The 38 Million Dollar Smile ds-10

by Richard Stevenson

  Everything began to unravel when Ellen Griswold woke me up in the middle of the night. Griswold had been successfully spirited over to his condo and back, and half a million dollars extracted from a vault that had been constructed under his spirit house. Seer Pongsak had been paid off and been driven away in his gold car. Fate had been nudged into moving our way. But then my cell phone rang at two forty-eight a.m.

  “Strachey?”

  “Ellen?”

  “What the hell are you trying to pull?”

  “I’m not sure I should explain to you what I’m doing. You fired me, and I’m working for your brother-in-law now. It’s a question of professional ethics. I think I can’t talk to you. Also, I’m half asleep.”

  “What I am about to say will wake you up fast. Listen to me.

  Gary is trying to take over Algonquin Steel, and I think you not only know all about it but you are a party to the conspiracy. As is Bob Chicarelli. Who probably sent me to you so that you could spy on me and keep Gary up to speed on what I know about this monstrous betrayal and what I don’t know. What you are doing is so professionally beyond the pale that I am certain I can get you disbarred. Would you like to comment on that?”

  Timmy was now stirring next to me.

  I said, “I’m not an attorney who can be disbarred, but there is a licensing commission for private investigators. Just Google New York State PI licenses to file a complaint. But here’s the thing, Ellen. You’ve got things really bollixed up. Where did you come up with this wild-eyed theory anyway?”

  “And the other thing is,” she went on, as if I had never spoken, “you are dragging Duane Hubbard and Matthew Mertz into this, and I am so mad — and so insulted and so offended

  — that I am just…beside myself with anger! Is Gary himself 240 Richard Stevenson now retailing the absurd story that Bill, or Bill and I, paid Duane and Matthew to shove Sheila off the cruise ship? Is this part of his grand plan to discredit Bill and take control of the company and come back to Albany and make us pay for something that is a pure figment of his and other people’s imaginations?”

  “I don’t know if that’s what Gary has in mind. I think, however, that I had better ask him. Timmy and I have been batting around a somewhat different version of what you have just outlined.”

  “I think you’re lying, Strachey. I think you know exactly what Gary has in mind. Bill found out that the people in the Caymans trying to take over the company and drive us all into the poorhouse are fronting for a Thai group. Did Gary really believe that we wouldn’t realize that he was behind this cruel and misbegotten betrayal of the memory of Max and Bertha Griswold? Or was he planning to tell us when it was all a fait accompli and then gloat over his ghastly trick and laugh at our pain?”

  “The latter, I think.”

  “Also, Bob Chicarelli has been asking around Albany about Duane and Matthew. I demand to know why.”

  “Oh, has he? And what has he learned about them?”

  “I am not in touch with them and I am not in touch with Bob. I heard about his obnoxious snooping through a reliable third party. But there is something you should know about Duane and Matthew. It will explain a lot.”

  “Okay. I’m listening.”

  “To bury those vile stories once and for all about Bill hiring Duane and Matthew to throw Sheila off her boat, I am going to fly over to Bangkok and show you something that will put everything into perspective and erase any doubt about who Sheila really was and about what became of her.”

  “You’ll love Thailand, Ellen. It’s exciting. But how about a sneak preview of your revelations? Events here are moving at too fast a clip for any leisurely explication on your part.”

  “I’ll be there in under twenty-four hours. I’m at JFK now, and my Thai Airways nonstop boards in half an hour. And Bill is coming with me. He is going to try to talk some sense into Gary if it isn’t too late. And to you.” She gave me her flight information, and I told her that someone would meet her plane.

  One of Pugh’s people would be at the airport holding up a sign that read ALBANY GROUP.

  Timmy was awake now, and I repeated to him what Ellen Griswold had just told me.

  Timmy said, “She’s going to be awfully disappointed if she gets over here and her ex-husband tells her that he hired Hubbard and Mertz to kill Bill’s ex-wife. And that now he’s atoning for it by handing the family company over to a Buddhist study and retreat center.”

