The 38 Million Dollar Smile - Stevenson Richard - Страница 39

complex off Rangnum Road about a mile north of Siam Square.

Ek had learned from a source at one of the security services

watching over Bangkok’s abandoned high-rises that the guards

at one site had been instructed by an agent for the building’s

owner, a bank, to take a few days off and had been replaced by

unknown amateurs who were described by one security officer

as “gangsta boys.”

Pugh put Ek on hold while he took a call from Khun

Thunska. While I listened in on an extension, the computer ace

reported that nearly a thousand women would turn sixty in

Bangkok on April 27. He said he would go over the list more

thoroughly over the next few hours, but a preliminary once

172 Richard Stevenson

over showed that only one of these women was wed to a

Bangkok big shot. That was Paveena Hanwilai, wife of General

of the Royal Thai Police Yodying Supanant.

Pugh got Ek back on the line and said, “Time to move.”

§ § § § §

We headed north toward Rangnum Road in two vans. A

broad-shouldered youth named Nitrate drove the one with

Pugh, me and Miss Aroon. She was dressed in shorts and a tank

top and appeared ready to don the costume she would need for

the rescue operation. The van following us held Griswold, Sek,

Egg and four well-toned young men who normally performed

in the gay fuck show at Dream Boys but also moonlighted as

muscle boys for Pugh. Pugh said only two of them were gay,

but the money at Dream Boys was good, and life in show

business beat driving a truck around in the heat. I watched these guys load lengths of rope into their van before we left the

office, along with several bamboo poles.

The morning traffic was thick and moved in fits and starts.

Pugh said he remembered that when he was a boy large herds

of cattle were driven up Rama IV Road to the city’s main slaughterhouse, and now it often seemed as if the city hadn’t

modernized at all but had just substituted Toyotas for cows. We

could have taken the speedy SkyTrain up to Rangnum Road,

but our flying squad needed more flexibility than that afforded

by public transportation.

It didn’t much matter that our progress was slow. We didn’t

need to be in place at Rangnum Road, Pugh said, until eleven

o’clock, when Ek would arrive with his own captive, the

soothsayer Surapol Sutharat. I asked Pugh about seer Surapol’s

public prediction that no coup could be expected in Thailand

anytime soon, when apparently some change of government

that would send General Yodying packing was in the works for

April 27.

“It’s disinformation,” Pugh said. “That’s how these guys

work. Their charts may show one thing, but publicly they say

whatever their clients want the public to hear. It’s soothsayingslash-spin.”

THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 173

“But this other seer, Pongsak Sutiwipakorn, has forecast a

coup before the end of April. What’s his deal? If he has a line to the coup plotters, why are they giving the game away? Isn’t

surprise a crucial element in any government overthrow?”

“It’s swagger. When upper-echelon Thais brazenly tip their

hands, it’s the same as when lower-class Thai men rip off their

shirts and brandish their ogreish tats to give opponents the

heebie-jeebies. Much of the time, however, this tactic is bluff.

But you can never be sure if it’s real or not, so you’re never sure how or even whether to respond. It’s part of what makes civic

life in Thailand so endlessly fascinating.”

“Griswold is apparently convinced that a coup is imminent.

How else would he know that General Yodying is going to lose

his job on the twenty-seventh?”

“Former Finance Minister Anant would know such things if

he was involved in the conspiracy. And soothsayer Pongsak

would know from consulting his charts. Whether it’s a coup or

an unfortunate accident on April twenty-seventh that causes

General Yodying to — dare I once again use the word fall? —

either way he seems to be a goner, practically speaking.”

I recalled the long-ago days of the old O’Connell

Democratic machine that befouled civic life in Albany for much

of the twentieth century. It, too, routinely played rough,

although surely it would have met its match tangling with

Minister Anant, General Yodying and the politico-soothsayers

of Bangkok. The civic reformers who finally succeeded at de-

corrupting Albany in the 1980s would have been eaten alive by

this Thai crew. And tossed over a high ledge near the top of the Al Smith State Office Building.

We parked both vans in a soi a couple of blocks from the

condo complex. A Burmese travel agency was on one side of us

and a small open-front restaurant on the other. Some of the

cooking was being done in raised kettles on the sidewalk, and

the air was hot and rich with the aroma of the chilies,

cardamom and cinnamon in a Massaman curry. It was only just

after ten, so the rescue crew climbed out of the vans and

headed to the restaurant for a snack. Despite the tension

174 Richard Stevenson

generated by our task, the several men and one woman were

kidding around in the Thai manner, joshing one another and

casually ha-ha-ing. It was as if all the good food Thais ate

produced not just generally good health but good humor, too.

Pugh also got out of the van and found a flower seller

nearby. He bought a garland of jasmine blossoms and walked

over to the spirit house in front of a store that sold running

shoes and flip-flops. Pugh placed the garland before the

Buddha figure, wai-ed the statue, and bowed his head for some

minutes. He had placed his cell phone next to the garland and

other offerings that had been left by others: candles, rice, a

cardboard carton of guava juice. He wasn’t planning to leave

the phone behind, I surmised, but wanted to have it handy in

case Ek called.

At ten to eleven, Ek did call. At Pugh’s signal, the rescue

crew quickly gathered around him for their instructions. He

spoke to them in Thai. Most of them spoke some English, but

it was limited and there was no room for misunderstandings or

screwups. And they were no longer kidding around.

The group broke up into units of two each. One pair carried

the ropes and bamboo poles. The men wore cargo pants and T-

shirts and could have passed for construction workers or

window washers.

Pugh, Egg, Griswold, Miss Aroon and I walked a bit ahead

of the others on the opposite side of Rangnum Road. When we

reached the private soi leading to the abandoned condo

complex, my heart began to race and my impulse was to sprint

into one of the buildings and tear up fourteen flights shouting

Timmy’s name. I took a deep breath of the muggy Bangkok air

and maintained my steady pace next to Pugh. I saw Ek’s fourby-four parked up ahead next to one of the tall concrete shells, as well as other vehicles I did not recognize. One was another

dark SUV and then a blue Mercedes. A motorcycle was parked

behind the Mercedes.

Ek stood in the entryway to one of the buildings with two

more of Pugh’s operatives. He beckoned for us to move with

him into the shadows. He said, “That one,” and indicated the

THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 175

structure forty or fifty feet across the driveway. We moved

forward a few steps and peered up, and I could sense that, like

me, everybody was counting to fourteen.

When the men with the ropes and bamboo poles arrived, Ek