The 38 Million Dollar Smile ds-10

by Richard Stevenson

  “A lot. Two million dollars.”

  “Oh no!”

  “He did it for you two supposedly. And for the future wellbeing of your souls.”

  “Oh, please,” Ellen said.

  Now Pugh spoke up. “Mr. Gary plans on building a Buddhist study and meditation center here in Bangkok, also with an aim of easing your way along the bumpy paths of time.

  It is a gesture of great magnanimity, and you will be among its primary beneficiaries. You may not wish to thank him in this life, but I am guessing that on down the road your gratitude and appreciation will be immense.”

  “Mr. Pugh,” Ellen said, “when I die, I plan on staying dead.

  So if Gary wants to ease Bill’s and my burdens, he might start by dropping this insane plan to rob us of the great company that Bill’s father built out of literally nothing. And he might fucking apologize to Bill and me for going around calling us goddamn murderers!”

  Pugh shrugged. “You two are of course free to aim your souls in any direction you wish, including anybody’s idea of heaven, hell, purgatory or Venezuela. But it is your actions that will decide things, not your intentions.”

  The Griswolds shot each other a Who-is-this-guy? look.

  Ellen said, “Thanks for clearing that up. Now I can just close my eyes anytime I feel like it and drift toward the white light.”

  I said, “How did Hubbard and Mertz know that Gary was in Thailand with a lot of cash in the bank? They told Gary that you sent them his way.”

  Bill said, “They knew about Gary from another one of Duane’s clients, a man Gary had dated when he was still in Albany and who had tried to contact Gary on a visit to Key West. Gary’s friends there told this guy what Gary had done — left the company and moved to Thailand. Duane and Matthew told us if we didn’t pay them — they wanted something laughable, like half a million dollars — they would go to Gary and show him the DVD and tell him what a slut Sheila was, and did he want this gross family stuff turning up at six and eleven on Channel Thirteen?”

  “As if Gary would give a crap,” Ellen said.

  “As if we would,” her husband added.

  “Well,” Ellen said. “Of course we would care if Bill’s ex turned up on the news in the altogether with those two dorks, her face and tits all blurred out to save the Hudson Valley grannies and kiddies who were watching from wondering what that was all about. Yes, we would care. But not to the tune of half a million dollars. Or even half a million — what’s the currency here?”

  “Baht,” Pugh said.

  “Yes, or even half a million of those. Bill told Duane and Matthew to get lost. We never heard another word, and 252 Richard Stevenson naturally it never occurred to us that they actually followed through and went after Gary for money. It all just seemed too preposterous.”

  Pugh said, “It is my duty to inform you that pornography is illegal in Thailand. That does not mean that it is not ubiquitous.

  Nonetheless you are breaking the law by possessing the DVD you have brought into the country, and I hope you do not end up in one of our notorious, squalid, soul-destroying prisons for eight or ten years. But anyway here we all are, so let’s have a look.”

  The Sheila Griswold who soon appeared on the hotel room’s TV screen was quite a specimen: rangy, taut, bright-eyed, nicely coiffed and made-up, and above all, eager and versatile. On the fifty-minute video — much of which Bill Griswold fast-forwarded through — the notorious JAP did everything but shop. Hubbard and Mertz were also physically well put together: muscular, fine skinned, with better-thanaverage endowments. And while equally busy, the two men seemed perceptibly more keen on each other’s parts than on the ex-Mrs. Griswold’s. Though they did do what the DVD’s producers apparently had required of them, and at every opportunity Sheila Griswold was ready to help out.

  Ellen had only just glanced at the video from time to time while Bill, Pugh, and I sat paying attention.

  “Jesus,” Ellen said when The End came on. “If any of you fellows need to go take a shower, feel free. Me, I could use a beer.” She was seated near the minibar and got up and extracted a Singha.

  I said, “So this is why Hubbard and Mertz were on the cruise ship with Sheila when she disappeared? What was it?

