically American food, yet it was plainly the Thais who knew exactly what to do with a pig.
68 Richard Stevenson
“Yeah,” Pugh said, “I think you’re right that Mango’s
involvement means something here. Or nothing. Well, not
nothing. A warm smile, a pretty dick, and a shapely butt, it
could be. Or maybe more; we’ll have to see. As for ethical
considerations, it sounds like you know your man. But with
your permission, may I please point out that when our own
esteemed Prime Minster Samak was asked how Thailand could
do so much business with the Burmese generals – who run
what might be the nastiest police state in the world – the PM
said, oh, the generals are praying Buddhists, after all, so how
bad can they be?”
“Point taken,” I said. “But Griswold has no history of being
a hypocrite.”
“The Buddha never specifically listed hypocrisy as a sin,”
Pugh said. “Though I think we have to consider it within the
penumbra of Dharma teachings. See, I’m not at all a spiritual
strict constructionist.” He grinned at us and chortled.
I told Pugh about Griswold’s consulting a Thai fortune-teller
– renowned, supposedly – and the seer’s dire predictions of
“bloodshed” and “great sorrow” in Griswold’s life.
“You have no name of this man?”
“No, unfortunately.”
“He could be a charlatan. Or perhaps not. It would be good
to know which one it is. If Mr. Gary consulted him previously
and is now in distress, he will almost certainly consult him
again.”
I said, “So, some Thai fortune-tellers are frauds and some
are not?”
“Are some American corporate CEOs frauds, and some are
not?” Pugh asked. I had no clue from his look what he was
thinking.
“Then let me ask you this. Do fortune-tellers ever give
financial advice?”
“If it’s requested. Generally on small matters. When to buy a
lottery ticket. What’s a lucky number for a lottery ticket.
Perhaps on larger financial matters on some occasions. The
THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 69
scale of the question and the scale of the answer could both
conceivably flow from the depth of the seer’s client’s pockets.”
Timmy said, “Thailand looks like it’s awash in money – all
this urban building and development. Couldn’t Griswold have
been involved in something completely legitimate that then fell
apart? And he’d gotten other investors involved, and now they
want their money back or something, and Griswold is afraid of
them? I read that sometimes in Thailand business disputes turn
violent. Business-related drive-by shootings are not unheard of
here. Isn’t that a possibility?”
“Very good,” Pugh said. “You two have done your
homework. I’ve been shot at eleven times and hit twice.” He
hiked up his polo shirt and then tugged it down again, giving us a quick glimpse of a jagged scar on his mocha-colored rib cage.
“This one was in broad daylight right over on Sukhumvit Road,
not far from here. Timothy, I’ll show you the other scar
sometime, if you’re interested. You’ll get quite an eyeful.”
“Oh, I don’t have to.”
“Aren’t you just a little bit curious?” He leered
mischievously.
Timmy actually blushed. “Oh, I can’t really say.”
Pugh laughed and had some more bacon. He said, “We can
speculate all we want about what Griswold was, or is, involved
in financially. I think, though, that our most fruitful approach will simply be to find the guy, sit him down, and say, ‘Hey, Bud, what the heck is going on here?’ And then, one way or another,
get him to tell us.”
I described to Pugh our findings of the night before: The
visit to Geoff Pringle’s building and the night security guard’s apparent suspicion that there was something very odd or even
sinister about Pringle’s fatal fall from his balcony; the visit to Griswold’s apartment and our discovery that he himself had
been there briefly as recently as two weeks earlier; the revelation that someone named Kawee was watering Griswold’s plants
and praying at a shrine in his apartment; then the news that an
“unfriendly” man on a motorbike had been trying to locate
70 Richard Stevenson
Griswold. I told Pugh I had obtained a potentially useful piece
of data – the unfriendly man’s mobile telephone number.
Pugh said, “You’re off to a good start. Very professional.”
“Well, yes.”
“I think I’d like to work with you on this.”
“Great. But I thought it was I who would be interviewing
you, in a sense. To make sure you were the real thing. I assumed on the phone and from your Web site that you were. And
obviously you are legitimate – despite the confusion that your
name inevitably produces.”
