The 38 Million Dollar Smile - Stevenson Richard - Страница 31

THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 137

dilemma. I did recall that I was in Timothy’s will, but that

thought didn’t help.

By early evening there was no sign of Griswold, and Pugh

said, “Let’s you and I head over to Kawee’s place. That looks

like a better bet at this point. The moto messenger with

Kawee’s stipend may well know where Griswold lives, or at

least where he is likely to turn up. Ek and Noo can keep an eye

out here.”

“What if,” I said, “Griswold only shows up at a particular

place once a week to hand over the cash delivery? The moto

guy may know when and where that is, but what if Griswold

won’t show himself there again until next week?”

Pugh shrugged. “Then we go to Plan B.”

“Which is?”

“We kidnap former Minister of Finance Anant na Ayudhaya,

and in order to find out what he knows, Ek goes after him with

a telephone book.”

“Is that really feasible?”

“No. Not for us it isn’t. Not exactly.”

I let that go and followed Pugh out of the van onto the

baking sidewalk. We climbed the steps of the SkyTrain station,

and Pugh changed enough baht notes into coins to extract from

the ticket machine two passes to the Sukhumvit station a couple

of miles away. At the end of the workday, there weren’t many

passengers on our car riding toward central Bangkok. Most

people were heading the other way. The car was pleasantly

frigid. One elderly woman was speaking Thai into a cell phone

while everyone else sat mute. The view out the windows was

more Miami Beach–modern, except for the occasional temples

with their whitewashed stupas and golden spires.

When the train stopped briefly at Ekamai station, I asked

Pugh about the big bus station we could see down below on

our left.

“That’s the Eastern Bangkok bus station. If you’re going to

Pattaya or on to Cambodia, that’s where you go to get the bus.”

138 Richard Stevenson

I imagined Elise Flanagan with her Antioch alumna group

down below us climbing onto a coach three weeks earlier and

then spotting Gary Griswold at the Thai-Cambodian border.

That is, spotting either Gary Griswold or Raul Castro.

We sped across one of the city’s few remaining canals, and I

caught a quick glimpse of houseboats lining the dark waterway.

Might Gary Griswold be hiding out on one of them, I

wondered? Or might Raul Castro?

We arrived at Sukhumvit station and were headed down the

long flight of steps to the busy commercial neighborhood

below when my cell phone rang. I wanted to believe it was

going to be Ellen Griswold calling me back with news of her

ex-husband’s location and his eagerness to help us free Timmy

and Kawee and his profuse apologies for getting us into this

goddamn mess in the first place.

We halted on the midlevel platform, and I stood out of the

way of the surging crowds as best I could.

“Hello?”

“Donald, it’s Timothy.”

“Oh God.”

“They told me to call you again.”

“Yes. Good. Are you all right?”

“So far. But I’m supposed to remind you that now you have

just twenty-four hours. You have until just after the sun sets

tomorrow. They said they will not do what they have to do with

us in the daylight. Do you understand what I’m saying? We’re

on the fourteenth floor.”

“Yes, I understand.”

“They will phone you this time tomorrow. And you will tell

them that you have Griswold and are ready to hand him over.”

“What is it they want with Griswold?”

“I don’t know. Anyway, I am not allowed to tell you

anything else.”

“Okay.”

THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 139

“Just get us out of this Millpond hell, will you?”

“We’re trying. Do they know we’re having trouble finding

Griswold?”

“They seem to know that. And they said you should try

harder.”

“Oh.”

“I have to hang up now.”

“Okay. Good-bye, Timothy. I heard what you said.”

“Good. Bye, Don.”

I looked at Pugh and said, “I know where they are. Timmy

told me where they are.”

I repeated the conversation to Pugh and added, “Timmy

said he was in Millpond hell. Millpond is the name of an

Albany, New York development company that tried to put up a

mall on some suburban farmland a number of years ago. That

project fell through, but eventually the company got hold of the farmland when the elderly owners moved into Albany, and then

Millpond started building a group of luxury condos on the land.

But the company was way overextended, and it went bust in the

Poppy Bush recession. The unfinished condos stood vacant for

years — an eyesore and an attractive nuisance for kids liable to break their necks climbing around on the tall concrete shells.

These buildings were just like the unfinished condos you

described to me here in Bangkok. I believe that Timothy and

Kawee are being held on the fourteenth floor of one of them.”

“This is possible,” Pugh said. “These structures have

security services meant to look after them. But security services perhaps can be bought — or simply replaced by the building’s

owner. Or the owner may not even know what’s going on in his

building. Or it may not even be known who the owner is.”

“How many of these unfinished tall buildings are there in

Bangkok? You told me earlier that they’re all over the place. But I’ve only seen a few.”

“You’re right, Mr. Don. More than a few is more than

enough, but I’m guessing there aren’t more than a dozen. And

140 Richard Stevenson

not all of them will have fourteenth floors. So that will narrow it down somewhat. I can readily find out from people I know in

the city building inspector’s office how many such abandoned

buildings are out there and exactly where they are.”

“Can you get this information fast? Won’t those offices be

closed for the day?”

“For a fee, someone can speed back to the office and look

up this data. Though then, of course, we run into our next set

of difficulties.”

“Which are?”

“Arriving at the correct building to effectuate a rescue and

having either Timmy or Kawee shoved off the balcony, and

then the captors threatening to kill the remaining one unless we produce Griswold and let them all go on their way.”

“You think they would do that?”

“Of course. Why not? I think these people are not such

good Buddhists.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The first thing I realized was, they will kill Kawee first. He

was a mere Thai lady-boy, and under the present circumstances,

Timothy had greater bargaining value. I was ashamed that this

realization came to me with a certain amount of relief.

Pugh got on his cell and called somebody who gave him a

number, and then he called somebody else. After hanging up,

he told me he would have a list of unfinished and abandoned

tall buildings in Bangkok within two hours. He made another

call and asked Ek to assemble a team of men and woman with,

as he put it, “military skills and experience.” I thought of my

American Express account limit, and I wondered if maybe I

could simply borrow the money for a sizable military operation

from China, like Bush.

The last dull orange light of day faded out as Pugh led me

away from Sukhumvit Road and down a mixed commercial and

residential soi. The air was still ferociously hot, and within

minutes my shirt was soaked through again. Pugh’s dark face

shone with a light sheen, but below the neck he didn’t seem to