  They were blackmailing her too? Making her pay for their Caribbean vacations?”

  Ellen laughed. “If only.”

  “Sheila was paying those two to travel with her and service her,” Bill said evenly. “It was one of the expenses I was expected to pick up after the divorce.”

  “Too sad,” Pugh said. “It sounds like a Thai soap opera.

  Except, in Thai soap operas of this kind, murder often is the result.”

  “What I still don’t get,” I said, “is why Gary ever believed that Hubbard and Mertz had proof of the murder accusation.

  This DVD certainly would not serve that purpose.”

  “In Thailand it might,” Pugh said. “And Khun Gary had been living here and could conceivably have picked up some of the local attitudes.”

  “But he never even saw the DVD.”

  “Perhaps,” Pugh said, “he wished to believe the worst of his brother. Is that a possibility, Mr. Bill?”

  Again, Ellen and Bill glanced at each other. He nodded and said, “It could have happened that way.”

  “That may make it harder,” Pugh said, “to talk your younger brother out of the transaction he is determined to conclude in a matter of hours — a transaction that will be detrimental not only to your financial well-being but to your reputation in the larger society. I know face is less important among farangs than among Thais. But may I please be the first to offer you my deepest sympathies for your coming out of all this with an awful lot of egg on your face.”

  It was then that Bill Griswold said he needed to have a look in the minibar too.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Pugh and I rode back to the safe house and went up to Griswold’s room. We relayed to him Ellen and Bill’s version of events.

  Without hesitation, Griswold said, “They’re conning you.”

  “Maybe. But we don’t think so.”

  “Hubbard and Mertz didn’t say a thing about a sex tape.

  That makes no sense. They told me their tape had evidence of a murder on it.”

  “It was a bluff, and you fell for it. That’s what Ellen and your brother think.”

  Griswold’s face drooped. “But if they didn’t have Sheila killed — if she just got drunk and fell overboard — that would mean my whole exercise in atonement and trying to restore moral balance for me and my family has been — pointless.”

  “Making merit is never without its reasons,” Pugh said.

  “And never without moral benefits for the merit-maker and for the human race.”

  I said, “I’d like to suggest that you at least see Bill and Ellen and hear them out before you take the final step. What’s to lose? It might even make it easier for you. Tamp down doubts.

  Clear away any pangs of conscience. Maybe they’ll even see how worthy a project the Buddhism center is and want to make a big contribution.”

  “But the deed is practically done,” Griswold said. “I’ve already accumulated controlling shares in Algonquin Steel. They are in my name now, but unless I intervene the shares will pass over to Khun Anant and his group at noon tomorrow, and the consortium will begin work on the Sayadaw U project immediately.”

  Pugh said, “These valuable shares of stock are going through Khun Anant? Oh, Khun Gary, I don’t know.”

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  Now Griswold twitched. “But this is all for the propagation of the Four Noble Truths. How could Anant dare to interfere with such a worthy endeavor?”

  Pugh shrugged. “Hypocrisy, as I believe I have mentioned previously, is not unknown among Buddhists. Do you really believe that Christians and Jews have a monopoly?”

  Griswold looked at Pugh and then at me and then back at Pugh. Finally, he said, “I’ll talk to Ell
en and Gary first thing in the morning. Just to cover all the bases here. Can you set that up?”

  “Of course,” Pugh said. “Tomorrow is Friday, April eighteenth, an auspicious day by anyone’s reckoning.”

  “But my plan is to go ahead with the project,” Griswold said. “Whatever Ellen and Bill might have to tell me about Sheila and her death, it’s really too late to back out of the Sayadaw U project. I’ll explain it all to Bill and Sheila and try to make them understand. Anyway, they have been such staunch supporters of so much in America and the world that is greedy and destructive, they really do need to have their souls cleansed even if they have not committed murder directly. Which I am not yet convinced that they have not.”