  “If that’s what actually happened. But I don’t think it did.”

  “I don’t either.”

  “It’s time for Griswold to fess up. I’m going to ask him to tell me the truth about Hubbard and Mertz. And if he refuses, I’ll threaten to gum up the whole Buddhism center deal. Tell the seer that Trump Tower is made out of Cheez Whiz or something.”

  I got out of bed and into my pants. “You’re going to ask Griswold now?” Timmy said. “He’s on painkillers. How coherent is he going to be?”

  “Not too coherent, but just enough, I hope.”

  One of the Dream Boys was on sentry duty on a chair outside Griswold’s room squinting at a Thai soap opera on a TV set the size of a brick. I saw light under Griswold’s door, and when I knocked lightly he murmured something and I opened the door. He was not only wide-awake but was seated in front of the computer in his underwear. He turned and actually smiled at me.

  “The deal is done,” he said. “On Friday, the eighteenth, our group will own the controlling shares of Algonquin Steel. This 242 Richard Stevenson will coincide with a change of administration in Thailand that will rid us of the pesky General Yodying. We can proceed with the Sayadaw U center without having to worry about people like the general whose only motives are greed and self-aggrandizement. Having transferred most of my wealth into the project, I’ll be close to penniless except for my condo and some cash reserves. But I will have helped establish an institution of great spiritual significance, and I will have helped atone for a great moral crime.”

  I sat down on the edge of Griswold’s bed and said, “Was the great moral crime the murder of your former sister-in-law, Sheila Griswold?”

  He flinched just once, then seemed to relax. “Yes. My brother and your former client — and my ex-wife — Ellen had Sheila killed. I’m going to confront them with the evidence of the atrocity they committed, and then I’m going to tell them that I have set the moral balance right and from now on it is only their consciences they need fear. And of course, the abject misery of their future lives.”

  Griswold actually looked peaceful. He had nine candles burning on his desk and a jasmine garland draped over the PC he was using.

  I said, “So you didn’t pay Duane Hubbard and Matthew Mertz to throw Sheila off the ship?”

  He gave me a look. “Me? Don’t be absurd. Why would I do that? God, Strachey, what kind of man do you think I am?”

  “Then why did you pay Hubbard two million dollars six months ago?”

  He registered mild surprise but was so into his reverie of moral satisfaction that he didn’t seem unduly fazed by my knowledge of the two goons.

  He said, “They blackmailed me. They came over to Thailand to tell me they had proof that Bill and Ellen had hired them to kill Sheila, and unless I paid them two million dollars, they would send an incriminating recording that they had to the police. They would then disappear, but Bill and Ellen would be prosecuted.”

  “Why were they blackmailing you? Why not blackmail Bill and Ellen? They could have saved a bundle on airfare.”

  “Because they had found out that I had cashed out my shares in the company and had access to large amounts of ready funds, and Bill and Ellen were merely stock rich. Duane and Matthew had some scheme they wanted to invest in — a chain of fitness-slash-fast-food centers called Bitchin’ Burritos. The idea was, you’d spend half an hour on a treadmill sweating and then get a cheese and bean burrito as a reward, and with no net gain in calories for the visit. Have any of these places opened in Albany that you know of?” />
  “Not yet.”

  “I decided to pay those two criminals off for two reasons.

  One was, I really don’t want Bill and Ellen to go to prison.

  There’s no love lost between my brother and me, but I still have a soft spot in my heart for Ellen. She never gave me a really hard time when I came out, and she still really cares for me, I think.”

  “That’s my impression.”

  “Also, there is a higher justice, and it is that higher justice I wanted badly for them to become acquainted with. It would mean that in their next lives they might choose to devote themselves to activities that could lead eventually to moral and spiritual redemption.”

  “How,” I asked, “did Hubbard and Mertz find out that you had cashed out your shares in Algonquin Steel? Presumably they were not privy to company goings-on.”

  Griswold looked at me wearily and said, “I’ll bet you can guess.”

  “Bill and Ellen told them?”

