The 38 Million Dollar Smile - Stevenson Richard - Страница 36

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

158 Richard Stevenson

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?”

THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 161

“Paveena Hanwilai is the wife of Police General Yodying.