Текст книги "The 38 Million Dollar Smile "
Автор книги: Richard Stevenson
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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The first thing I realized was, they will kill Kawee first. He
was a mere Thai lady-boy, and under the present circumstances,
Timothy had greater bargaining value. I was ashamed that this
realization came to me with a certain amount of relief.
Pugh got on his cell and called somebody who gave him a
number, and then he called somebody else. After hanging up,
he told me he would have a list of unfinished and abandoned
tall buildings in Bangkok within two hours. He made another
call and asked Ek to assemble a team of men and woman with,
as he put it, “military skills and experience.” I thought of my
American Express account limit, and I wondered if maybe I
could simply borrow the money for a sizable military operation
from China, like Bush.
The last dull orange light of day faded out as Pugh led me
away from Sukhumvit Road and down a mixed commercial and
residential soi. The air was still ferociously hot, and within
minutes my shirt was soaked through again. Pugh’s dark face
shone with a light sheen, but below the neck he didn’t seem to
be sweating at all. How did the Thais do that?
We passed Indian tailor shops, gold and gem emporiums,
restaurants, flower stalls, bars and massage parlors. A number
of the masseuses who were camped on stools outside their
storefronts gabbing with one another or watering their plants
grinned at Pugh and me and chimed, “Hallo, massaagge? ” The curbside food stall aromas of chicken sizzling on grills with lime juice and herbs would have been pleasing under better
circumstances, but now the smells were just cloying. How could
Thai normal life dare to go on so cheerfully, so deliciously,
when elements of Thai society that were completely rotten were
threatening to kill two gentle and decent souls?
We entered a lower-rent district of three– and four-story
concrete apartment buildings with drying laundry hanging over
the balcony railings next to the flowering plants. Pugh stopped
142 Richard Stevenson
at a van parked on the street and the waiting driver opened the
window. Seeing me, the driver told Pugh in English that one of
Kawee’s roommates said the moto man who delivers money to
Kawee had not yet turned up, and if he arrived and Pugh’s crew
somehow missed him the roommate would notify the van on
his cell phone. The roommate, an older katoey named Nongnat,
had said she was worried about Kawee. Sometimes Kawee
stayed out overnight with a new boyfriend, Nongnat had said,
but not without phoning first. Pugh’s people did not tell
Nongnat that Kawee was being held hostage, thus avoiding any
off chance that certain elements of the police might learn of the abduction and decide to meddle unhelpfully.
Pugh led me down the soi to where it ended at a chain-link
fence along an expressway. Propped up next to the last
apartment building on the block was a tin-roofed bamboo
shanty that had a big open-front window and a counter. The
place apparently served as a neighborhood convenience store.
You could get Colgate, condoms, a variety of beverages —
including one made of bird saliva, according to the colorful sign next to it – as well as under-the-counter whiskey that Pugh
said was distilled nearby in somebody’s flat.
Another of Pugh’s fleet of vans was parked nearby, and he
checked in with the driver. The moto money man had not
turned up at this location either, and the whiskey seller had been put on a retainer to make sure he pointed out the man if and
when he appeared.
We were headed back toward Kawee’s apartment when
Pugh’s cell phone rang, and after a brief exchange in Thai he
indicated that we should pick up the pace and trot.
“The moto man has arrived at Kawee’s room with Kawee’s
money from Mr. Gary.”
“Oh, terrific. Does he know where Griswold is?”
“Not exactly.”
“Thailand seems to be the land of not exactly.”
“Exactly.”
THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 143
“So if Griswold is sending Kawee’s weekly payment,
apparently he knows nothing of the kidnapping.”
“Yes, unless he is simply – what’s the term? – keeping up
appearances.”
“We can ask him about that.”
Now even Pugh was sweating a bit. The moto man was
standing next to his bike in front of the entrance to Kawee’s
building. He had on a dark jacket, impractical in the heat, it
seemed, but apparently a fixture of every Bangkok motorcycle-
taxi driver’s getup. He had the serene look of a man who lived
in chaos but had mastered the ability to float though it. The
katoey Nongnat had come downstairs and was also calm but
worried looking. She had the sloe-eyed, elegantly honed good
looks of a honey-colored Vogue model who happened to have a prominent Adam’s apple.
