altogether, and it took close to half an hour to get everybody on board. This included Griswold and his nurse, a young woman
named Lemon. Dr. Nual said she was no longer needed —
another physician would meet the boat in Bangkok — and she
walked back up the trail. Meanwhile, the rain had let up and we
could see bright blue sky to the north, the direction we were
heading.
By the time we had passed the northernmost reaches of Hua
Hin, the sun was streaming down and all the men took off their
shirts and laid them out to dry. The two-man crew of the
cruiser served us tea, pineapple and sticky rice with sliced
mango in coconut milk.
Griswold lay on a chaise on the front deck and gradually his
headache lessened and his mood improved. He tried to place a
call on Pugh’s cell phone, but by then we were too far from
shore. And the ship-to-shore radio was not acceptable, he said,
because he required privacy. When Griswold returned Pugh’s
cell phone to him, Pugh went belowdecks and I followed him.
We both wanted to see what number Griswold had dialed. Pugh
did not recognize the number, but he said it was in Bangkok.
He wrote it down.
THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 227
Pugh had said the journey to Bangkok would take about six
hours. Back on deck, Timmy and I stretched out in the sun.
Mango, Kawee and Miss Nongnat lay on mats in the shade of a
canopy and snoozed as we plowed over the friendly swells of
the gulf.
We overtook a Thai Royal Navy patrol boat and watched it a
little anxiously as we passed. But its crew showed no interest in us. A garland of marigolds had been draped over the Navy
boat’s gun turret. Similarly protected against bad spirits was our boat, which had a sizable Buddha figure on a shelf in the
wheelhouse just above us. Fresh jasmine hung nearby next to a
wooden carving of an erect penis, which I remembered from
my first visit to Thailand was a good-luck charm. Betty Friedan
might have had something to say about that practice, but we
were a long way from her aura.
Everybody on board gathered for lunch around noon. We
had rice, tom yam kung and spicy pig colon salad, plus bottled
water, fruit juices, and bird-spit drink for anybody who cared
for some.
As we neared Bangkok, cell phone service came back and
Pugh made some calls. He told Timmy and me after he hung up
that it might be a good idea if we delayed our arrival in Bangkok until after dark. He had no reason to think that Yodying knew
where we were, but that the general was definitely in a major
snit, according to one of Pugh’s cop friends, and precautions
were called for. Pugh spoke with the captain of our boat, an
elderly Isaan man with a formal manner and a high smooth
forehead and tattoos all over his face that looked like a bead
curtain in a Berkeley bar in 1968. The boat soon slowed and
headed east as we began to cruise around near the mouth of the
Chao Phraya for the rest of the afternoon.
Pugh summoned me belowdecks again and said, “The
number Mr. Gary attempted to call in Bangkok was that of Seer
Pongsak Sutiwipakorn. I am going to go out on a short limb
and predict that Seer Pongsak has replaced the late Khun
Khunathip as the soothsayer for former Minister Anant and for
228 Richard Stevenson
the Sayadaw U project. This is good. It may open up
opportunities for us.”
“Isn’t that the seer who predicted a coup by the end of
April?”
“That is he. Khun Pongsak failed to predict the last coup,
the one that sent Prime Minister Thaksin fleeing with his
billions of baht to the UK. But now the wizard is wielding his
zodiacal instrument like a cudgel or perhaps a threat or possibly a warning. Or, maybe he is just a vain, oafish fellow who likes
to get his name in the papers. I don’t know which it is. In any
case, maybe he would like to make a splash again by moving his
prediction up a week. From April twenty-seventh to April
eighteenth, another lucky number. The advantage of the earlier
date is, it’s the day after tomorrow. And if these momentous
events could be accelerated, we would have a better chance of
staring into the abyss and not having the abyss stare back for a very long eleven days.”
“How would we get him to do that? Griswold is wedded to
April twenty-seventh. The date plainly has magical properties
for him. It’s even when the Algonquin Steel annual meeting will
happen.”
“Ah, but these events are far larger than any mere
corporation and its machinations.”
“Tell Griswold that.”
Pugh said, “I have obtained additional information that is
likely to be helpful, though I am not yet certain exactly how. I found out that Griswold carried out a very large money transfer
from the Commercial Bank of Siam to an account in Albany,
New York last October fifteenth.”
“One and five. That unlucky day when the two Americans
showed up in Bangkok and made Griswold angry and sad.”
“Yes.”
“Do you have the name of the account holder?”
“I do. It is Mr. Duane Hubbard.”
“No shit?”
THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 229
“Who is Duane Hubbard?”
“He is the former personal trainer of Ellen Griswold, Mr.
Gary’s ex-wife and current sister-in-law.”
“What is his connection to Khun Gary?”
“Good question. What’s interesting about Hubbard is, he
and his boyfriend, a sometime-criminal goon named Matthew
Mertz, were present on a Caribbean cruise ship fourteen years
ago when Bill Griswold’s first wife, Sheila, disappeared at sea.
Sheila Griswold was a huge pain in the neck and a financial
drain on Bill. There were people in Albany who believed at the
time that Bill — or even Bill and Ellen — paid Hubbard and
Mertz to toss the endlessly annoying ex-Mrs. Griswold into the
sea. There was no evidence, and nothing ever came of it. And
Ellen turns indignant over any insinuation that Sheila’s apparent drowning was anything but a stupid accident caused perhaps by
Sheila’s tippling habits.”
Pugh said, “Rounding.”
“What’s that?”
“When Khun Gary was moaning in his semi-delirium, he
kept going on about rounding, Ek said. But perhaps Mr. Gary
was experiencing nightmares not about rounding but about
drowning.”
“Drowning doesn’t have two Ds in it.”
“I know that. I attended college in New Jersey, just like you.
But the guy was slurring his words, and Ek may have been
slurring his hearing. Not having gone to Rutgers.”
I said, “This is fascinating stuff, but my mind is a little dizzy over what it might actually mean.”
“Well, Khun Don, hang on to your hat. Would you like to
know how much money Khun Gary had transferred into Duane
Hubbard’s Albany account on October fifteenth?”
“How much?”
“Two million US dollars.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The first thing Timmy said was, “It sounds like the family
member who committed the terrible sin that had to be atoned
for was Gary Griswold himself.”
“You mean Gary had his former sister-in-law murdered?”
“Possibly. And then maybe he paid off these two lowlifes to
keep them from talking? The original fee was insufficient and
they were broke, and they knew just where go for an infusion of
cash.”
“Why would Griswold do that?” I said. “He says he’s
interested in justice. Karmic and Old Testament.”
“There is that. And he does seem sincere. Also, why would
he want to get rid of his brother’s ex-wife in the first place? He didn’t even like Bill Griswold. He and Ellen remained friends,