  I said, “You’re going to ruin their lives because they’re Republicans, Griswold? That’s harsh.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so at all. No, unless Bill and Ellen can tell me something I don’t already know about themselves and me and the lives all of us have led, I really see no reason to postpone the Sayadaw project at all. Also, I can’t quite bring myself to believe that Khun Anant would attempt to cheat me.

  That strikes me as extremely unlikely. Khun Pongsak has vouched for him, after all.”

  I said, “You mean Pongsak, the soothsayer who you just bribed?”

  Griswold nodded feebly, and you didn’t have to believe in astral and planetary influences on human events to grasp that Friday was going to be memorable.

  The plan was for Nitrate to pick Ellen and Bill up at the Oriental at seven Friday morning before the morning traffic became too grisly. We would all have breakfast together by the pool, and then Bill, Ellen, and Gary would go sit under the banyan tree in the back of the garden and hash out their differences. Then Griswold would either proceed with his turning over Algonquin Steel to Anant na Ayudhaya at midday for the Sayadaw project, or he would do something else.

  All that began to fall apart at six ten. That’s when Nitrate drove back through the gate at the safe house ten minutes after he had departed. He told Pugh, who told Timmy and me, that roadblocks had been set up by the army — all over Bangkok, apparently — and nobody in the city was going anywhere.

  Public transportation didn’t seem to be running either. Minutes later, Pugh’s cell phone began to ring. Pugh’s crew started monitoring Bangkok television and radio stations. No official word had yet come from anyone, including the king. But everyone in the city seemed to have concluded that a military takeover of Thailand’s democratically elected government was under way.

  Griswold came down from his room and looked almost cheerful. A nurse had been in to change his dressings and bandages, and he appeared less beat-up and bedraggled than he had a day earlier.

  The air hadn’t yet turned hot and soggy, so we all gathered by the pool for tea and fruit. Pugh had somebody walk over to the Topmost and come back with some rice and a bag of bacon.

  I tried to phone Ellen and Bill at the Oriental to alert them that no one would be picking them up anytime soon. But by then the cell phone circuits were all jammed and I was unable to get through. The landline at the safe house wasn’t working either. The hotel staff would no doubt cheerfully explain to Ellen and Bill about the coup, an occasional feature of the Land of Smiles.

  Griswold beamed. “Khun Anant is as good as his word.

  General Yodying will be history by the end of the day, and we’ll all be safe and free to resume our lives. Isn’t that great?”

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  Timmy said, “What will become of Yodying? Will he be prosecuted for corruption?”

  “Perhaps,” Griswold said. “Or he may flee the country. That sort of thing happens.”

  Pugh said, “He might fly to Singapore and visit his money.”

  Kawee, Mango and Miss Nongnat came outside and joined us. They were all antiregime and were delighted to see the scoundrels getting heaved out.

  Kawee said, “His Majesty the King, he save us one more time. I love my king!”

  “Won’t there be any resistance?” I asked. “The regime must have some support or they wouldn’t have been elected.”

  “Pro-regime crowds will march around yelling and waving signs,” Pugh said. “But they won’t challenge the army. As soon as an official announcement comes from the palace endorsing the coup, people will go home and have some rice and burn incense and light candles and watch soap operas. Then in six months or so, new elections will produce another coalition of crooks to run the country in cooperation with the banks and the soothsayers and the tourism board. And the endless Thai cycle of political birth, death and rebirth will resume. It’s all reassuring, if you really think about it. It works quite as well as the political setup in, say, New Jersey, is my impression.”

  “It works,” Griswold said, “because Buddhists understand and accept that nothing is permanent. Change is the only reality, and Thais accept that truth and even embrace it. This attunement with life’s deepest reality is why I love this country, and it is why this time I will never again make the mistake of leaving Thailand.”

  Pugh said, “Good luck, Mr. Gary. Just don’t neglect to do your visa runs.”