Pugh spoke with both of them in Thai and then told me that
the moto man, Pichet Suthat, had indeed seen Gary Griswold
just an hour earlier. Griswold had phoned him to arrange for
the weekly pickup of an envelope – Pichet apparently did not
know that it contained cash – and he had met Griswold at the
corner of Sukhumvit Road and Ekamai Soi 63 near the Ekamai
bus station. It seemed possible that this transaction had been
taking place even as Pugh and I paused overhead at the Ekamai
SkyTrain stop.
Pichet said he did not know exactly where Griswold lived,
but he thought he had seen him a few times coming out of an
apartment block just a short way up Soi 63 from Sukhumvit
Road. We hired Pichet on the spot to take Pugh there, and we
flagged down another moto taxi for me to ride. Nongnat asked
in English where Kawee was and why we were looking for him.
Pugh told her that Kawee was in some trouble and might need
help, and we were friends of Gary Griswold prepared to do
what we could. Pugh asked Nongnat if she knew where
Griswold lived. She said no, and now she was even more
worried about Kawee, she told us, and insisted on climbing on
the second bike behind me.
144 Richard Stevenson
Nongnat had on pink shorts – avoiding the need for
womanly sidesaddle on the motorcycle – and pressed herself
up against me as we took off. Her floral aroma as she nuzzled
the nape of my neck was distinctly feminine, though as the
motorcycle bounced and swayed and stopped short a couple of
times it soon became apparent lower down that Nongnat was
biologically still male. Once when I shifted in my seat a bit – I was also concerned that I might alarm or embarrass the moto
driver I myself was wedged up against – Nongnat gave me a
playful poke at the base of my spine and chuckled sweetly.
Pugh had arranged for his two surveillance vans in the
neighborhood to follow us to Griswold’s supposed residential
block, even as his team at the On Nut Internet café maintained
its vigil, and a separate flying squad was assembling under Ek’s direction for an assault on abandoned tall buildings across
Bangkok.
Traffic along Sukhumvit Road was heavy under the elevated
SkyTrain line, and we bobbed and weaved among the cars and
tuk-tuks, pausing only briefly for traffic signals and once
detouring around a jam-up by jouncing over the curb and
pinballing among the pedestrians, narrowly missing several. I
thought of big Yai, who had run down a complaining Austrian
tourist on the sidewalk and then turned around and driven over
the prostrate and injured Viennese a second time. I wondered if
soon I would meet sociopathic Yai face-to-face.
Pichet led us to the apartment building he thought Griswold
might be living in. It was one of the posher ones in the
neighborhood, not far from a cineplex and a couple of big
international chain hotels. The lobby had a security door, but
Pugh bounded off Pichet’s bike and followed a man who
looked like Wayne Newton into the lobby and then held the
door open for the rest of us. The two vans pulled up out front,
and one of Pugh’s drivers joined Pugh, me and Nongnat as we
approached a uniformed security man who appeared around a
corner looking alert. Pugh spoke to the guard in rapid Thai and
I heard him mention Gary Griswold.
THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 145
Pugh said to me, “No Griswold here, he says, but let’s try
this.” Pugh pulled a photo of Griswold out of his pocket and
showed it to the guard.
The guard’s face showed instant recognition, and he said,
“Ah, Mr. Gray.”
“Mr. Gray?” Pugh said.
“Mr. Gray Winsocki. Fifth floor. You want me call up to
him? But I think he not here.”
“Where is he?” I asked.
“Bicycle. Mr. Gray go out on bicycle. His bike not here.”
I said to Pugh, “So he’s likely to be back, right? He won’t be
biking to Cambodia or anything like that, it looks like.”
The guard said, “Bangkok not so good for bicycle. Too
much car. Too much motorbike. But Mr. Gray, he like bicycle.
He go fast around cars. I think he come back later.”
Pugh indicated to the guard that he’d like to speak with him
privately, and they walked over to an alcove.
Nongnat said to me, “Kawee okay? I worry Kawee. Kawee
say Mr. Gary good man, but why he hide? Why he change
name? Farang not change name, just Thai.”
“These are exactly the questions Khun Rufus and I hope to
have answers to soon. Within minutes, with luck.”
Nongnat wrinkled her elegant nose. “Mr. Gary he trouble. I
tell Kawee he big trouble.”
“Why did you think Mr. Gary was trouble?”
“No fuck, just pray. I tell Kawee be careful this type.”
“Yes, that is a universal basis for caution.”
Pugh and the guard came back and Pugh said, “This
gentleman has refused us admittance to Mr. Gary’s flat. It seems that one of life’s most challenging quests is finished for us, Mr.
