Homestead.”
“Elise was on her way to Angkor Wat with a tour group.
And you?”
“I was on my way back into Thailand on a visa run.”
“A what?”
“It’s hard for foreigners to obtain a long-term visa in Thailand. The Thais like to be able to keep the worst of the riffraff from overstaying their welcome in the Land of Smiles
— penniless ravers and druggies and notorious pedophiles and so on. So in order to stay here, most farangs must have the means to leave the country every three months and then reenter with a new visa. It’s a kind of racket, actually. The government charges you for the visa, and airlines and tour operators make out even better. Me, I just hop on a van at Ekamai, read for a couple of hours, and then cross and recross the border. You can do it really fast by paying an extra twelve dollars for VIP treatment, so-called. That means the Thai operators stand in the visa queue for you and bribe the Cambodian immigration officials for fast service. In hot weather like this, it’s a bargain.”
“Well, it’s the only way your friends in Key West knew you were even alive,” I said. “They were hugely relieved, but confused too. Anyway, what happened six months ago that sent you careening into oblivion? It would certainly help us decide what to do next if we had a clearer picture of what precipitated all this weird to-ing and fro-ing in the first place.”
Griswold’s look darkened, and he was about to say something and then didn’t.
I went on, “You e-mailed Janice Romeo that you had had a disturbing reading from a soothsayer. Was that Khun Khunathip?”
Griswold nodded. “Yes. It was.”
“Janice says you told her that the seer predicted bloodshed in your life, and he said that great sorrow was in store for people close to you.”
Griswold grunted. “Well? Was he right, or wasn’t he?”
“And that’s why you disappeared? Because of this astrological forecast?”
“No,” Griswold said. “Khun Khunathip’s reading was just the beginning.”
“The beginning of what?”
“Of a chain of events that led eventually to the Sayadaw U project.”
“You’re leaving some stuff out, it seems.”
“You bet I am.”
“Why?”
“It is very dark.”
“Enlighten us. It can only help.”
“Not yet.”
“Okay, when?”
“April twenty-seventh.”
“That’s a week and a half away. Today is the fifteenth.”
“That’s right. One and five. That is six.”
“Unlucky six. Okay. What about tomorrow, the sixteenth.
That’s a one and a six. Which equals seven. Isn’t that better?”
“Better but not best.” He looked at Pugh. “Am I right, Khun Rufus?”
“Right as rain,” Pugh said and gave me a look that said not to worry, we would find a way to squeeze it out of him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Timmy and I walked over to Monkey Mountain to watch the sunset. A long concrete staircase led up to the temple atop the hill. Most of the gray monkeys were swinging in the trees at the foot of the staircase next to the food stalls, or scampering around on the ground gobbling up bits of food left by tourists.
One of the bigger monkeys was hissing and squawking at the smaller ones and grabbing their food.
I said, “I’ll bet that guy was Prime Minister Thaksin’s minister of defense.”
“Or head of his police.”
There were a few other farangs climbing the two hundred or so steps, and a number of Thais. The Thais appeared to be couples and small families who had come to pray or for an outing with a view. We could see two men on motorcycles stopped down below, but they didn’t seem to be paying any attention to us.
As we approached the summit, Hua Hin was now visible to the north, spreading westward from a long arc of sandy beach.
The high-rise hotels along the water and the green hills inland gave the place a mini-Rio look, though instead of a huge cross overlooking the town there was a Buddhist temple, and now we were approaching it.
The place had the customary Buddha figure on a platform in a cozy room, with candles flickering and floral and other offerings below the altar. This gold-leafed Buddha was seated in the lotus position, palms pressed together in a wai, and he was smiling in his serene way.
I said, “You go into a Christian church and an agonized Jesus is stuck up on the wall looking like a bit player in a Wes Craven horror flick. You go into a Buddhist temple, and this guy really gives you a feeling of peace. I like this better.”
194 Richard Stevenson
Though long-since lapsed from the Mother Church, Timmy stiffened and gave me one of his looks. “If the Buddha had been crucified by the Romans, he might not look so thrilled with his circumstances either. But, lucky for him — and for much of Southeast Asia — he was not.”
“True enough.”
“But I do share your deep good feelings about the Buddha, Donald, and about Buddhism. Even if I don’t believe in reincarnation, or in a system of rewards for good behavior that feels to me as if it’s organized a little too much like the Delta SkyMiles program — still, Buddhism is so wonderfully enveloping with its philosophy of acceptance and tolerance, and its rejection of violence, and its aesthetic of simplicity. I’m so glad I came to Thailand — even though I came closer to dying here than I ever thought I would at this stage of my life.”
We walked over to the parapet, where the setting sun was putting on its gaudy show over the hills to the west.
“I was so afraid for you,” I said. “Pugh thought we could rescue you, but he wasn’t sure we could do it in time. And after what Yodying’s goons did to Geoff Pringle and to Khun Khunathip, we knew what a cold-blooded bunch they are. It was your presence of mind, really, and the Millpond reference, that made the rescue possible.”
“Well, it was your presence of mind to pick up on the hint that saved Kawee and me. As soon as I understood that you had heard me, I knew we were going to be okay.”
“Really? I wasn’t all that confident.”
“I told Kawee that you had the information that would free us, and he said yes, he could tell that you were a man who was up to the job because you reminded him of a kind of gay Bruce Wayne.”
“That’s a bit confusing.”
“Anyway, he really was prepared to accept whatever his fate might turn out to be. He said he had long ago accepted that suffering was central to being human, and also why should he be afraid of anything he couldn’t control? His calm in the face of danger was really amazing. And while I didn’t follow all of his logic, I saw how his belief in an ongoing cosmic continuum of life gave him strength and confidence, and just being tied up in the same room with Kawee gave me strength and confidence, too.”
“So those goons didn’t… You know…beat you or anything?”
“No, they didn’t. And they fed us decently, too. I can’t really complain about our treatment. Except for having to crap in a bucket. I wasn’t crazy about that.”
“But the heat and the tedium must have been pretty grueling. What did you and Kawee find to occupy