“Yeah, well, Mr. Don, it works both ways. I needed, also, to
see if you were the real deal and not one of the doofus-y,
alcohol-besotted farang shmucks we often see doing PI work
here in Bangkok. And you certainly are for real, which is
excellent. So, let’s do it. Understand, though, that you’ll need me a whole lot more than I’ll need you in finding Mr. Gary and
providing a good outcome for his situation, whatever it turns
out to be.”
This all sounded plausible enough. But I had to ask Pugh,
“What is it that you think you’ll be able to bring to the
investigation that I won’t be able to manage?”
“Your survival, my friend,” he said. “Your survival.”
§ § § § §
Pugh and I agreed on the financial terms and carved out a
division of labor for the next day or two. He would identify the owner of the phone number I’d gotten from Griswold’s
building manager. He would use police sources to find out if
Gary Griswold’s name had appeared in any police report in the
past six months. (Pugh said reporters were sometimes bribed to
keep the deaths of foreigners from turning up in newspapers
and scaring the tourists away.) And he would get hold of the
police report on Geoff Pringle’s death – which had been
reported in the Key West Citizen but not in any of the Bangkok papers.
THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 71
One of my jobs would be to track down plant-watering,
shrine-visiting Kawee by purchasing the promise of Griswold’s
super and his security guard to phone me when Kawee showed
up again. I had brought along my international cell phone and
had picked up a SIM card and five thousand baht worth of
minutes at a 7-Eleven. My other job would be to find Mango.
Pugh said it was not a common Thai name or nickname. He
would call a number of gay sources – mainly bar and massage-
parlor owners – and try to come up with leads among the
Bangkok ex-pat gay population that I could follow up on. Pugh
guessed that Mango had had other farang admirers.
When Pugh had eaten all his bacon and strolled out of the
hotel, Timmy said, “Mr. Rufus might have an easier time
finding Mango than we will. Don’t you think Rufus might be
gay? I’m sure the guy was flirting with me.”
“Yeah, he was, a little. But I wouldn’t make anything of it.
With all his wives and girlfriends, I’d be surprised if it was any kind of invitation. It’s just that Thais are a casually sexualized people. They are generally modest about it in public, but they
are very comfortable in their own sexual skin. Puritanism,
Catholic guilt, all that – it’s as if they never heard of any of it.
And when it comes to gender, they can be pretty fluid about it.
They enjoy the humor of sex, too, and you were getting some
of that from Rufus.”
“It’s a bit startling.”
“You’ll get used to it.”
“I don’t know whether I can adapt. All I know of Asian gay
sexuality is India, a nation of Larry Craigs.”
“You won’t have to work hard adjusting. Other than over in
the fuck-show district, there’s nothing at all insistent about Thai sexuality. This is not Provincetown during carnival week. It’s
just part of what’s in the air. And you need do nothing more
than breathe it, if you so choose.”
“Oh, so it’s only one element in addition to the scent of
jasmine and the occasional whiff of raw sewage.”
“Ah, there’s my observant Georgetown grad.”
72 Richard Stevenson
“What do you think Pugh meant when he said he needed to
help you survive? That certainly got my attention.”
“He meant survive in the professional sense, would be my
guess,” I said, apparently unconvincingly, given the look I got
back.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The word voluptuous when used about a person suggests
amplitude, and yet here was maybe the most voluptuous human
being I had ever met, and he was quite small. Kawee Thaikhiew
was Lolita, he was a Caravaggio boy siren, he was the twentyyear-old Truman Capote draped over that recamier in the 1948
dust jacket photo for Other Voices, Other Rooms. And all of the above weighed in at no more than a hundred twenty pounds.
Kawee wore ironed jeans and a pristine white tank top over
his delicate brown chest. Around his neck, an amulet dangled
on a gold chain with what looked like the image of an aged
monk. He had flip-flops on his feet, so all could see and admire his toenails, carefully painted a resplendent fuchsia. His face was finely crafted and his luminous black eyes lightly mascaraed, his lips perceptibly glossier than most Thai lips, male or female.
Kawee was the living, breathing embodiment of ambigenderal
sensuality, and yet it was impossible to imagine any actual sex
with this person who looked as if, during the act, he might
easily snap in half.
