contemplative King Bhumibol stood among the decorative plantings, along with brushed stainless steel lettering identifying Pringle’s building as the Royal Palm Personal Deluxe Executive Suites.
Many of the building’s balconies had potted trees and flowering plants on them as well, talismanic reminders of the Thais’ origins as agricultural villagers, or in the case of most of the farangs, probably, pretty tropical ornaments.
A uniformed security guard in an orange vest stood under a streetlight at the entrance to the building’s small driveway. I said sa-wa-dee-cap. He sa-wa-deed me back, and I said I was sorry to hear about Mr. Geoff.
“Oh, very bad. Mr. Geoff. Oh, Mr. Geoff. Bad. He your friend?”
“He was my friend’s friend,” I said quickly. “Did he live up there?” I pointed.
“Yes, fall down,” the guard said, indicating an area of low foliage where some branches looked newly broken.
“Bad,” I said.
“Oh, bad.”
“Did you see?”
“No, no. No see. I hear.”
“You heard Mr. Geoff fall?”
“Yes, yes. Very bad for me. I hear him say.”
“He said something? After he fell?”
“No after. Before. I hear ‘oh-oh-no!’ He just say like that.
‘Oh-oh-no!’ I am in hut,” he said, indicating the small sentry box a few feet from us. “I hear big sound. He fall down.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Very bad for me.”
“What time was it? Late?”
“Very late. People sleeping.”
“Did anyone else see or hear it happen?”
“El-suh?”
“Was it only you who heard him fall?”
“Only me. Bad luck for me.”
“Did you phone the police?”
“Later. Police come later.”
“You phoned the police. But they came later?”
“Police? Ha!” He made some gesture with his head, but I wasn’t sure what it meant. It seemed to be a negative opinion.
I said, “Do you think Mr. Geoff fell accidentally or jumped from his balcony?”
The guard may not have known all the English words, but he seemed to understand the question. It was a question he must have given a good deal of thought to over the previous week.
The guard said, “Maybe fall. No jump, I don’t think. Maybe
— bee-ah,” he said, making a guzzle-with-a-bottle motion.
“Maybe he fall. Maybe bee-ah. Maybe” — he got a hard look now — “maybe I don’t know.”
I tried to learn from the guard whether any of Pringle’s friends had visited him that night, or in recent days, but I had reached the limits of the guard’s English and didn’t make any headway. I thought maybe Rufus Pugh could learn more. I wished the guard good luck, and Timmy and I walked on.
“It doesn’t sound as if there was any serious police…anything,” Timmy said.
58 Richard Stevenson
“No. I’ll try to find out.”
We turned up a quieter, less-traveled soi toward Griswold’s condo. Bangkok’s Miami-like skyline glowed in the near distance, but the prettily walled-off places along this tranquil lane were individual homes of the well-off — a lighted swimming pool was visible behind one low wall hung with flowers — and the back entrances to a couple of the smaller European embassies.
When we passed the discreetly appointed entrance to Paradisio, Bangkok’s best-known gay bathhouse, Timmy said,
“Oh, I’ve heard of this.”
“We may have to check it out in our search for Mango. Or I may have to.”
“Me get left out? I don’t think so.”
“Bangkok is full of ghosts, the Thais believe. Maybe Cardinal Spellman’s is over here keeping an eye on you.”
“An eye and a roving hand. His spirit is probably in there right now frolicking. The Holy See is way over on the other side of the world.”
“What with such things being unheard-of in Rome.”
A taxi cruised down the soi and turned into Paradisio’s palm-adorned driveway. Two farangs got out, paid the driver and went inside. Timmy said, “This could be where Griswold met some of his multiple Thai boyfriends.”
“This or any one of hundreds of other gay bars, clubs, bathhouses, and massage parlors. But since Griswold lived nearby, Paradisio is a good place for us to sniff around when we get the chance.”
Griswold’s apartment building was about a hundred yards beyond Paradisio. It was one of the tonier in a tony neighborhood, with meticulously tended gardens below and balconies above, and an easy-on-the-eye white-with- silver-trim art deco design.
The security guard standing in the driveway — apparently building guards in Bangkok were not allowed to sit and risk dozing off — returned my sa-wa-dee and smiled politely. I told him I was Gary Griswold’s brother and was looking for Gary, not having heard from him for some time. Did Griswold still live at the same address?
“Yes, but he not here now.”
“When was he last here?”
“Mr. Gary come two weeks before. Then go. No stay.”
So Griswold was alive, at least. Or had been two weeks earlier. “Are you sure it was two weeks? Not three?”
“Two weeks. Today Saturday. I no work last Saturday. Mr.
Gary too much no here. He go ’way.”
By establishing that I was Griswold’s brother, a term that in Thailand can mean sibling, cousin, second or third cousin, or close friend, I was able to engage the guard long enough to learn that Griswold had visited his home only a few times in the past half year. And those visits had been brief and late at night.
Griswold had arrived and departed by taxi and had been unaccompanied. If he had carried anything in or out of the apartment, the guard was unaware of it.
I asked if I might look inside Griswold’s apartment to see if he had received mail from me, but now I was pushing it. The guard was a slight, dark-skinned Thai, probably from impoverished Isaan in the Northeast, supplier of cheap labor for greater Bangkok. Kreng jai, the Thai highly refined attunement to social status and its rituals of deference to be shown or received, meant that as an older white foreigner I had to be catered to. But only up to a point. The security company had its own kreng jai, and this man no doubt needed his job. So he played it safe and passed me off to the building manager, Mr.
Thomsatai, who soon appeared from around the back of the building.
In black slacks and a blue polo shirt similar to mine, minus the sweat stains, the super was an older Thai who didn’t smile so readily. Here the kreng jai was also complex. Out of earshot of the guard, I told Mr. Thomsatai the truth, that I was a PI working for Griswold’s family and needed to get into his 60 Richard Stevenson apartment to check on his welfare. I thought honesty might pay off, and also it couldn’t hurt if word got back to Griswold that somebody unthreatening was searching for him. The manager sized me up, and something in his coolly noncommittal manner suggested that another Thai custom might be brought into play.
I thanked Mr. Thomsatai for the time he spent talking with me and said I wished to give him a present. I palmed him a thousand-baht note, thirty bucks, and he quickly led Timmy and me into the building and up to Griswold’s condo on the ninth floor. The man opened the door with his master key, showed us the light switches, then went out and left us.
