while not beatific, looked natural and relaxed. Buddhists say we inhabit our bodies only temporarily, but in this picture, at least, Griswold’s soul appeared comfortable in its then-abode.

I looked at the picture and the other material on Griswold

on the first leg of my Key West flight, a two-hour ride down to

Atlanta. Ellen Griswold had provided regular-mail notes from

Gary and hard copies of e-mails sent from Thailand. Nearly all

were addressed to Ellen, not to Ellen and Bill. In his messages, Griswold spoke glowingly of his new home — he wrote, “the

Thais are a truly free people” — and of the contentment he had

found in Buddhist ethical systems and through daily meditation.

He also mentioned being pleased with a condo he had

purchased in Bangkok. This was about eighteen months earlier,

and Ellen had included the street address in her packet.

There were several references to what Griswold termed “the

romance department.” All the romances seemed to be with

Thai men. Early in his life in Bangkok, there was Keng, “a

sweetheart of a man,” and later “delightful” Sambul, and then

“quiet” Poom. No mention was made of any of these

relationships ending. It seemed as if when one halted or

dwindled out, Griswold just moved on to another. This left me

26 Richard Stevenson

wondering what the exact nature of these liaisons might have

been.

The last boyfriend mentioned, in an e-mail dated the

previous July 17, was Mango. Griswold called him “a beautiful

man and a fantastic human being.” He also said, “This one’s a

keeper, I hope.” This was a month before Griswold sold all his

holdings in the US for thirty-eight million dollars and two

months before he disappeared.

The other material Ellen provided me, at Bob Chicarelli’s

direction, was biographical and statistical data. I noted that

Griswold had been a business major at Cornell with an art

history minor. His resume consisted mainly of marketing

positions with Algonquin Steel, the family company. He started

low at Albany headquarters then climbed steadily, with his

company career culminating in his becoming head of marketing

in the US Southern region when he was in his early thirties.

Then Griswold left the company and ran his Key West art

gallery before departing for Thailand.

On the smaller plane from Atlanta to Key West, I looked

through the Lonely Planet guide to Thailand I had picked up

that morning at Stuyvesant Books. In the “Dangers and

Annoyances” section that Lonely Planet quaintly and helpfully

includes in all its guidebooks, unscrupulous tuk-tuk drivers were listed, as well as fake-gem scams. No mention was made of

drive-by shootings or police-run massacres. The emphasis in

Lonely Planet’s Thailand was on the green landscape, the

golden temples, and the smiles.

§ § § § §

“I have to admit,” Lou Horn said, “that in retrospect we

should have seen it coming — Gary mentally and physically

sailing off into the blue. There were signs.”

Marcie Weems added, “Thailand, swell — nice people, nice

place. And Buddhism, that’s fine, too — the ethics of tolerance

and acceptance and nonviolence. And, of course, all those cute

monks with their shaved heads and gorgeous orange robes. But

astrology? Numerology? I don’t think so.”

THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 27

“And before his transformation Gary was so even-keeled

most of the time,” Janice Romeo said. “And smart and fun to

be around. The four of us took trips together, and Gary was

always a delight. He was focused, yes, even obsessive about

some things, like his bike racing and his good causes. But he

was never really muddleheaded. And after he got out of the

Algonquin Steel power job sturm and drang and opened the gallery, he was pretty relaxed too. Of course, it was also around that time that he started getting into the weirdness.”

“He was weird, but still not weird,” Weems put in. “Gary

was Mister Moderate-and-Conventional with most things —

food, alcohol, dress. Key West is famous for its eccentrics, but Gary was hardly one of the seventeen thousand four hundred

and twelve local characters.”

“And men,” Romeo said. “Don’t forget men — another

area where Gary was Mister Middle-of-the-Road. No Mangos

or Pomegranates or Pomolos for the Gary we knew. He went

for Lou, to cite a nearby example. An excellent, levelheaded

choice. Lou, are you hurt that we all think of you as a merely

reasonable object of desire?”

They all laughed as Horn digested the ambiguous

compliment. We were seated at a table at Salute, an open-air

mainly Italian place along the Atlantic Avenue beach on the nocruise-ships quiet side of Key West. A half-moon hung in the evening sky behind palm fronds rustling in a warm breeze. I had

my Sam Adams and the others their Ketel One vodka with a

side of ice, apparently the national beverage of the Conch

Republic.

Horn was a broad-faced man in his late forties with a salt-

and-pepper beard, a few skin-cancer scars scattered about, a

one-time middleweight wrestler’s build now starting to respond

to the tug of gravity, and a twinkle in both his eyes and his step.

He had brought along Griswold’s two other closest friends in