Timmy and I had gone over to Griswold’s condo to make a
deal with Mr. Thomsatai on notifying us if Kawee turned up.
After pocketing another thousand baht, Mr. Thomsatai said,
“This is lucky for you. Kawee is upstairs now.”
At first the boy – or boy-girl-man-woman; katoey is the
nonjudgmental Thai term – tried to make a quick exit. We had
badly frightened him. I tried to reassure him by brandishing my
New York State PI license – he stared at it as if its script were in ancient Pali – and I also produced a letter from Ellen
Griswold attesting that I represented her in a search for her
missing brother-in-law.
“I don’t know where Mr. Gary go,” Kawee told us in a
breathy voice, his eyes fixed not on Timmy and me but on the
exit. We had found him placing offerings at Griswold’s shrine.
74 Richard Stevenson
He had left one marigold garland, a lotus bud, and an open can
of Pepsi with a straw sticking out of it.
I said, “Mr. Gary may be in trouble – we know that – but
we are not the trouble. We need to let him know that we can
help him with his trouble. You can help him by helping us do
that. Don’t you want to help Mr. Gary? Isn’t he your friend?”
“Yes, he my friend.”
“How do you talk to him? By telephone?”
“No, no telephone. He tell me no telephone.”
“When did he tell you this? Have you seen him?”
“He just phone me. On my mobile. But he doesn’t have
phone. He call from Internet shop.”
“In Bangkok?”
“I don’t know.”
“When was the last time?”
“Before two days.”
I asked Kawee if Mr. Gary was his boyfriend.
“No, no boyfriend. Friend friend. Mr. Gary help me so
much. He is kind man.”
“Where did you meet Mr. Gary?”
“At Paradisio. That gay sauna for meet people for sex. Most
farang just want to fuck Thai boy. But Mr. Gary, he love the
Buddha. He is kind. I help him, and he help me. I take care of
flowers and I make offerings until he come back.”
“When will he come back? Did he say?”
“No. Maybe long time. He send me money for offerings —
and for me. He help me very much.”
“But he does come here sometimes, late at night. Do you know why?”
“No. Mr. Gary no say.”
I asked Kawee how money from Mr. Gary was sent to him.
In an envelope via motorbike messenger, he said. Once a week,
to the room he shared with three others in Sukhumvit. Then the
THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 75
messenger picked up Griswold’s mail, which Kawee had
collected from his friend’s mailbox. Here was a direct link to
Griswold that looked as if it would be not too difficult to
follow.
I said, “Did Mr. Gary tell you why he is not living here at
home?”
“No. He not tell me. Maybe Mango know.”
At last. “Who is Mango?”
“He was Mr. Gary’s boyfriend. But he hiding, I think.”
“They are no longer boyfriends?”
“They fight.”
“Fight?”
“Big argue. Mango angry Mr. Gary.”
“Mango made Mr. Gary angry? What did he do?”
“No, Mango angry. He say Mr. Gary bring bad luck. Mango
make merit, he say, but Mr. Gary bad luck. Bad men try hurt
Mango. He must hide.”
“In Bangkok?”
“I think so. I saw him many time.”
“Where did you see him?”
“Paradisio.”
“How can he hide in a public place?”
“No, Paradisio safe for him. The bad men he hiding, they no
go there. They not gay, he don’t think.”
“When did you last see Mango at Paradisio?”
“Last Sunday. He like go Sunday. Me also. Sunday busy.”
“Today is Sunday. Will you be going today?”
“I think so.”
“Would you mind if Timmy and I tagged along?”
“Tagalog?”
76 Richard Stevenson
“Came with you. Maybe Mango will be there and you can
point him out to us.”
Kawee thought about this. “Are you gay?”
“Yes, we are. Timothy and I are partners.”
He smiled for the first time. “Which one top?”
Timmy said, “Oh, really.”
“It depends on the phases of the moon,” I said.
“Ahh.”
We made a plan to meet at the entrance to Paradisio at two.
“Maybe you meet Mango,” Kawee said. “Anyway, you have
too much fun!”
Timmy said, “Too much fun is just barely enough for us,”
and Kawee looked over at him and smiled coyly.
