Pugh led me down the soi to where it ended at a chain-link fence along an expressway. Propped up next to the last apartment building on the block was a tin-roofed bamboo shanty that had a big open-front window and a counter. The place apparently served as a neighborhood convenience store.
You could get Colgate, condoms, a variety of beverages — including one made of bird saliva, according to the colorful sign next to it — as well as under-the-counter whiskey that Pugh said was distilled nearby in somebody’s flat.
Another of Pugh’s fleet of vans was parked nearby, and he checked in with the driver. The moto money man had not turned up at this location either, and the whiskey seller had been put on a retainer to make sure he pointed out the man if and when he appeared.
We were headed back toward Kawee’s apartment when Pugh’s cell phone rang, and after a brief exchange in Thai he indicated that we should pick up the pace and trot.
“The moto man has arrived at Kawee’s room with Kawee’s money from Mr. Gary.”
“Oh, terrific. Does he know where Griswold is?”
“Not exactly.”
“Thailand seems to be the land of not exactly.”
“Exactly.”
“So if Griswold is sending Kawee’s weekly payment, apparently he knows nothing of the kidnapping.”
“Yes, unless he is simply — what’s the term? — keeping up appearances.”
“We can ask him about that.”
Now even Pugh was sweating a bit. The moto man was standing next to his bike in front of the entrance to Kawee’s building. He had on a dark jacket, impractical in the heat, it seemed, but apparently a fixture of every Bangkok motorcycle-taxi driver’s getup. He had the serene look of a man who lived in chaos but had mastered the ability to float though it. The katoey Nongnat had come downstairs and was also calm but worried looking. She had the sloe-eyed, elegantly honed good looks of a honey-colored Vogue model who happened to have a prominent Adam’s apple.
Pugh spoke with both of them in Thai and then told me that the moto man, Pichet Suthat, had indeed seen Gary Griswold just an hour earlier. Griswold had phoned him to arrange for the weekly pickup of an envelope — Pichet apparently did not know that it contained cash — and he had met Griswold at the corner of Sukhumvit Road and Ekamai Soi 63 near the Ekamai bus station. It seemed possible that this transaction had been taking place even as Pugh and I paused overhead at the Ekamai SkyTrain stop.
Pichet said he did not know exactly where Griswold lived, but he thought he had seen him a few times coming out of an apartment block just a short way up Soi 63 from Sukhumvit Road. We hired Pichet on the spot to take Pugh there, and we flagged down another moto taxi for me to ride. Nongnat asked in English where Kawee was and why we were looking for him.
Pugh told her that Kawee was in some trouble and might need help, and we were friends of Gary Griswold prepared to do what we could. Pugh asked Nongnat if she knew where Griswold lived. She said no, and now she was even more worried about Kawee, she told us, and insisted on climbing on the second bike behind me.
144 Richard Stevenson
Nongnat had on pink shorts — avoiding the need for womanly sidesaddle on the motorcycle — and pressed herself up against me as we took off. Her floral aroma as she nuzzled the nape of my neck was distinctly feminine, though as the motorcycle bounced and swayed and stopped short a couple of times it soon became apparent lower down that Nongnat was biologically still male. Once when I shifted in my seat a bit — I was also concerned that I might alarm or embarrass the moto driver I myself was wedged up against — Nongnat gave me a playful poke at the base of my spine and chuckled sweetly.
Pugh had arranged for his two surveillance vans in the neighborhood to follow us to Griswold’s supposed residential block, even as his team at the On Nut Internet cafe maintained its vigil, and a separate flying squad was assembling under Ek’s direction for an assault on abandoned tall buildings across Bangkok.
Traffic along Sukhumvit Road was heavy under the elevated SkyTrain line, and we bobbed and weaved among the cars and tuk-tuks, pausing only briefly for traffic signals and once detouring around a jam-up by jouncing over the curb and pinballing among the pedestrians, narrowly missing several. I thought of big Yai, who had run down a complaining Austrian tourist on the sidewalk and then turned around and driven over the prostrate and injured Viennese a second time. I wondered if soon I would meet sociopathic Yai face-to-face.
Pichet led us to the apartment building he thought Griswold might be living in. It was one of the posher ones in the neighborhood, not far from a cineplex and a couple of big international chain hotels. The lobby had a security door, but Pugh bounded off Pichet’s bike and followed a man who looked like Wayne Newton into the lobby and then held the door open for the rest of us. The two vans pulled up out front, and one of Pugh’s drivers joined Pugh, me and Nongnat as we approached a uniformed security man who appeared around a corner looking alert. Pugh spoke to the guard in rapid Thai and I heard him mention Gary Griswold.
Pugh said to me, “No Griswold here, he says, but let’s try this.” Pugh pulled a photo of Griswold out of his pocket and showed it to the guard.
The guard’s face showed instant recognition, and he said,
“Ah, Mr. Gray.”
“Mr. Gray?” Pugh said.
“Mr. Gray Winsocki. Fifth floor. You want me call up to him? But I think he not here.”
“Where is he?” I asked.
“Bicycle. Mr. Gray go out on bicycle. His bike not here.”
I said to Pugh, “So he’s likely to be back, right? He won’t be biking to Cambodia or anything like that, it looks like.”
The guard said, “Bangkok not so good for bicycle. Too much car. Too much motorbike. But Mr. Gray, he like bicycle.
He go fast around cars. I think he come back later.”
Pugh indicated to the guard that he’d like to speak with him privately, and they walked over to an alcove.
Nongnat said to me, “Kawee okay? I worry Kawee. Kawee say Mr. Gary good man, but why he hide? Why he change name? Farang not change name, just Thai.”
“These are exactly the questions Khun Rufus and I hope to have answers to soon. Within minutes, with luck.”
Nongnat wrinkled her elegant nose. “Mr. Gary he trouble. I tell Kawee he big trouble.”
“Why did you think Mr. Gary was trouble?”
“No fuck, just pray. I tell Kawee be careful this type.”
“Yes, that is a universal basis for caution.”
Pugh and the guard came back and Pugh said, “This gentleman has refused us admittance to Mr. Gary’s flat. It seems that one of life’s most challenging quests is finished for us, Mr.
Don. We have found an honest man. This dude won’t let us into Griswold’s place even in exchange for a substantial consideration. Well, fuck ’im if he can’t take a bribe. Meanwhile, however, he is granting us permission to hang around here and 146 Richard Stevenson nab Mr. Gary when he turns up again. Which my disappointingly ethical friend here expects to be soon. Mr. Gary normally takes his bike out for no more than a few hours. So I suggest that we position ourselves discreetly and wait.”
It was mid-evening now, with daylight gone and less than twenty-four hours left before the kidnappers’ deadline. Pugh’s driver stayed behind in the lobby, and the rest of us went out front, and Pugh and I got into the air-conditioned van. Nongnat went down the street for some food and came back with jasmine rice and yellow curry with fish and bamboo shoots. We ate it eagerly — I was hungry by now and so no longer found the local food smells off-puttingly indifferent to our plight — and Pugh spelled his man in the lobby while he came out and also ate with steady concentration. This man observed his food admiringly as he ate it. It seemed as though any second he might actually speak to the rice and curry approvingly, even tenderly. The food was Thai all the way, and so was he.