“Plus,” I said, “the appeal of Buddhism for Griswold is its adherence to nonviolence. He hates militarism and talks up peaceful solutions. Is that a guy who arranges to have his former sister-in-law fed to the sharks?”
“It’s not a particularly Buddhist type of offering.”
We were approaching Khlong Toei, the Bangkok waterfront area with its docks and warehouses and light industry. The sun was setting and the light was splashing flame all over everything: ships, fishing boats, docks, cranes, us. Everyone was on deck now and alert. Pugh had arranged for us to be picked up in three cars and driven to a house not far from Griswold’s condo owned by a sometime client of Pugh’s in Sathorn. Timmy and I were about to come full circle in our five-day Gulf of Thailand odyssey.
Griswold was feeling better now, and he was sitting on a bamboo mat under a canopy with Mango, Egg and Nitrate watching Khlong Toei glide by. Griswold didn’t seem to be 232 Richard Stevenson mad at Mango anymore, maybe because these days he had so much else on his mind.
Pugh and I had decided not to confront Griswold with the Duane Hubbard revelation until we had him safely locked away.
In case my knowing more about them could turn out to be useful, I had phoned Bob Chicarelli in Albany — it was six a.m. there — and left a message asking him to track down Duane Hubbard and Matthew Mertz, who presumably were living in the Albany area. Or at least had been living there six months earlier when Griswold wired two million dollars to Hubbard’s Albany account. I asked Bob not to spook the two in any way but to find out what they were up to lately, and did they appear to be living off the fat of the land? I was beginning to wonder, in fact, if bozos such as these two might not be acting as agents for someone else, and Hubbard’s bank account was merely a conduit.
Pugh had been on the phone up in the wheelhouse, and when we pulled up to a dock just as the last flecks of gold faded from the soot black Bangkok night, he said, “Mr. Don, we’re going to dine this evening with a celebrity. Do you have a streak of star-fuckery in you, or will you be unimpressed if I tell you that soothsayer Pongsak has agreed to grant us an audience?”
“Audience? I thought these Bangkok seer guys were humble Buddhists.”
Pugh laughed. “Sure. Like Jimmy Swaggart was a humble Christian.”
The three cars carrying our group of renegades each took different routes to Sathorn. I rode with Pugh, Egg, Ek, Griswold and a physician, a woman named Sukchaiboworn, who had examined Griswold on the boat when we landed and pronounced him fit enough not to be rehospitalized. Griswold said, in fact, that his headache was gone and he was eager to get to a phone and a computer to work on his business transaction
— i.e., the takeover of Algonquin Steel.
The safe house Pugh had arranged for was on Soi Nantha, not far from Griswold’s condo and only a few hundred yards from Paradisio. The place had a high wall around it draped with pink bougainvillea and a lighted pool in the back. We got Griswold inside the house and locked into an upstairs room with Ek on the small balcony outside it and Egg guarding the door. Griswold had his computer and phones now, and he at least feigned being satisfied. He promised us he would not try to bolt.
Miss Nongnat went to her room to redo her toenails, while Kawee and Mango decided to drop in at Paradisio and relax there for a few hours. Mango said there was a Bulgarian diplomat who often showed up on Wednesdays, and he hoped to run into him and perhaps add to the Chonburi house fund.
Two of Pugh’s crew had gone out to bring food back for the household, and while they were gone, Pugh and I went up to Griswold’s room to lay out a plan we had come up with during a confab out by the pool.
Pugh was seated at a teak desk with a PC in the middle of it, and he had phones on either side of him. A Buddha figure rested on a nearby shelf, and Griswold had lit nine candles just below it.
“Khun Gary,” Pugh said to him, “we are attempting to sketch out a program for keeping you alive until General Yodying has been relieved of his duties or even his present life
— we’re not sure what your associates have in mind for him. At the rate events are hurtling forward, however, we fear we might not be able to last another eleven days, short of getting you out of Thailand. Maybe to Sihanoukville or even darkest Rangoon.
Would you be able to conduct your business from either of those two locations?”
“Of course not. I absolutely must be on top of things here.”
“Why is that? You can operate by computer or phone from just about anywhere nowadays.”
“I must have access to funds. Not all of my funds are in banks.”
“Oh?”
Griswold shrugged. “I have twelve million dollars in sacks under the spirit house platform in my condo. There are people I 234 Richard Stevenson am dealing with who — for reasons that will be obvious to any Thai — will conduct transactions only in cash. Former Prime Minister Thaksin is believed to have left the country with tens of millions of dollars and euros stuffed into a dozen pieces of luggage. I appreciate that all the untaxed money floating around Thailand represents an economic injustice for the ordinary Thai.
But as I have pointed out, there are larger and more profound issues involved here.”
I said, “Griswold, you are so full of it.”
“Am I? That’s a rather sweeping statement about a situation that is financially, socially and morally quite complex.”
“You’re in bed with crooks. There’s nothing overly complicated about that.”
“Oh, is former Finance Minister Anant na Ayudhaya a crook?”
Pugh said, “Khun Gary, being a crook is in the finance minister’s job description in Thailand. For goodness’ sake, haven’t you read it?”
Griswold sighed and said, “Look, I have already admitted that this deal is morally complicated.”
“Anyway,” I said, “if this guy Anant is dealing in cash, how do you know you can trust him? If he’s the chief Thai backer for the Sayadaw U Buddhism center, what makes you think he won’t pocket your cash for the project and have it shipped to Singapore? Or to his old pal Thaksin in the UK?”
This got Griswold’s attention. “I can’t imagine that a genuine Buddhist would do such a thing.”
Pugh looked at him sadly and said, “Oh, Mr. Gary.”
“Here’s the test,” I said. “You get Anant to speed up preparations for the coup or whatever it is that’s supposed to happen on April twenty-seventh. Instead of the end of the month, they do it the day after tomorrow, the eighteenth, another auspicious date. And you tell Anant, too, that the money for the project — and the controlling shares in Algonquin Steel — will be turned over to his group only after General Yodying is out of commission and all the transactions go through the Bangkok Bank, with you as one of two signatories on any disbursements on the Sayadaw U project.”
Griswold shook his head. “No chance. Khun Anant would never agree to any of that. He is a proud man, I can assure you.
And a bit of an egomaniac, I think.”
Pugh said, “What if Khun Anant’s very own soothsayer, Khun Pongsak, read Khun Anant’s chart and discovered that it is essential that events transpire in the manner Khun Don and I have just described? Wouldn’t that make a difference?”
“Of course it would. But Seer Pongsak would never do such a thing. He is a man of integrity.”
“What if you paid him half a million dollars to do it? You could write it off as overhead.”
“Bribe a seer? Has that ever been done in Thailand?”
Pugh said, “Uh-huh.”
Griswold screwed up his banged-up face and said after a moment, “I’ll have to think about that.”
“Think fast,” Pugh said. “Khun Pongsak will be here in twenty minutes.”
The great seer arrived in a gold Mercedes with two young monks in tow. He was a slight, bony fellow with gold-rimmed specs who wore a formal black dinner jacket over a Brooks Brothers button-down striped shirt. He had on a Burmese sarong instead of pants and on his feet he wore dollar-store flip-flops. His fingers bore a number of gold rings. Around his neck hung a gold amulet with a picture of a wizened monk on it. The seer’s overall presentation of himself was that of a dubious character who had gotten away with some casual shoplifting at Harry Winston’s.