Don. We have found an honest man. This dude won’t let us
into Griswold’s place even in exchange for a substantial
consideration. Well, fuck ’im if he can’t take a bribe. Meanwhile, however, he is granting us permission to hang around here and
146 Richard Stevenson
nab Mr. Gary when he turns up again. Which my
disappointingly ethical friend here expects to be soon. Mr. Gary normally takes his bike out for no more than a few hours. So I
suggest that we position ourselves discreetly and wait.”
It was mid-evening now, with daylight gone and less than
twenty-four hours left before the kidnappers’ deadline. Pugh’s
driver stayed behind in the lobby, and the rest of us went out
front, and Pugh and I got into the air-conditioned van. Nongnat
went down the street for some food and came back with
jasmine rice and yellow curry with fish and bamboo shoots. We
ate it eagerly – I was hungry by now and so no longer found
the local food smells off-puttingly indifferent to our plight —
and Pugh spelled his man in the lobby while he came out and
also ate with steady concentration. This man observed his food
admiringly as he ate it. It seemed as though any second he
might actually speak to the rice and curry approvingly, even
tenderly. The food was Thai all the way, and so was he.
At ten thirty Griswold still had not returned, and we were all
wondering about that. What was he doing out riding his bike
around Bangkok this late at night? But a call came in from one
of Pugh’s operatives, reporting that the list of abandoned
partially constructed buildings at least fourteen stories high was on its way to where we were stationed. The list was expected
within fifteen minutes, so Ek was summoned and told to wait
up the street with his SWAT teams.
When the list arrived in a shoulder bag carried by a tiny
young woman on a motorbike, Pugh and I got out and carried
the bag up the soi to meet Ek. He had a convoy of three large
four-by-fours, the type of swaggering road hogs Timmy would
have immediately labeled socially irresponsible. Timmy,
however, was not there to complain.
Some of Ek’s small army of muscular guys in T-shirts and cargo pants got out of the SUVs and stood on the sidewalk
looking formidable, even menacing, just as a male farang on a
bicycle rounded the corner from Sukhumvit Road, approached
our assemblage, seemed to take in the scene at a glance, and
quickly swooped around and began peddling furiously back up
THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 147
the soi. Pugh saw this and yelled something in Thai to the girl
on the motorbike who had brought the bag. She was off like a
shot after the man on the bicycle, and we jumped into the van
and took off after both of them.
Pugh’s driver was so reckless that a couple of the taxi drivers
we cut off actually honked their horns at us hot-heartedly and
glared as we lurched down Sukhumvit Road. Within a block, we
spotted Pugh’s little moto woman, who had knocked Griswold
off his bicycle and was wrestling with him on the sidewalk in
front of a 7-Eleven. We pulled up, hopped out, elbowed aside a
dozen or so alarmed bystanders, and hauled both Griswold and
his bike into the back of the van. We required privacy for what
was about to transpire, so we sent Nongnat back to her place
with Supornthip, the moto driver who had chased down
Griswold. They climbed on Supornthip’s bike and sped away,
and we took off close behind.
Griswold, who I recognized from his photographs, was in
spandex biking shorts and a tank top, and he carried a shoulder
bag, which Pugh wrenched away from him as one of Pugh’s
muscle guys, who had the word Egg stenciled on his T-shirt,
wrapped plastic handcuffs around Griswold’s wrists. Sweaty
and decidedly nonaromatic, Griswold said nothing but was
breathing fast. His bike helmet had slipped down low over his
forehead, and Pugh carefully removed it and set it aside. Under
his gleaming mess of helmet hair Griswold’s eyes were wide
open, and he kept glancing at me.
Pugh gave the driver some instructions in Thai, and that’s
when Griswold, apparently understanding Pugh’s words, said
evenly, “Not a good idea.”
“Why should we not take you to your condo in Sathorn? It
is your real home.”
Griswold studied us and said, “Who are you? Before I say
anything else, I need to know that.”
“We are not your enemies. We are your friends,” Pugh told
him and then instructed the driver in English to take us to
Pugh’s office in Surawong, and to use the garage entrance.
148 Richard Stevenson
Griswold took this in and then looked at me curiously.
“Yeah. Okay. I think I understand what’s going on here. You
– Mr. Buttinski-Farang . What’s your name? Is it what I think it is?”
