The 38 Million Dollar Smile - Stevenson Richard - Страница 42

over to the shoulder of the highway. He did so, and the second

THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 183

minivan followed us. I looked back to see the guardrail-side

door open on the other vehicle, and the soothsayer Surapol

Sutharat step out and stand by the roadside. Then the door

closed and both vans drove on.

I said, “Do you think Khun Surapol predicted this turn of

events, Rufus?”

“He would have had an inkling. The man is not stupid. He’s

corrupt, but not entirely incompetent with his charts.”

“So now what? Do we ride around on the freeways of

Bangkok until April twenty-seventh? We’ll run out of gas.”

“Nope. Not necessary. What I think is, we all deserve a few

days at the seashore.”

“Sounds good. Can we pick up our bathing suits at the

hotel?”

“No, Khun Don. I am sorry. We must proceed directly to Hua Hin. It is a pleasant town a few hours’ drive south of

Bangkok on the Gulf of Thailand. Hua Hin is such a desirable

getaway spot that Jack and Jackie themselves have quite an

impressive palatial hideaway there.”

“Well, if it’s good enough for Jack.”

“Others will be in danger, also, and will need to join us

there. In fact, I must make some calls now. My wife and

children will be along, as well as my girlfriend Furnace, a

delightful woman you will enjoy tremendously. Furnace will, of

course, be housed separately from the rest of us, though with

luck your paths will cross. Kawee, you should invite Miss

Nongnat to visit. And it might be wise for Khun Gary’s old

paramour Mango to attend our seaside holiday also. The general

is sure to be ripshit over today’s developments, and his agents

will tend toward impatience and extreme violence toward

anyone who might be expected to know of our whereabouts.”

Pugh got on his cell phone and made several calls in Thai.

This was the first time since Timmy’s rescue that we could

speak with each other without the risk of gunfire erupting, and

the first thing I said was, “Okay. Yes. You were right.”

He said nothing.

184 Richard Stevenson

“I’ll spend the rest of my life making this up to you,

Timothy. You name it. It’s yours. Plus, of course, I’ll listen to you in the future when you talk sense. Really, I’ll try harder to do that.”

He was breathing evenly but was still sweaty and didn’t smell

so great.

I looked across Timmy and said to Kawee, “I’m really so

sorry I got you two into this. It must have been very

frightening.”

Kawee said, “We think we die.”

“Yes.”

“I tell Timothy he live better life next time.”

“I know he’d like some improvements.”

“He say okay. But he ask if you be there, too.”

“In his next life?”

“Yes, he want next life with you. You his soul mate, he say.”

“That would be my preference also. What did you tell him?

Will we be together?”

“Yes, maybe. But maybe not human. Maybe you both

snake.”

“Two snakes?”

“Timothy and Donald spirit in snakes. Or other animals. All

depend on karma.”

“If we were mammals, it might be okay. We’d manage.

Mammals with small brains and large penises.”

Timmy was too polite and respectful toward other decent

people’s deepest beliefs to roll his eyes, but I knew he was

doing it mentally.

Finally, Timmy said, “Kawee was very thoughtful and

supportive during our captivity, Donald. He enlarged my

perspective.”

I wondered if he had also massaged his prostate, but this

was no time for that discussion. I said, “How so?”

THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 185

“I just have a better understanding now of the way the

human mind can both retreat into itself when that’s the only

way it can stay safe, and at the same time how any one mind is

only a temporary partial manifestation of something far larger

and longer lasting.”

“Oh. Well, good. Except, that doesn’t sound Buddhist. It

sounds Jungian.”

“You and your Western insistence on labels. God.”

“Are you putting me on?”

“Yes, a little. But, really, Kawee did help me with the whole

idea of acceptance. Acceptance of how temporary any one

human life is, and how the transitory nature of life should be

nothing to fear. There’s actually something quite beautiful about it. All that gorgeous fluidity.”

Pugh was in the front seat with Nitrate, who was driving,

and when Timmy said this, Pugh reached over to the steering

wheel and hit the horn three times.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

The compound where we took refuge in Hua Hin — which,

Pugh explained, was spelled Hua Hin but pronounced Wah-

HEEN — was a few miles south of the town center near

Monkey Mountain. This was a high hill overlooking the Gulf of

Thailand where monkeys frolicked on the grounds of an old

temple. Pugh suggested that Timmy and I have a look while we

were in the vicinity. But he said not to get too close to the

greedy and always-quarreling monkeys, a few of whom were

deceased former officials from the Thaksin Shinawatra

administration.

Timmy said, “Do you really believe that’s true?”

“Of course,” Pugh said. “This is known.”

The compound, a quarter mile off the main road and a few

hundred yards from the beach, was owned by an anti-Samak,

anti-Thaksin businessman friend of Pugh’s who owned about

fifty 7-Eleven franchises and a Hua Hin hotel that catered to

German tour groups and, Pugh said, served the greasiest

schnitzel south of Bangkok.

Pugh’s friend, Sila Chusuk, was vacationing with his family

in Switzerland and we had the run of his two commodious

guesthouses. These were rambling, tile-roofed stucco structures

with big louvered windows that were sealed shut now for the

hot season and with central air-conditioning keeping everything

crisp. There was a pool in the palm-fringed flower gardens at

the back of the walled compound, with fuchsia blossoms

floating in it the color of Kawee’s toenails.

We had stopped in town to buy some light clothes for

Timmy and Kawee — Pugh said we would not be calling on

Jack and Jackie, so beachwear would do — and some toiletries,

and of course, food. The Thais had missed their lunch, so a

stop was made out on the main road to pick up soup and rice.

As soon as we arrived at the compound, Pugh and his crew

served up the take-out savories and went at them. Nobody had

188 Richard Stevenson

a lot to say. They were all just happy to be alive and enjoying

another good meal. The same was true of Timmy, Kawee and

me — and presumably Griswold, although he had precious few

words to offer any of us.

Upstairs, Timmy and I shared a room, Pugh was next door,

then Kawee and Nitrate, then Griswold, Egg and Ek. Griswold

bore constant watching, Pugh and I agreed. While Timmy took

a long shower, I noted on my cell phone that Bob Chicarelli had

called from Albany during the rescue while I had left my phone

in the van. It was just past four in the afternoon in Thailand,

predawn in the eastern United States. I returned the call, but

Chicarelli didn’t answer and I guessed he was asleep. I left a

message, saying we had rescued Timmy and Kawee from the

kidnappers, that Griswold was with us, and we were in hiding

until some loose ends got tied up. I didn’t mention that the

loose ends included a Thai police general who was intent on

blowing all our brains out. For reasons I couldn’t quite

articulate to myself, I hesitated before asking Chicarelli to notify Ellen and Bill Griswold that their family member Gary was now