  “When they approached Bill and threatened to turn him and Ellen in, he told them that company stock was down and he was unable to sell any shares, and he was cash poor. He told them I had a lot of cash, and he knew that I would do the right thing in order to protect the reputations and memories of our parents. And he was right about that. My parents were not understanding with me when I came out, and that hurt. But overall they were decent human beings who did their best in the world. And they never disinherited me either, and that has made the Sayadaw U project possible, and a lot of other meritorious works too. Not just concert halls in Rochester, but projects that will make the world a saner and more peaceful place for thousands of years to come.”

  “Did you listen to the so-called incriminating tape?”

  “It was actually a video. A DVD, they said. I didn’t want to see it and really didn’t need to. Duane said they had showed it to Bill and Ellen, and that’s when they were told to get in touch with me. Bill and Ellen, in fact, were given a copy of it. Of course, they probably destroyed it immediately.”

  “Did you tell them that Hubbard and Mertz had come here to blackmail you and that you had acceded to their demands?”

  “No. My plan is to inform them after the takeover of the company by my Thai investment group and the transfer of the shares to the Sayadaw project. That would have been on the twenty-seventh, but now it’ll be the eighteenth, which is even better. There’s less chance that anything will go wrong if we wrap this up posthaste.”

  “There may be a hitch,” I said.

  Griswold stiffened. “What hitch?”

  “Ellen and Bill know what you are up to. She called me.

  They are plenty upset about the company takeover. And they also know that you know about the Hubbard-Mertz connection. I seem to have indirectly and inadvertently tipped them off about that. Sorry. But it might actually be good that all the Griswolds are finding out what all the other Griswolds are thinking and what each of you is up to. And unless all of you lie through your teeth even when you are face-to-face, some useful clearing of the air might be about to break out. That’s because Ellen and Bill are en route to Bangkok as we speak. They’ll arrive later this afternoon.”

  Griswold went white. “Oh no. Do you realize what this could mean, Strachey?”

  “What?”

  “More sorrow and bloodshed.”

  Griswold sat looking over at me from between his bandages, his eyes full of desolation and fear. I wasn’t sure if he was uncannily prescient or if he basically just needed to stay off bicycles.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Griswold would not agree to see his brother and sister-inlaw until the day after their arrival late Thursday afternoon. He said this was for their own safety. On Friday, Griswold said, a change of government would remove General Yodying from power, and he would no longer be a threat to any of us. Friday would also, of course, be too late for Bill and Ellen to talk Gary into holding on to the controlling shares of Algonquin Steel instead of turning them over to the Thai group running the Sayadaw U project. I asked Griswold about that, and he said,

  “Yep. Too bad.”

  Griswold was kept under close watch at the safe house through the day, and then while Nitrate picked up Bill and Ellen at Suvarnabhumi. They were coming in on the same flight from New York that Timmy and I had arrived on six days earlier.

  Kawee, Mango and Timmy splashed around in the swimming pool throughout the day. I had a brief swim too, and also managed to reach Bob Chicarelli in Albany just before he went to bed.

  “Hey, Bob, somebody you were asking about Hubbard and Mertz blabbed to Bill and Ellen. They’re spitting nickels. It isn’t pretty.”

  “I know. Sorry, Strachey. They’re trying to get me disbarred.”

  “Can they?”

  “Nah. I’m not representing them in anything.”

  “Me either. I’m not sure I’m representing anybody. At this point, it’s all for the Enlightened One.”

  “Don’t forget to send him a bill.”

  “So, did you pick up anything on Hubbard and Mertz?”

  “They’re in Albany and not doing all that great. Hubbard is back working as a personal trainer, and Mertz is supposedly dealing crystal meth. They got hold of a lot of money 248 Richard Stevenson somewhere last fall, but they lost it. Some guy from Miami conned them out of it with a scheme to open a Mexican fast-food chain where you could also work out. But then this dude disappeared with most of the dough. It was going to be called Taco Terrifico or something like that.”