“Donald Strachey. I’m a private investigator. I was hired by
your former wife and current sister-in-law Ellen Griswold to
find you and to protect you if necessary, and to persuade you to stop acting like a ninny.”
Griswold laughed mirthlessly. “Ah, yes. The Albany private
eye. I’ve heard about you. I thought you went home. You were
supposed to fold up your tent and carry it back to the Hudson
Valley. And yet here you are. I really need to talk to my former wife about her lax hiring practices.” He shook his head and
pushed some sweat off his forehead with the backs of his
cuffed hands.
“You are in spectacularly big trouble, Griswold. You do
grasp that, do you not?”
“Am I in spectacular trouble? Well, yeah, I guess I am. How
thoughtful of you to fly all the way across the Pacific Ocean to point that out to me. Thanks loads.”
My impulse was to grab the sarcastic asshole and bash him
one, but I wasn’t sure what all he knew. And of course, Timmy
would have disapproved of my striking a pacifist – if Griswold
really was that. I seemed to be surrounded by peace-loving
Buddhists who found room in their hearts to smack people with
phone books, and others who hurled soothsayers and farang
retirees off balconies.
I said, “My partner – boyfriend – Timothy Callahan has
been abducted by violent criminals. This is entirely your fault, Griswold. These criminals are people who are in fact looking
for you and have not been able to locate you – because you are
hiding out from them – and they want to swap Timothy and
your young friend Kawee for you. If recent events are any
guide, once they get hold of you these people intend to toss you off a tall building. So we have developed two plans. Plan A is to rescue Timmy and Kawee and then to protect you. You’ll be
happy to know that handing you over to these goons is only
THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 149
Plan B. But before any of us carries out any plan at all, we need badly to understand exactly who and what it is we’re dealing
with here. Griswold, you have some extensive explaining to do.
You can begin when I say go. Go.”
He looked surprisingly at ease. Griswold’s breathing had
evened out now, and he lay on a straw mat in the back of the
van with his head propped on a sack of rice. As I spoke, he
listened carefully, his mouth dropping open when I told him
Timmy and Kawee had been kidnapped and the kidnappers
were willing to release the two once they had taken possession
of Griswold. Unless he was faking it more brilliantly than
seemed likely, Griswold was hearing about the kidnappings for
the first time.
“Oh no,” Griswold said. “Poor Kawee. This is awful. He’s
such a sweet-natured soul.”
“Apparently that is the case. And I can tell you that Timothy
Callahan is a nice guy, too. So let’s get them both back real, real fast.”
“I was so naive,” Griswold said and shook his head. Then
he looked up at me and said, “Please tell me. What is Timothy
Callahan’s birth date?”
I thought, Oh, good grief, here we go. “I’m not telling you
that. We’re not going to screw around with any astrology
bullshit. What we’re going to do is get to the point, and we are going to do so starting right now.”
Griswold gazed up at me serenely. I was pathetic in his eyes.
A rationalist, a literalist, a lost soul. He said, “I’m just trying to get some perspective on where you and your friend fit into all
of this. Nothing more.”
Then Pugh said, “I too am interested, Mr. Don. If you
revealed to us where and on what date Mr. Timothy was born,
this could help clarify the larger picture. I appreciate and respect your Western rationalist outlook, but just indulge us. And then
we can proceed using more universal means. Phone books or
whatever.”
150 Richard Stevenson
Pugh had used the word us, meaning Griswold and himself.
What was going on here? Wasn’t Pugh in a very real sense my
contract employee?
I could hear Timmy snickering over all this, but I could also
hear him bellowing, “Just tell them what they want to hear!”
I recited the year of Timmy’s birth and told Griswold,
“Timothy was born in Poughkeepsie, New York, on November
eleventh, at ten fourteen a.m. So?”
The van was making its way through the Monday night
traffic northward and westward toward Surawong. We were
traveling at a normal rate of speed now, observing all the traffic laws, blending in, not attracting attention.
Pugh and Griswold looked at each other and then at me.
Pugh said, “It would help if a professional did Mr.
Timothy’s chart and blessed it. But even without that, I do
believe that there is hope.”
Griswold nodded in agreement. “There’s a good chance that
you can pull off a successful rescue. The date today is four-
fourteen, a numerologically benign period for a Sagittarius.
However,” he said, “if the rescue doesn’t work, I think I can
work something out with these people. I’m quite certain I know
who they are – or at least who they represent – and there’s
some chance I can make a deal with them and save myself as
well as Timothy and Kawee.”