  Griswold said, “I really am sorry I won’t be able to speak with Ellen and Bill before the Algonquin Steel takeover and the commencement of the Sayadaw project. I think I might have been able to help them understand that it’s best for all the Griswolds just to move on. Business isn’t permanent. Family history isn’t permanent. The only thing permanent is the spirit of the Enlightened One and his teachings and, of course, the Sangha that perpetuates his teachings.”

  Pugh said, “I share your sentiments, Khun Gary, and I am deeply disappointed that apparently I will not have the opportunity to observe, even from a distance, your explaining these matters to your older brother and your ex-wife. That would have been a sight to behold.”

  “Well,” Griswold said, “those necessary explanations will have to take place in retrospect.”

  “It’s bound to be dramatic either way.”

  By three in the afternoon, no official announcement had been made of a change of government. Speculation was rampant on the radio stations and television news channels as to what this might mean. Did the king change his mind? Was the aged king perhaps unwell, or worse? At three ten, Pugh’s operatives, who had been out and about, began to filter back to the safe house. They all reported that the roadblocks were being removed and the military trucks and troop carriers were disappearing. Public transportation was soon up and running.

  Radio and television began to report that the roadblocks and military operations were merely part of an “exercise” and that, contrary to widespread rumor, no coup had taken place.

  Pugh said, “This is interesting.”

  Griswold said, “Oh fuck.”

  Pugh said, “That too.”

  Just after four, nine police vehicles pulled up in front of the safe house. Black-uniformed commandos quickly scaled the walls on four sides to prevent any of us from making a run for it.

  A captain in a uniform that appeared freshly washed and pressed despite the heat had all of us gathered together in one place. He said calmly, “Please come with me. General Yodying wishes to speak with you.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  At the police station, we were all placed inside the same holding cell. Four unwashed men with multiple tattoos were already in there, lying on the concrete floor, and they looked unhappy to see us. This was perhaps because now they would have to share the single pail being used for urination and defecation with the fifteen of us. The cell was unfurnished except for the reeking bucket, and somebody had forgotten to equip the room with air-conditioning.

  “Surely they won’t keep us here for long,” Griswold said, and all the English-speaking Thais in the cell turned away from him and fixed their gazes instead on the cockroaches crawling up the walls.

  Timmy said, “I was once in a cell like this in rural India. It takes me back.”

  “You deal drugs?” Mango
asked.

  “No, I had transported a village boy trampled by a bull to a hospital, and as a bureaucratic precaution, two policeman took me to jail, just in case it had been I who had crushed the boy’s pelvis.”

  “How long you stay?” Kawee asked.

  “Just overnight. The district poultry officer came and bribed somebody to release me.”

  Now everyone looked at Griswold again, Mister Moneybags.

  Pugh said, “The general may let us marinate a bit. To clear our minds.”

  “I really don’t see why he is doing this,” Griswold said.

  “Obviously Yodying is in this with Anant. They have swindled me out of just about everything I own, including my family’s company. What more can they possibly extract from me?”

  “I am sure they are at this very moment compiling a list, Khun Gary. What else have you got?”

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  “My condo. What’s left of the cash in the vault under my spirit house. Minus, of course, the two hundred fifty thousand I handed over to Seer Pongsak last night. Oh. I suppose he was also a party to the scam. And he knew where my cash reserves were kept. So I suppose he informed Anant and Yodying, who went over to the condo and helped themselves.”

  “You’ll be lucky if they didn’t lick the paint off the walls,”

  Pugh said. “They are greedy.”

  “Maybe,” Kawee said, “they water plants, make offerings.”

  “Let’s hope so,” Pugh said. “The general and the former finance minister are, after all, good Buddhists.”

  Griswold suddenly looked nauseated and hunkered down with his back against the filthy wall and lowered his head between his knees. “I think I’m going to throw up,” he croaked.

  Timmy, Mr. Peace Corps, was the one who picked up the bucket, carried it over, and set it down in front of Griswold.

  Pugh said, “Let ’er rip, Khun Gary.”

  Griswold did.

  The Thais all averted their eyes from the violently retching farang.