The 38 Million Dollar Smile - Stevenson Richard - Страница 18
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“Yes. In our village. Now we both thirty-two.”
“Didn’t Gary understand that history when you explained it
to him?”
“No, he jealous. He want I want him only. I love Gary. He
Buddhist. He love the Buddha. I teach him. I teach him pray. I
teach him meditate. I teach him make merit. I love Gary, but
Gary no understand Thai.”
“Thais are not so sexually possessive, I guess, as farangs
tend to be.”
“Possess? Possess just house, motorbike. No possess for
sex. Sex for pleasure. Sex for fun. Like food. Like air.”
“Sanuk.”
“Yes, sanuk. But I love Gary. I am sad.”
THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 83
“Is it possible,” I said, “that Gary was upset about
something else, and that affected how he reacted to Werner and
your other somewhat-numerous revelations?”
“I don’t think so,” Mango said.
As he spoke, I was working hard now to concentrate on
what he was saying, as the two men in the next cubicle were
getting up a nice head of steam. It was plainly a Thai and a
farang, because one of them was making little cries of oh-oh-oh
— the farang — and the other one was uttering little squeals of
oi-oi-oi — the Thai.
Mango seemed unaware of any of this. It was just another
feature of the Bangkok atmosphere, like the aroma of jasmine.
He went on. “Gary not angry at other people, just me. Gary
happy then. He rich, he say, and he get more rich, and then he
make big merit. Gary so happy. But after I go, something
happen. He not happy. I hear this from Kawee. Gary leave, he
hide.”
“He was going to become more rich?”
Mango thought about this. His towel had shifted a bit, and
now another of his numerous excellent attributes was dimly
visible. That and the oh-oh-oh-oi-oi-oi racket next door weren’t making my job any easier at what plainly was about to become a
critical juncture in the investigation.
Mango said, “Big investment.”
“Investment in what?’
“I don’t know.”
“He didn’t talk about it at all?”
“No.”
“How do you know it was an investment?”
“He say he go bank, get money for big investment. Make
rich, make merit.”
“What was the merit he was going to make?”
“No say. But for the Buddha. For the Dharma. For the
Sangha.”
84 Richard Stevenson
“The Sangha. That’s the monkhood? Was he going to give
money to the monks? To a monk?”
“No monk, maybe. Maybe seer. Gary go to seer. Gary like
seer. Seer tell Gary many things. He say Gary see blood. Gary
people hurt. Then he say Gary make big merit, no blood, no
hurt. Make bad luck good luck.”
“Do you know who the seer was, Mango? Do you know his
name and where he is?”
“Yes, he is soothsayer Khunathip Chantanapim, and he here
in Bangkok.”
I said, “Now we’re getting somewhere,” just as one of the
chaps in the next cubicle got somewhere too.
§ § § § §
Timmy and Sawee were not by the pool when I came
downstairs, so Mango and I stepped into the nearby multi-
tenanted labyrinthine steam room for a refreshing bout of
heatstroke. Both of us had been feeling a certain amount of
tension following our conversation about Griswold, though
when we emerged from the busy steam room and headed for
the cold showers some minutes later, much of that tension had
been dissipated.
Mango told me how to reach him if I needed to talk to him
again, and he gave a fairly detailed description of the two men
who had threatened him two months earlier and roughed him
up when he insisted that he had no idea where Griswold was.
One of the two goons sounded like Yai, the motorcycle assault
artist. Mango said he wished I — or somebody — could do
something about these two. He needed some more foreign
“friends” to keep his Chonburi house fund going, and keeping
such a low profile was crimping his style in that regard.
Timmy reappeared a while later at poolside. “Where’s
Kawee?” I asked. “Is he okay?”
“Oh sure. He’s in the shower, I think.”
I told Timmy about my productive talk with Mango and
about the news of the soothsayer who apparently talked
THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 85
Griswold into some major Buddhist merit-making venture,
probably involving a large amount of cash.
“Wow, this is the breakthrough you needed.”
“I think so.”
“Great,” Timmy said, looking pleased but a little distracted.
“So. Are you having fun? No drive-by shootings? Plenty of
smiles.”
“You got it.”
“But nothing worth mentioning?”
“Well. I guess I should tell you.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well. It’s this. I just spent a lovely hour and a half in a
cubicle with Kawee.” He actually smirked, something I wasn’t
sure I had ever seen him do.
“Kawee? ”
More smirk, though faintly cracked this time.
“You and little katoey Kawee?”
“It was his idea. But it didn’t take much coaxing, and I’m
happy I did it because he’s really quite delightful.”
“Timothy. Don’t your tastes generally run to — how shall I
put it? — men a bit more butch?”
“Yes, obviously. But in the semidarkness that sweet lad is
plenty butch enough, believe you me. Anyway, he’s just so…so
nice.”
“I’m…I’m be-dazed.”
“Anyway, while he’s a katoey, he’s not transgendered in the
full, clinical sense. He plans, for example, on keeping his dick.
He’s totally happy with it. As well he might be. Anyway, we
didn’t do much. Basically we just cuddled and chatted and then
enjoyed some pleasant mutual slow self-abuse. He wanted to
fuck me. He had four condoms — four, mind you! — stuffed inside his towel. But even with the condoms, that seemed to go
well beyond our ground rules on these matters.”
86 Richard Stevenson
“I would say, yes, getting pounded up the butt by a well-
hung Thai lady-boy is well outside our agreed-upon
parameters.”
“I didn’t think you’d mind. I just assumed that once you and
Mango got into a cubicle, nature would run its merry course.”
“Timothy, why would you assume such a thing? On those
exceedingly rare occasions when I do anything like that at all I never mix work in with it. Well, once I did and regretted it, as you well know. Really. I’m…I don’t know quite what to say.”
“So you and Mango didn’t do it?”
“Of course not!”
“Weren’t you in the steam room just now? I thought I saw
you both come out.”
“Yes, but we didn’t do anything together. Give me some
credit.”
“Anyway, I’m just doing what you always say. It’s the Henry
James dictum. When in Venice, one must always try the squid in
its own ink.”
“Oh, that. I forgot. I hope Kawee wasn’t too squidlike.”
“Not too. Just enough.”
“Well, you do seem to be adjusting to Thai customs and
mores nicely. I suppose I should be grateful after all your
ambivalence and fretting about coming here.”
“The only question in my mind is, why didn’t we come to Thailand sooner? Don, I have to say, now I do see what the
attraction is. The Thais are just so comfortable being who and
what they are, and so totally laid-back about life’s simplest
pleasures — tasty food, sunshine, flowers and trees, affectionate and playful sex. I see why people come here and…well, fall in
love with this gosh-darn place!”
So. What was this going to mean? And he hadn’t even seen
the reclining Buddhas yet.
“Look,” I said, “I’m glad you’ve come around. Both the
Thai Ministry of Tourism and I are pleased. But I’ve got work
to do. For one thing, I have to go get my phone and call Rufus
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