This didn’t sound right. If there was a way for him to
negotiate with these people, why wouldn’t he have done it
sooner? I said, “So, who are they, and what would this so-called deal be?”
Pugh said, “Please do tell the truth, Mr. Gary. We will be
very pissed off if you lie through your teeth and this quickly
becomes apparent, which surely it will. Egg won’t like it either, I am thinking.” We all looked over at nicely toned Egg, who sat
rock still, glowering at Griswold.
“I’m familiar with the Five Precepts, Khun…?”
“Rufus Pugh.”
THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 151
“I do understand, Khun Rufus, that to tell an untruth is
reprehensible. And much more important than irritating you or
your muscular young friend here, it would put me at grave risk
of offending the spirit of the Enlightened One.”
Pugh smiled weakly. “Said like a true farang dilettante
Buddhist. No Thai would utter any such words. We would say
if we lie, we might later turn into a buffalo turd and the ghost of our mother might slip and fall on us and break some bones. But
never mind. You seem to get the point about truthfulness being
an all-around better approach than going around telling big
whoppers. So let’s have it.”
Griswold lay back now and looked up at the ceiling of the
van. He was either organizing his true thoughts or he was
formulating some cunning net of falsehoods that would have
his late mother turning fecal-footed cartwheels in hell.
He said, “I reneged on a financial agreement in which I was
to be the prime investor. A number of people had already put
money into the same project. And when I unexpectedly decided
to pursue an entirely different project and backed out of the
original scheme just before I was to transfer my funds, the first project collapsed before others could get their money back and
they lost many millions of dollars. And now a major group of
losers blames me instead of the group that cheated them. They
want me either to reimburse them – which I am not about to
do – or they want me to die horribly as a warning to others
not to trifle with them. It’s as simple as that.”
True or not, this sounded plausible. “So why,” I asked,
“don’t you simply leave Thailand? If this is such a dangerous
place for you, why are you choosing to hang around Bangkok?”
“To complete an extremely worthy nonprofit project,”
Griswold said. “When this project is done, I might leave
Thailand for another Buddhist country – Laos, maybe, or
Cambodia, despite my having been Thai myself in several past
lives. Or I may remain here and let my karma play out in a way
that would lead to my remaining safely in Thailand, my truest
home, although in a form that might be other than human. To
152 Richard Stevenson
the extent to which any of these matters is within my control, I haven’t yet decided how I will choose.”
I noted Griswold’s fine Italian bicycle in the back of the van,
scratched and bent from having been whacked by the
motorbike, and his helmet on the floor next to him. While I was
thinking brain damage, I saw Pugh gazing at Griswold, rapt and solemn. A minute earlier, Pugh had been dismissing Griswold
as a silly farang dilettante, and now he was looking at him as if he was some kind of spandexed holy man.
I said, “So what was the scheme that went awry, and who
are the people who are mad at you?”
“There is no need for you to hear the particulars,” Griswold
said. “It had to do with currency speculation and involved
certain insider information. I have to admit that the scheme was ethically borderline, but I saw it as justified by the opportunity to invest the proceeds in meritorious works on a very large
scale.”
Timmy’s voice again in my head: “A Buddhist Augustinian.
How unusual.”
I said, “And what makes you think you might talk your way
out of having these people who think you screwed them make a
violent example of you?”
“I can tell them I’m going to cut them in on a new deal I’ve
come up with that they will find irresistible. I know these
people. The proceeds from this project will mainly benefit
humanity. But even twenty percent should be enough to get
these people off my case for the time being. And all we need,
really, is a little time.”
“And that new deal would be what?”
“I just can’t go into it. Sorry. My partners would consider it
a breach of confidentiality. Let’s just say it has to do with
international finance.”
I had gotten a C in economics at Rutgers and looked at
Pugh for help. I didn’t even know what questions to ask. Pugh
was still studying Griswold and looking impressed. Where had
all this guy’s Thai street savvy gone?
THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 153
It hadn’t gone anywhere, for now Pugh looked hard at
Griswold and said, “Former Minister of Finance Anant na
Ayudhaya. Is that thieving crumb-bum your partner in this so-
called humanitarian venture, or was he a partner in the deal that went sour?”
Griswold froze ever-so-briefly. He recovered instantly and
said mildly, “Why would you possibly assume anything like
that? How bizarre that you would think that.”
