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.”
“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 be sweating at all. How did the Thais do that?
We passed Indian tailor shops, gold and gem emporiums, restaurants, flower stalls, bars and massage parlors. A number of the masseuses who were camped on stools outside their storefronts gabbing with one another or watering their plants grinned at Pugh and me and chimed, “ Hallo, massaagge? ” The curbside food stall aromas of chicken sizzling on grills with lime juice and herbs would have been pleasing under better circumstances, but now the smells were just cloying. How could Thai normal life dare to go on so cheerfully, so deliciously, when elements of Thai society that were completely rotten were threatening to kill two gentle and decent souls?
We entered a lower-rent district of three- and four-story concrete apartment buildings with drying laundry hanging over the balcony railings next to the flowering plants. Pugh stopped 142 Richard Stevenson at a van parked on the street and the waiting driver opened the window. Seeing me, the driver told Pugh in English that one of Kawee’s roommates said the moto man who delivers money to Kawee had not yet turned up, and if he arrived and Pugh’s crew somehow missed him the roommate would notify the van on his cell phone. The roommate, an older katoey named Nongnat, had said she was worried about Kawee. Sometimes Kawee stayed out overnight with a new boyfriend, Nongnat had said, but not without phoning first. Pugh’s people did not tell Nongnat that Kawee was being held hostage, thus avoiding any off chance that certain elements of the police might learn of the abduction and decide to meddle unhelpfully.