The 38 Million Dollar Smile

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the guards at one site had been instructed by an agent for the building’s owner, a bank, to take a few days off and had been replaced by unknown amateurs who were described by one security officer as “gangsta boys.”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.

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 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 signaled for them to follow one of his team into our building.

Miss Aroon joined this group now and was handed a bulging Central World shopping bag by Ek. I watched as all of them entered a stairwell and disappeared.

We were far enough off Rangnum Road that passersby would not be aware of anything out of the ordinary going on in the complex. We had the privacy we needed to do what we needed to do. Just as the kidnappers had the privacy they had needed to hold Timmy and Kawee captive for the previous forty hours, and the privacy they would need to hurl them off a fourteenth-floor balcony after sunset.

I said to Pugh, “Where’s the seer? He’s up where Ek is heading?”

“Khun Surapol was snatched as he approached Wat Mahathat, his neighborhood temple, for morning prayers. He was told that he was needed to bless a construction project and would soon be released and even amply rewarded. Then Ek and his lads hauled him over here and marched the eminent seer up to the fourteenth floor of this building. Its balcony looks directly across to the balcony of the condo where the captives are being held.”

I stepped into the sunlight and looked up again, and wondered if we shouldn’t be rigging circus trapeze nets around the building across the way. I guessed, though, that no net would support an adult plummeting from fourteen floors up. I said, “Wouldn’t the kidnappers have spotted us by now?”

“It doesn’t matter. They may phone General Yodying, but he will be neutralized within a matter of minutes.”

“Rufus, I’ll have to trust you that you can get away with this.”

Pugh said, “Ih.”

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After a few minutes, Pugh’s cell phone chirped. He spoke briefly in Thai, then said to me, “That was Ek. It’s time to make our move.”

At Pugh’s signal, Sek and Egg accompanied Griswold out from the shadows. Both men wore shoulder holsters containing long-handled Chinese revolvers. We walked across the unfinished driveway and entered the second unfinished apartment building.

Pugh said, “Let’s you and I, Khun Don, lead the way and make a memorable first impression on these boorish fellows.”

In what would have been the lobby of the apartment building, we passed the two openings to the empty elevator shafts. All around us was raw concrete with its limestone smell.

It was damp in the Bangkok pre-monsoon humidity and smelled like the inside of a wet cave. It took me back to my spelunking days in college, and I wondered what in the world I had in mind back then crawling around in those claustrophobic spaces, cold and muddy, and in danger in the rainy spring months of being crushed or, more likely, trapped and drowned.

Which was the most awful way of dying? Drowning? Being compressed and suffocated? Falling? As we climbed upward and passed the exposed elevator shafts on each floor, I thought to myself, Don’t fall, don’t fall, don’t fall.

We were all getting winded in the heat, except for Griswold, the manic cyclist. He was more fit than any of us and probably had never smoked. Pugh, Sek, Egg and I were soon panting, and I finally got to see a Thai perspire. I thought of Timmy and Kawee, who two days earlier had been force-marched up these same stairs, probably unsure whether once they got to where they were going, they might be hurled down an elevator shaft or off a balcony.

Pugh was quietly counting off the floors. When he got to the twelfth, he said, “Fourteen is next.”

Sek and Egg had drawn their revolvers by now and were following Pugh, me and Griswold closely. As we turned onto the stairs leading to the fourteenth floor, four men appeared above us and we stopped. Two of them held guns, and the other two held good-sized bamboo canes.

There was a rapid back-and-forth in Thai between Pugh and one of the men holding a revolver. He was large and sullen, and I thought, yes, finally, the knocker-over of Austrian tourists.

As we climbed the final flight of stairs, I said to Pugh,

“That’s Khun Yai?”

“The one and only.”

We were led into what would have been — and I assumed what might one day still become — a large fourteenth-floor apartment. The place was set up like a campsite. Camp stoves were on a table in one corner next to a portable refrigerator. I could smell the soup in a pot. Straw mats were spread around on the floor. There were gas lanterns atop a pile of crates next to a card table with stools around it. Apparently we had interrupted a poker game, for four hands lay facedown around the table with a pile of bahts in the middle..

With two of their men pointing guns and two of ours doing likewise, any shoot-out would have been short and ugly.

Everyone in the room must have been acutely aware of this, though nobody lowered his revolver.

I saw no sign of Timmy and Kawee and figured they were in another section of the apartment.

Pugh said something in Thai, and Yai apparently indicated that one of his goons should go and fetch the captives. One of them kept looking at Griswold and then down at a photo he had, apparently to make sure we had not delivered a fake Griswold. It was plain that Pugh had done what he had told me earlier he was going to do. In Thai, he had informed these men that we were turning Griswold over to them in return for Timmy and Kawee. He said Griswold was not resisting because he now realized it was his fate to pay for his sins. He had caused important men to lose both money and face, each an unforgivable violation in the Thai moral universe. And he knew he would have to pay, and he was prepared to do so.

