CHAPTER TWENTY
Time was running out for Timmy and Kawee, and my fear kept me awake as I lay on a mat through much of the night in Pugh’s office. He slept nearby, as did Griswold. A large man named Sek had been brought in to watch over Griswold, who, as I lay trying not to tremble, snored grotesquely. I could hear snoring from the outer office, too. It was late Monday night now, but even with the air-conditioners whirring I could hear the fuck-show and pussy-show crowds exiting the nearby clubs and moving noisily about in the street below. Eventually I sank just below the surface of consciousness for a few hours. I might have sunk even deeper had Pugh not jostled me just after six in the morning with a cheery, “Rise and shine, Khun Don, rise and shine. Time to head on out and find the bad guys and put up your dukes.”
Somebody went over to Silom for coffee, and Griswold was led into the outer office where he was to wait for further developments under Sek’s supervision.
Coffee, pineapple chunks and rice gruel arrived, and Ek soon called and told Pugh that he had located the building where Timmy and Kawee were most likely being held. It was one of two unfinished and abandoned fifteen-story condos in a 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the guards at one site had been instructed by an agent for the building’s owner, a bank, to take a few days off and had been replaced by unknown amateurs who were described by one security officer as “gangsta boys.”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 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.”
“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.