§ § § § §
“The motorbike guy is a bad actor,” Pugh said. “I don’t
mean a bad actor like Jean-Claude Van Damme is a bad actor,
or Adam Sandler. I mean he’s a mean and dangerous man with
a criminal history that you want to be very, very careful of.”
We were back at the hotel and about to head out for lunch
when Pugh phoned me.
“Rufus, you’re obviously well connected with the police you
think so poorly of.”
“The police are still the police. But this man’s name I
obtained from a friend at AIS, the mobile phone service. A
police official, did, however, run the name for me. The
information is reliable too. This helpful acquaintance is a
captain to whom I send a case of Johnny Walker once a month
on his birthday.”
“He sounds old.”
“And wise. And often informative. As today. I won’t recite
the motorbike man’s full Thai name. You’ll never remember it.
He goes by the nickname Yai. That means large. Perhaps his
name should be Yai Leou, big and bad.”
THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 77
“I’m making a linguistic note.”
“Yai served two years on an assault charge. He ran his
motorbike over an Austrian man who chastised Yai for driving
on the sidewalk. Yai turned the bike around and drove into the
man, knocking him to the ground. Then he turned around and
drove over the man a second time, causing serious injuries. It
was lucky for Yai that the victim was a tourist. If he had done
the same thing to a Thai of any consequence, he might have
been facing considerable hard time.”
“And what are Yai’s current pastimes?”
“This is unclear. Some of his associates are people with
likely narcotics connections and others have probably been
involved with the trafficking of human beings – sex slaves for
our pious Muslim brothers in Riyadh and certain C of E
chappies in Belgravia. Yai, my sources believe, is at this time
freelancing. So we must learn more about Yai, but we must take
great care in doing so.”
“I’ll leave that up to you.”
“Yes, for now.”
Rufus had made a number of calls to gay bar owners and the
bars’ habitués to get a bead on Mango. I told him we might not
need any of that, for I had found and spoken with Kawee, who
not only knew who Mango was but where he sometimes could
be found.
“Ah, Paradisio. One of the few revered institutions of
Bangkok I have not had the privilege of setting foot in.”
“They would let you in even if you’re not gay. I’ll bet you
could fake it.”
He laughed. “Could, and after a beer or two, have done.
Was Kawee otherwise helpful in our search for Mr. Gary?”
I told Pugh what little I had learned from Kawee. I said that
since Griswold phoned Kawee from time to time, I had urged
him to tell Griswold that friendly people were looking for him
and wanted to help him out of whatever trouble he was in. I
dictated Kawee’s multi-syllabic full name, which the young
katoey had somewhat reluctantly provided me, so that Pugh
78 Richard Stevenson
could check Kawee’s mobile phone records and try to ascertain
which Internet café Griswold had been phoning from. This
could help locate him in a particular Bangkok neighborhood, if
he was in the city.
Pugh said he would do this, and he asked me to alert him if I
was able to track down Mango. “I’m thinking,” Pugh said, “that
we should stake out Paradisio and, if Mango appears, tail him. I have staff who can do this, and quite expertly.”
I said that sounded good. “If I meet Mango, I’ll follow him
outside when he leaves and pass him off to your team. But how
will your guys recognize me?”
“I have already seen to that.”
“You photographed me? I missed that, Rufus.”
“No, your photo appeared in the Albany Times Union on July twelfth, two years ago. This was after you got into what the
newspaper said was a sarcastic back-and-forth with a gay-baiting judge while you were testifying at a client’s trial, and you were cited for contempt of court.”
“Yes, I did get my picture in the paper that time. That fine
cost me, too. It was twice what my fee was with that putz of a
client. Anyway, the guy never paid me.”
Pugh chuckled. “I wish I had been there to see it. Keep in
mind, however, that in Thailand, the fine would have been even
higher for causing a man of high office to lose face. You might
have had to pay with your profession. Or an organ or two.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Good. Here we have other ways of getting a job done. We
don’t ride an elephant to catch a grasshopper.”
“As it relates to the current situation, that’s a bit cryptic for me,” I said. “But maybe it will all come clear a little later.”
Pugh said, “You bet it will.”
