The 38 Million Dollar Smile - Stevenson Richard - Страница 47

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phoned someone in Bangkok for assistance, it will take two or

three hours for them to get somebody down here. Word is out

around Hua Hin that we are looking for Griswold. This could

speed locating him, but it also runs the risk of one of Yodying’s local admirers being tipped off as to our presence and also to

Griswold’s being on the loose.”

I said, “If Griswold has friends in Bangkok who can protect

him in these circumstances, why couldn’t the same people have

protected him while he was hiding out over the past six

THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 207

months? There seems to be a piece of all this that we don’t yet

know about.”

“A single piece? Khun Don, you are such an optimist.”

While we all ate, the Thais who had known him talked about

Griswold and what a bundle of contradictions he was to them.

Pugh said, “He was a man of the mysterious Occident.”

Kawee told about how he had met Griswold at Paradisio

and how Griswold had been forthright in telling him that he

was attracted to very butch men and Kawee was too feminine

for them to have any kind of sexual relationship. Kawee said

this even as he stood up to reach for more rice and his

enormous bulge all but brushed my nose. He went on to tell in

his breathy voice how he and Griswold had become friends,

based on their spiritual quests and yearnings, and that each had learned from the other’s stories of suffering in life and how

each had come to understand how suffering is the beginning of

wisdom. Kawee told of losing his friend Nonkie to malaria, and

he said Griswold told of losing his first Thai lover to a disease with similar symptoms: fever, chills and weakness. They

commiserated with each other, and they learned to fully

appreciate what they had when they had it but also to accept the transitory nature of all things.

I said, “Griswold had a Thai boyfriend who died? I didn’t

know that.”

“It was long time past,” Kawee said. “Maybe eighteen fifty-

eight.”

“Back when he was Thai himself?”

“Of course.”

Mango recounted the sad tale of his time together with

Griswold, whom he admired for his spiritual depth and

searching, and told of the breakup over the question of sexual

fidelity. “I was too sorry for the bust-up,” Mango said. “Mr.

Gary was nice man and good lover. Also, he very rich. Lot of

money is big plus.”

208 Richard Stevenson

I said, “Apparently something else very bad happened soon

after you two broke up, Mango. Something that actually

changed the way Griswold saw his life.”

“Yes, and that was when bad men find me and ask me

where Mr. Gary go. Bad luck for me. Bad luck for Mr. Gary.

Khun Khunathip saw it in chart. Sadness and blood coming.

Soon they come.”

Kawee said, “Mr. Gary too sad for Mango, too sad for other

things. Then also everything be worse. That when two farangs

come.”

“Two Westerners?”

“Two farangs come and Mr. Gary crying. Too, too sad when

farangs come from America.”

“Two Americans made him cry? What was that about?”

“I don’t know,” Kawee said. “He no tell me. But two men

come. Then Mr. Gary change big investment plan. He go bank

every day. He meditate at wat. Soon he leave condo and hide.

He change. He angry. He sad. I make offerings and I water

plants.”

“Did you ever meet these two men?”

“One time.”

“What were their names?”

“They no say. They not nice. They say, where good gay

massage? I say where and they go. My friend Tree say they try

fuck him no condom. He say no, and they no tip.”

Pugh asked, “Were these men living in Thailand or visiting?”

“Just come from America,” Kawee said. “Then go back

America. They no stay long. Two days, maybe three.”

I asked Kawee to describe the two. Doing so was beyond

the limits of his English, so he did it in Thai and then Pugh

translated. “The men seemed to be in their early forties,” Pugh

said. “Definitely American — Kawee knows the accents of the

Westerners who sojourn in Thailand — and a bit rough around

the edges. Not the sort of international business types you

might expect to come calling at Griswold’s condo. One was a

THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 209

dark-haired man who had bleached his hair blond. They looked

like they had been muscle boys once but were over-the-hill.

Drinkers, too, Kawee believes, with unmistakable beer breath at

high noon. Shady characters, it seems, and I suppose we can

surmise, intimately connected with whatever sent Khun Gary

spinning off into financial, spiritual and personal mysterious

activities the minute these two nasty pieces of work left town.”

I asked Kawee if he knew where these men had been staying

in Bangkok. “At the Malaysia Hotel,” he said. “First Malaysia,

then Grand Hyatt. They move, they tell Mr. Gary. I hear them

say this, and they laugh.”

“The Malaysia,” Pugh explained, “is a midrange tourist hotel

not far from the Topmost. The Grand Hyatt is what the name

sounds like. It’s a high-end international business travelers and tourist hotel near Siam Square. Apparently these scruffy

characters were upwardly mobile even during their brief,

unpopular stay in Bangkok.”

Timmy said, “It looks as if Griswold may have given them

money. Or they must have gotten it from somebody else during

their short stay in Thailand. Could they have been investors in

the currency speculation scheme that was abandoned, and they

were the first ones to demand and receive their money back?

Though, from Kawee’s description, they don’t sound all that

Wall Street.”

I said, “The currency speculation deal was just local, I’d

guess. Wouldn’t you say, Rufus?”

“If the esteemed former minister of finance was involved,

the scheme likely involved only a prestigious circle of Thai

scalawags. In any case, investors in that unfortunate incident

lost all their dough. And those who complained got a nice

shove from a precipice for their trouble.”

“But,” Timmy said, “maybe these visiting Americans were

the first ones in line and they threatened Griswold. He paid

them off with his own money and then went into hiding before

the other ripped-off investors went wild.”

210 Richard Stevenson

“The timing is wrong for that scenario,” I said. “We’re

confusing cause and effect. Griswold pulled out of the currency

speculation deal, causing it to collapse, just after these guys

showed up and may have received money from him.”

I asked Pugh if he could use sources in the banks where

Griswold kept his money to check on large withdrawals or

transfers around the time of the visit by the two Americans.

“That would be illegal,” Pugh said. “Banking privacy laws

preclude any such inquiries.”

“Yes, but can you do it?”

“Of course.”

“It would help,” I said, “if we knew exactly when these two

guys were in Bangkok. Is there any way of figuring that out?”

Kawee said, “October fifteen.”

“How do you know that?”

“I remember. One and five. It was day of unlucky sixes. The

bad Americans come. My Aunt Sunthorn have birthday number

sixty. She fall in cinema and break leg.”

Pugh said, “Did the Americans arrive on October fifteenth

or depart on that date?”

“They come Bangkok on fourteen, I think. They phone Mr.

Gary. They come condo fifteen. They go way sixteen maybe.”

Timmy looked at me and said, “Who needs computers?”

I said, “I’m pretty sure that the bulk of Griswold’s funds are

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