178 Richard Stevenson

Griswold said nothing. Apparently he was fluent in Thai, for he followed the conversation with a look that was fascinated though faintly bug-eyed.

Big Yai got on his cell phone to somebody — General Yodying? — and seconds after he rang off, one of the gang came back leading Timmy and Kawee. Their hands were tied behind their backs and they were bound at the ankles too, so they had to take little dainty steps. They weren’t in the clothes I had last seen them in but were in cargo shorts and T-shirts.

They were both sweating. Timmy’s hair was a rat’s nest and Kawee’s lip gloss looked chewed off. On the front of Timmy’s yellow T-shirt were the words Thailand — Land of Smiles.

When Timmy and Kawee saw us, their faces fast-forwarded through shock, relief, joy, apprehension and fright. Then they just stared at us, hyperalert.

I said, “We’re getting you guys out of here. It won’t be long now.”

“And with hours to spare,” Timmy said. “Thank you for that.”

Yai indicated that his gang should free Timmy and Kawee from their bonds. They quickly did so, using sharp knives from the food preparation area to slice through the ropes. Timmy and Kawee began rubbing their wrists and moving their legs about, as if they were warming up for a ping-pong tournament.

Next, Yai directed two of his men to tie Griswold up.

That’s when Pugh said something in Thai that made Yai look out the door to the balcony with a start.

We had a clear view across the way to the second building in the condo complex. From the balcony opposite us, two people were dangling. Each was upside down. Ropes were tied around their ankles, and the ropes were attached to bamboo poles held in place by four of Pugh’s men, Nitrate, Ek and two others.

One of the dangling people was Khun Surapol Sutharat, the seer who had been providing ace astrological advice to the kidnappers. The other dangling person was a middle-aged woman in a fashionable Siamese gold-colored blouse and long THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 179 green skirt, the skirt now semicomically bunched up above her waist, exposing the woman’s black panties. Someone had lowered a cell phone on a wire to Khun Surapol and we could see him frantically trying to hold it up — down, really — to his ear.

Pugh took out his own phone and hit a speed-dial number.

After a moment, he handed the phone to Yai and gestured toward the dangling soothsayer. “Somebody wants to palaver with you,” he said.

Yai spoke some Thai into the phone and then listened. He looked confused, bordering on panicky. It didn’t help his frame of mind when the men holding the bamboo pole across the way began to bob it up and down, as the seer and the woman next to him gesticulated and clawed at the side of the building.

Yai took out his own phone now and frantically dialed.

Pugh said, “Tell the general that that is his wife Paveena Hanwilai over there, the birthday girl herself. If you and the general don’t do as we say, we’ll drop her skinny ass fourteen floors to the pavement below. And Khun Surapol will accompany her soul to paradise or to purgatory or to Newark Liberty International Airport — wherever. In any event, both of their corporeal worldly remains will leave an impression, for the general and for many others in the vicinity of Rangnam Road.”

Now Yai spoke into his phone in rapid Thai. He scowled furiously then said in English, looking at Griswold and me,

“Wait.”

The general was no doubt phoning his wife to see if she had actually been abducted. She had in fact been snatched, Pugh had told me, from Wat Mahathat, where she prayed each morning with her soothsayer. She was not, however, hanging from a pole across the way. She was locked in a janitor’s closet in a disused primary school next to the temple, minus her cell phone, her skirt and blouse and — just to play it safe — her black underwear. To preserve her modesty, Mrs. Paveena had been provided a large plastic garbage bag with a hole on top for her head to stick out and holes on the sides for her arms. The woman dangling next to Khun Surapol in Paveena Hanwilai’s garments was Miss Aroon — who had never been an acrobat exactly, but had for a time some years earlier fired ping-pong balls from her vagina to the cheers of drunken tourists at a club in Patpong.

Suddenly Yai was listening closely on his phone and nodding. He soon said something to Pugh in Thai. Pugh smiled amiably and said — I knew this much Thai — “ Capkun kap, Khun Yai.” Thank you so much, Mr. Yai.

Then Yai narrowed his eyes and hissed out two or three more brief sentences. Pugh shrugged and said something that from his look could have been “I’ll take note of that.”

Pugh said to me, “Mr. Yai has informed me that today the general is going to release all of us. But by the end of the month he will have killed every last one of us. What do you think of that?”

“I find that pronouncement unsettling, Rufus. What do you think of it?”

“Well, I think the general has another think coming.”

Griswold had followed all this with a look of bemused fascination. Kawee looked more or less relaxed by now, too.

Timmy just looked queasy.