The 38 Million Dollar Smile - Stevenson Richard - Страница 25
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not put up a struggle. If the goons had guns — which they did,
according to both Thomsatai and the pistol-whipped security
guard — resistance would have made no sense. I didn’t know
about Kawee, but Timmy was nothing if not sensible.
To our amazement, a laptop computer lay on Griswold’s
desk. Presumably, this was the one Timmy and Kawee had
retrieved from the downstairs storage area. So, the kidnappers
seemed to want Griswold himself and not necessarily the kind
of information he stored in his computer. What did this mean?
Or, did the boneheads simply forget to bring the device along?
Pugh and I messed around with the MacBook Pro but
couldn’t come up with a password that would get the thing up
and running. We tried all the obvious stuff: Mango, and the earlier Thai boyfriends; plus Buddha; Dharma; Sangha; Griswold’s birth date; Toot Toot, Lou Horn’s art gallery; Algonquin; and a lot of other details from Griswold’s daily existence. We even tried
bicycle and cruising speed and past lives. Nothing worked.
Pugh said, “I know a guy who can get into this. I’ll call him.”
“How soon can he do it?”
“Soon.”
Pugh had the computer whiz on his speed dial and spoke to
him in rapid Thai.
114 Richard Stevenson
“How come the cops didn’t take the computer with them?”
I said. “This place isn’t even being treated as a crime scene.”
“Like I said, it’s a low-priority matter. A lady-boy and a
tourist.”
“Timmy warned me about this aspect of Thailand.”
Pugh said nothing, just indicated that I should take a seat
while he took care of something. I remained standing, though,
while he went over to Griswold’s shrine. A box of matches lay
nearby on a table, and Pugh used one to light several candles
and a couple of joss sticks in front of the shrine. He had one of the photos of Timmy that we had e-mailed to the police, and
Pugh leaned this picture against the shrine next to the candles
and the incense. He sat himself down on the straw mat in front
of the shrine, his legs crossed and back straight. He bowed his
head. The serene Buddha figure looked out at Pugh, its left
palm raised in the “do not be afraid” mudra.
I stood awkwardly for a few minutes, then walked over and
slid open the door to the terrace. The night heat slammed into
me, dulling my senses. I held on to the railing and looked down
at the parking lot and gardens far below. When I turned away
from this abyss, I noticed that a few leaves had fallen off the
orchid and azalea plants on the terrace, and I picked up the
leaves and dropped them into the crocks holding the flowers.
The watering can nearby was about half full, and I watered the
flowers and the bamboo plants.
When I reentered the apartment, Pugh was still seated
silently in front of the Buddha, the candles flickering and the
incense smoking up the room. I went over and sat down next to
Pugh, also in the lotus position. I felt a twinge of something in my back, so my position turned into something a little more
nasturtium-like. I sat there with Pugh for some minutes trying
to lose my fear, as Pugh apparently had done in the presence of
the Buddha. I envied Pugh and loved the way his connection to
a world far beyond the mundane gave him courage and clarity
of mind. Sitting there with him, I myself was much calmer now
than I had been earlier. But I was still scared to death.
§ § § § §
THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 115
We waited for word of the police sweep of fourteenth floors
all over Bangkok in Pugh’s office on Surawong. At midnight,
the Sunday night traffic down below was still bumper-tobumper, though not so noisy as it might have been. I remembered how in the ’70s Bangkok streets were always
impossibly clogged and endlessly frustrating and how the Thais
nonetheless rarely honked their horns. To blare one’s horn
merely out of impatience was to demonstrate jai rawn, a hot temper — literally hot heart — and what every Thai aspired to
and valued above all was jai yen, a self-possessed inner being and a cool demeanor.
This was in contrast to the Vietnamese in Saigon who leaned
on their car and motorbike horns nonstop and seemed always
intent on trying to run one another off the road and smashing
to bits a few pedestrians while they were at it. Later, when I
thought back about Vietnamese driving styles — rude, cunning,
tenacious — it did not surprise me at all that these people had
won the war.
Pugh had had some rice and duck red curry with pineapple
sent up, so I ate that wondering if Timmy and Kawee were
eating as well. I supposed they were. Even the most sadistic
Thai kidnappers, I guessed, would value good food and not
think of depriving their captives of some flavorsome tom kha
gai before throwing them over the railing of an upper-floor
balcony.
Pugh’s third-floor office was not far from Patpong, home to
many of Bangkok’s famous pussy shows, and it was across Tha
Surawong from the entrance to Soi Pratuchai, a street of gay
bars and fuck shows. Pugh said that when Timmy was free, he
and I could drop by the Dream Boys Club and watch a show
that was nearly identical to the Ziegfeld Follies of 1928, except the cast was all male and the performances involved the use of
much more lubricant than was probably common in the
Ziegfeld era.
Just after midnight, Pugh checked with his contact in
General Yodying’s office and learned that the sweep had been
ongoing for over three hours but so far no trace of Timmy or
116 Richard Stevenson
Kawee had been found. Residential buildings had been checked
first; banging on the doors of residents after bedtime would not go over well and, Pugh said, might have cost me twice the fifty
thousand baht I and the taxpayers of Thailand were expending
on the operation. Fourteenth floors in hotels had also been
checked, to no avail. Now office buildings were being combed
with the help of the security services that watched over them.
I said to Pugh, “But what if some of these private security
guys are working with the kidnappers? They’ll alert the captors, or even cover up their locations. Then what?”
“It’s a risk we run,” Pugh said. “No dragnet is ever perfect.
Yodying is relying on the surprise element, but it’s not
foolproof. Another possible loophole is this: many Thais of the
upper social strata are likely to tell the cops doing the searching to sod off. There are many homes the police simply will not get
inside of. We have to assume, however, that Timmy and Kawee
are not being held captive in the apartments of Jack and Jackie, or of any real estate magnates or media tycoons.”
“Really? Why should we assume that? Do Thai rich people
have more delicate sensibilities than the American rich or the
Estonian rich? I’ll bet not.”
“More refined, no. But careful, yes. Many layers of
personnel separate Thai criminals in high places from Thai
criminals at the operational level. I think, perhaps, that this type of arrangement is not all that unusual in much of the USA, is it, Mr. Don? New Jersey may be a little cruder and more direct
than that. But even in Atlantic City the concept of plausible
deniability is probably not unknown.”
“Rufus, now you’re making me nervous. Maybe this whole
search is a waste of time. And a very expensive waste of time, at that. Jesus.”
Pugh was behind his desk surrounded by rack after rack of
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