  I told Chicarelli that Ellen and Bill Griswold were at that moment high above the Pacific en route to Thailand to confront Gary. “Gary thinks Ellen and Bill had Sheila Griswold killed by Hubbard and Mertz, and he’s determined to ruin their lives. Their present lives anyway. Over here people make those distinctions. I’m not sure what Bill and Ellen know or think, but they absolutely deny any involvement in Sheila’s death. The only really sure thing is, we’ve got quite a face-off in the works over here.”

  “It might interest you to know,” Chicarelli said, “that Hubbard and Mertz used to dabble in gay porn. They’re a little too mature for that by now. But a guy I know in the DA’s office said there was a gay porn video production operation in Schenectady for a while in the nineties, and those two were involved in both production work and performing.”

  “So Schenectady was the Budapest of the Mohawk Valley? I never knew that.”

  “It didn’t last, apparently.”

  I said, “Was it just gay? Or did they do bi stuff, too?”

  “That I can’t tell you.”

  “Well, good luck keeping your license, Bob”

  “You too, Strachey.”

  The Oriental Hotel, where the Griswolds had chosen to stay despite their apparent precarious financial state, had retained its cachet but only a little of its former Victorian-era charm. The ghosts of Conrad and Maugham did not greet us as Pugh and I strode past the doorman toward the elevators. But even the rooms in the modern tower section of the hotel were spiffy and THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 249 spacious and had a nice view of the hotel’s riverside gardens and the dragon-tail boats on the Chao Phraya beyond.

  The rooms also had TV sets with built-in DVD players, and that was useful for taking a gander at the video Pugh and I were about to watch along with Ellen and Bill.

  “I’m really hurt,” Ellen said to me, “that Gary would think I could kill another person. I thought he knew me better than that, and this really all just breaks my heart.”

  “Gary and I were never close,” Bill said, “and I know he rejects many of my values. But same as Ellen, I’m really just terribly, terribly disappointed that my brother would see me as a person who would take a human life.”

  “Even Sheila’s,” Ellen added and threw me a look.

  The Griswolds were not their freshest. Both had showered and changed clothes before Pugh and I arrived just after eight Thursday night. But the seventeen-hour slog across the Pacific and the twelve-hour time difference had
beaten them down, and they looked as if they could have used a week on the beach at Phuket instead of a confrontation with a man bent on making them pay for committing a murder they denied having anything to do with.

  Ellen had flopped onto an easy chair in her aubergine pantsuit and tangerine headband, and Bill was seated at the desk in fresh khakis and a white polo shirt. Here was the man I remembered from the Albany airport ten days earlier, a beefier version of Gary, with thinning hair and puffy dark eyes. He had popped a piece of Nicorette gum soon after Pugh and I arrived, and I felt for the guy. Having your wealth and your life’s work crumbling while you were in nicotine withdrawal was a lot of people’s idea of hell. I wondered if he would make it through the next few days without bolting down the street to pick up a pack of Marlboros, which in Thailand were required by law to display hideous pictures of rotting gums on the front of each package.

  The Griswolds did not appear pleased to have Pugh in the room — their handshakes with him were brief and perfunctory 250 Richard Stevenson

  — but they apparently accepted my explanation that he was the man who would keep us all safe while these complex Griswold family matters got sorted out.

  I laid out Gary Griswold’s story that he had let himself be blackmailed by Hubbard and Mertz in order to keep Bill and Ellen from going to prison and to protect the memories of Bill and Gary’s parents. They both shook their heads and threw up their hands.

  “That’s idiotic,” Ellen said.

  “Pure bullshit,” said Bill.

  “And what proof did Duane and Matthew offer of this heinous crime supposedly sponsored by Bill and me?”

  “They said they had an incriminating recording and you had a copy of it too.”

  “Well, they did bring Ellen and me a DVD and try to extort money from us,” Bill said. “But it was no proof of murder, for God’s sake. It’s the DVD you are about to see. They said we should pay up, or the family would be embarrassed by Sheila’s history. Apparently they were bluffing with Gary about proof of a murder having been committed, and their outrageous bluff paid off. How much did Gary give them?”