The 38 Million Dollar Smile - Stevenson Richard - Страница 36
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new business scheme he was planning along with Thai investors
would serve as an endowment for the institution for decades or
even centuries to come.
Pugh said, “Your audacious plan is largely meritorious, Mr.
Gary. You are to be commended. It will be compromised, of
course, if you are flung off the side of a high building before
your project reaches fruition.”
“That’s one reason I’m trying to stay alive. Not just for
myself but for the Sayadaw U Winaya project. That’s who the
project will be named after.”
Pugh nodded approvingly, but I was in the dark. Griswold
saw my puzzlement and explained. “A sayadaw is the abbot of a
monastery in Burma. Sayadaw U Winaya was the revered abbot
of the Thamanyat monastery in southeastern Burma until his
death several years ago. He was a supporter of democrat Aung
San Su Kyi and an opponent of the evil junta that rules the
country so savagely. After his death, the monk’s corpse was
placed in a glass box and put on display in a shrine near the
monastery, and was believed by Burmese Buddhists to have
supernatural powers. Pilgrims came to Thamanyat from all over
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the country. The paranoid ruling generals feared the dead
monk’s magic and were probably behind the theft of the corpse
by armed and masked intruders two years ago.
“At U Winaya Park, we’ll have a replica of the great monk’s
corpse in a box of glass and gold. It will serve as a place of
solace and spiritual power, not just for Thai pilgrims but for
millions of Burmese refugees who had fled the horrors of their
homeland. It’s just barely possible that this project could go
forward without me. But I’m providing most of the financing,
and even more importantly the endowment cannot be set up
without my guidance. So it’s best, Strachey, that not only should Timothy and Kawee be rescued, but that I also should continue
breathing and walking around upright, if at all possible.”
It all sounded grandiose to me, out of scale for a philosophy
with simplicity and humility at its moral core. But Pugh was
looking thoughtful and approving, so who was I to judge?
“How,” I asked Griswold, “were you planning on
overseeing this huge project while you were in hiding? That
sounds all but impossible, especially in a business culture that you don’t know as intimately as you know your own.”
“Later this month,” Griswold said with quiet smile, “I won’t
be in hiding anymore.”
“Oh? Why is that?”
“On April twenty-seventh, a number of changes will come
about in Bangkok. And among those changes will be the
effective removal of the leader of the original investment group.
He will no longer be in a position to either hurt me or even
hassle me.”
Pugh said, “Nine.”
“Not only,” Griswold said, “will two and seven add up to
nine, but my sworn enemy in all of this will on April twenthseventh have been in his present position for exactly six years.
And his wife will turn sixty years old on that day. They are
finished. I will be free.”
By now I expected Pugh to swoon over all this
numerological mumbo jumbo — lucky nines dueling with
THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 159
unlucky sixes — but he just looked at Griswold peculiarly and
said nothing. We were heading up Surawong Road now, nearing
Pugh’s office.
I asked Griswold, “How come you’ve been hiding out for
six months, not just from these people who are after your ass
but from all your friends and family back home? You could
easily have been in touch by e-mail or even phoned people once
in a while without compromising your safety. Your friends in
Key West have been worried sick about you, and so have your
brother and sister-in-law in Albany. That all strikes me as
unnecessary and, if I may say so, pretty selfish for a practicing Buddhist.”
Griswold’s face hardened now. “Something happened six
months ago that changed the way I see my life. This was a
personal blow, nothing business related. But afterward I needed
time to clear my mind of all the impurities I could possibly rid myself of. I have been mostly meditating for the past six
months and attempting to restore a kind of karmic harmony in
my life and in the lives of others.”
“Did this have something to do with Mango?” I asked.
Griswold gave me a funny look. “Mango? How do you even
know about Mango? Oh, I guess you would. You’ve spoken to
Ellen and you’ve broken into my laptop, and you’ve probably
been through my tax returns and my garbage pail. No, it had
nothing to do with Mango. Mango was a beguiling man I
thought for a while I might make a life with, until I found out
he had several other lives going on at the same time, including
one as a money boy. Another of his lives was accumulating real
estate in Chonburi with his Thai lover, a man named Donnutt,
who is also a very busy and accomplished money boy. In fact,
Mango wasn’t the first Thai man who turned out to be more
interested in my bank account than anything else about me. I’m
a bit disillusioned in that department, I have to admit. Thais are so sane about sexual orientation but far too casual about
relationships. I know I’m an anachronistic joke in this regard,
but I want the kind of marriage my parents had, except with a
human being of the same sex. Others, I know, share this old
160 Richard Stevenson
fashioned view, and it’s what I’m holding out for and what I
believe I’ll have some day.”
“Thailand might not be the best place for that, Griswold.
Relationships are far more fluid here,” I said, “more
accommodating of human nature and the varieties of human
need. Maybe you should have run off instead to North Korea
or Idaho. It’s not too late, of course. So what was this life-
changing event six months ago, if not romantic?”
The van pulled into a parking garage next to Pugh’s office,
and Griswold said, “None of that is anything you need to
concern yourself with in the present circumstances. Though
you’ll learn about a number of aspects of it soon enough.”
I supposed I was going to have to wait for some more nines
to turn up.
Two men met us at one of Pugh’s reserved parking spots,
and they along with Egg led Griswold through a passageway to
Pugh’s building and up to his office.” Pugh and I followed, and
soon he slowed our pace a bit until we were out of earshot of
Griswold and the others.
Pugh said to me, “Griswold knows his numerology. A big
man — the head of the investors who got screwed and are after
Griswold — is going to take a fall on April twenty-seventh. But
Griswold, I believe, gave something away. The esteemed seer
Surapol Sutharat will lead a birthday blessing ceremony on that
date on the plaza in front of the Central World Mall that will be open to the public and will be attended by many thousands of
merit-makers. It will be one of the major socioreligious
occasions in Bangkok to mark the beginning of Songkran, the
Buddhist new year. The television newsies and the Bangkok
papers have been burbling over with reports on this upcoming
solemn event. And the star birthday girl, Paveena Hanwilai, is
the wife of a considerable personage in Bangkok, a man whose
name will ring a major bell with you, Khun Don.”
Pugh had stopped walking and was looking at me now, and I
asked him, “Who’s that?”
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“Paveena Hanwilai is the wife of Police General Yodying.
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