The 38 Million Dollar Smile - Stevenson Richard. Страница 25

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