The 38 Million Dollar Smile ds-10

by Richard Stevenson

  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 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?”

  “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 ther
e 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 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.”

  “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 al
l 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.”