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owner, a bank, to take a few days off and had been replaced by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
172 Richard Stevenson
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.”
THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 173
“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.
Ek stood in the entryway to one of the buildings with two
more of Pugh’s operatives. He beckoned for us to move with
him into the shadows. He said, “That one,” and indicated the
THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 175
structure forty or fifty feet across the driveway. We moved
forward a few steps and peered up, and I could sense that, like
me, everybody was counting to fourteen.
When the men with the ropes and bamboo poles arrived, Ek