I said, “We got into your laptop. There’s a picture of you
together with this ex-minister and Khunathip the seer. I expect
you know what happened to Khun Khunathip. So what’s the
story of you three looking like you’re jollying it up at some
Cornell class reunion on Khunathip’s balcony?”
At the mention of Khunathip’s name, Griswold seemed to
breathe a little faster. Or was it the mention of a balcony? “That was a social occasion. I’m impressed by your chutzpah,
Strachey. Getting into my computer was really an
extraordinarily sleazy thing to do.”
“Griswold, I was simply trying to save your dumb ass. That’s
what I was hired by your sister-in-law to do. Of course I was
going to look anywhere that might offer any clue as to what
kind of idiotic mess you’ve gotten yourself into. Anyway, what
was your relationship to Khunathip the seer? The police say you
turned up in his financial records. You paid him a fee, so-called, of six hundred fifty thousand dollars.”
Now Griswold looked grim. “The fee had nothing to do
with the investment. That was simply my payment for a series
of readings this extremely keen-minded and profoundly farseeing man did for me over a period of more than a year. His sad fate had nothing to do with any of that. Khun Khunathip
should not have died. That was just so, so wrong.”
“Was he killed by the same people who are after you?”
“He was a party to the original currency speculation scheme.
He invested in it. In fact, it was Khun Khunathip who led me to
it in the first place. When I came up with a much better
investment project – one that was not only financially sound
154 Richard Stevenson
but morally uncompromised – and I pulled out of the currency
speculation scheme before actually transferring any cash, Khun
Khunathip tried to get his money back, too. It was about one
million US, I believe. When the original investors refused to
give the million dollars back to him – they laughed at him and
called it overhead – he became uncharacteristically angry and
did new astrological charts for each of them, and then cursed
the charts. Then he sent each member of the investment group
the cursed charts. Apparently the investors then hired their own astrologer, whose charts indicated that Khun Khunathip would
have to be killed in order to erase his curses. I have to admit
that I brought a certain amount of naïveté to all of this, but I was shocked that Khun Khunathip didn’t know any better than
to cross these ruthless and powerful people. This is an aspect of Thai society I failed to appreciate when I came here, and I have to say I still don’t know what to make of it.”
The van was stalled now in a big jam-up at Silom and Rama
IV Roads. We had been stuck for several minutes, but there was
no honking and there were no muttering drivers sticking their
heads out their windows to see what in God’s name the bloody
holdup was. People sat quietly in their air-conditioned cars or in their fuming tuk-tuks. A low-fare, un-air-conditioned municipal
bus idled nearby, and the steaming passengers sat by the open
windows uncomplainingly inhaling that evening’s portion of
each person’s annual allotment of small particulates.
Pugh said, “Khun Gary, welcome to Paradise. Like any
paradise where human beings are present, Thailand is
complicated. Mark Twain said, ‘Heaven for climate, hell for
society.’ Here the two exist in a kind of rough harmony. As you
seem to have discovered.”
I said, “What about Geoff Pringle? You know about him, I
take it.”
“I read about him online in the Key West Citizen. For reasons of keeping up appearances for the farang tourists, I suppose,
there was no report of Geoff’s death in the Bangkok
newspapers, either Thai or English editions. I was very, very
sorry to learn of Geoff’s passing. He was once a good friend of
THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 155
mine. It was Geoff who turned me on to Thailand in the first
place. But he was one of the people who lost money in the
currency speculation scheme. He blamed me, which was totally
fair. I had gotten him into it originally. Geoff, however, made
the mistake of pestering both the Ministry of Justice and the US
embassy about his losses – he believed that he had been
swindled, and of course he had – and it must have become
apparent that he was going to be a troublemaker on a scale
somebody high up didn’t want to be bothered with. So Geoff
had to go. It’s one of the Thai business practices that I have to say I’ll never get used to.”
I said, “And now back to former Minister Anant. Where
does he fit in here? Was he one of the participants in the
original currency speculation scheme that was called off, or is he involved in the new project that’s going to accumulate both vast wealth and karmic merit?”
I could all but see the wheels turning inside Griswold’s head.
Before Griswold could come up with some half-truth or bald-
faced lie, Pugh said matter-of-factly, “It was both. Khun Anant
was involved with both schemes, the dubious one that was
abandoned and got two people killed, and the supposedly
worthy project that is ongoing and hasn’t gotten anybody killed
just yet. Am I right, Khun Gary?”
Griswold peered down at his handcuffs and said nothing.
