Pugh for some minutes trying to lose my fear, as Pugh apparently had done in the presence of the Buddha. I envied Pugh and loved the way his connection to a world far beyond the mundane gave him courage and clarity of mind. Sitting there with him, I myself was much calmer now than I had been earlier. But I was still scared to death.
We waited for word of the police sweep of fourteenth floors all over Bangkok in Pugh’s office on Surawong. At midnight, the Sunday night traffic down below was still bumper-tobumper, though not so noisy as it might have been. I remembered how in the ’70s Bangkok streets were always impossibly clogged and endlessly frustrating and how the Thais nonetheless rarely honked their horns. To blare one’s horn merely out of impatience was to demonstrate jai rawn, a hot temper — literally hot heart — and what every Thai aspired to and valued above all was jai yen, a self-possessed inner being and a cool demeanor.
This was in contrast to the Vietnamese in Saigon who leaned on their car and motorbike horns nonstop and seemed always intent on trying to run one another off the road and smashing to bits a few pedestrians while they were at it. Later, when I thought back about Vietnamese driving styles — rude, cunning, tenacious — it did not surprise me at all that these people had won the war.
Pugh had had some rice and duck red curry with pineapple sent up, so I ate that wondering if Timmy and Kawee were eating as well. I supposed they were. Even the most sadistic Thai kidnappers, I guessed, would value good food and not think of depriving their captives of some flavorsome tom kha gai before throwing them over the railing of an upper-floor balcony.
Pugh’s third-floor office was not far from Patpong, home to many of Bangkok’s famous pussy shows, and it was across Tha Surawong from the entrance to Soi Pratuchai, a street of gay bars and fuck shows. Pugh said that when Timmy was free, he and I could drop by the Dream Boys Club and watch a show that was nearly identical to the Ziegfeld Follies of 1928, except the cast was all male and the performances involved the use of much more lubricant than was probably common in the Ziegfeld era.
Just after midnight, Pugh checked with his contact in General Yodying’s office and learned that the sweep had been ongoing for over three hours but so far no trace of Timmy or 116 Richard Stevenson
Kawee had been found. Residential buildings had been checked first; banging on the doors of residents after bedtime would not go over well and, Pugh said, might have cost me twice the fifty thousand baht I and the taxpayers of Thailand were expending on the operation. Fourteenth floors in hotels had also been checked, to no avail. Now office buildings were being combed with the help of the security services that watched over them.
I said to Pugh, “But what if some of these private security guys are working with the kidnappers? They’ll alert the captors, or even cover up their locations. Then what?”
“It’s a risk we run,” Pugh said. “No dragnet is ever perfect.
Yodying is relying on the surprise element, but it’s not foolproof. Another possible loophole is this: many Thais of the upper social strata are likely to tell the cops doing the searching to sod off. There are many homes the police simply will not get inside of. We have to assume, however, that Timmy and Kawee are not being held captive in the apartments of Jack and Jackie, or of any real estate magnates or media tycoons.”
“Really? Why should we assume that? Do Thai rich people have more delicate sensibilities than the American rich or the Estonian rich? I’ll bet not.”
“More refined, no. But careful, yes. Many layers of personnel separate Thai criminals in high places from Thai criminals at the operational level. I think, perhaps, that this type of arrangement is not all that unusual in much of the USA, is it, Mr. Don? New Jersey may be a little cruder and more direct than that. But even in Atlantic City the concept of plausible deniability is probably not unknown.”
“Rufus, now you’re making me nervous. Maybe this whole search is a waste of time. And a very expensive waste of time, at that. Jesus.”
Pugh was behind his desk surrounded by rack after rack of computer discs. He had a couple of racks of music CDs, too, much of it Thai pop, a bit of Schubert lieder, some American C amp;W — Roy Orbison, Waylon Jennings, Patsy Cline. He said,
“We have to explore every avenue open to us, Mr. Don. Do we not? We’re covering the Internet cafe that Griswold uses. And tomorrow we can cover Kawee’s apartment and the whiskey seller where Griswold’s cash delivery moto-man makes his normal early-in-the-week drop-off for Kawee. Griswold’s desktop may also yield up some answers, and we should hear from Khun Thunska, my computer guy, soon after sunrise on that particular front. There is also this to consider: the kidnappers will undoubtedly contact you again to arrange for the swap of Griswold for Timothy and Kawee. At that point, you might be able to convince them that we have been unable to locate Griswold but that we are busting our asses to do so, and can we have a little more time? So while uncertainty remains a constant, we know what we know. I do, of course, understand why you are fearful, but I want to tell you, Mr. Don, that hope springs eternal in this particular human breast, and we are a long way from being totally fucked.”
At one a.m., we sent out for more curry. The restaurants were closed by now, but a street stall over on Silom, under the SkyTrain station, had some deep-fried water buffalo gums in a hot sauce that one of Pugh’s crew thought we would enjoy.
While I ate, I tried Ellen Griswold again. She did not answer her phone, but this time I left a message. I said, “I received your e-mail firing me. Thanks for giving me some leeway in my return-to-Albany plans. That’s nice, because we haven’t seen the Emerald Buddha yet. Meanwhile, get this, Ellen: Timmy has been kidnapped by some very bad people who are after your ex-husband, and I need to talk with him immediately. Do you understand what I am saying, Ellen? Please explain this to Gary and tell him here’s how he can reach me. You got Timmy and me into this, and now I am counting on you to help get us out of it. Please call me right away and tell me what you are going to do to help.” I gave her my Thai mobile phone number.
I told Pugh what Bob Chicarelli had told me about the Albany Griswolds’ sudden financial crisis.
“Interesting,” he said.
“It is.”
“The Griswolds may have seen this coming and were afraid Mr. Gary was going to lose his family boodle at the exact same moment theirs was in jeopardy.”
“This occurred to me. Except, if that’s true, then why have they called me off? They would want more than ever for Gary and his thirty-eight mil to remain intact and possibly available to save the family name and fortune. Not that Gary would necessarily be eager to be helpful. He and his brother were not close at all, and there was some actual bad blood, according to Gary’s Key West friends.”
“Griswold family ill will, or even strife, is yet another element that perhaps we should pay some attention to,” Pugh said.
I agreed that we should just as Pugh’s cell phone rang. He listened and said a few things in Thai. Holding the phone against his chest, Pugh said to me, “This is Captain Pirom, representing General Yodying. Regrettably, the police have had no success in ferreting out the captives. The search was not, however, as thorough as the general would have preferred. He is willing to do a second sweep in the morning of all the fourteenth floors in Bangkok. But this will tie up many resources, the captain says, so a second payment is being requested. They want twenty-five thousand baht. I am meant to tell you that because you are a repeat customer, that’s a fifty percent discount.” Pugh looked forlorn. “What should I tell the captain?” he said.
I leaned forward and peered into my fried water buffalo gums. I heard a voice in my head saying, “ Now do you believe me?”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
I woke up in need of a toothbrush, but it looked like a swig of hot sauce was going to have to do. I had slept for four hours next to Pugh on the straw mat on his office floor. I had dreams of falling, and I didn’t think the dreams were symbolic.
Two of Pugh’s staff — a muscular, elaborately tattooed young man named Ek and a middle-aged woman named Aroon who carried a bronze figurine of King Chulalongkorn in her shoulder holster — had slept on the floor in an outer office, and I greeted them as I went out to use the bathroom. Being Thai, they smiled. The tiny lavatory
