One of Ek’s cop friends had tipped him off that a Hua Hin senior officer with personal loyalties to General Yodying had noted Griswold’s name on the police blotter and had been asking questions about him. It was reasonable to assume that this officer had heard that Yodying was searching for Griswold
— and for us — and that word would soon come crackling back from Bangkok to have us all rounded up.
Pugh had a doctor friend who ran a private clinic off the main southern road only a mile or so from Monkey Mountain.
Griswold could be treated and well cared for there. The trick was going to be insinuating Griswold out of the hospital and into the back of one of Pugh’s vans without further injuring Griswold or spooking the hospital staff into calling the police.
Pugh found the supervising physician and talked to him for a few minutes in Thai, and then told Timmy and me, “It’s cool.
They’re going to load Khun Gary into the van in a few minutes.
They’ll even provide a mattress and sheets.”
“What did you tell the doctor?”
“That Nitrate is a seer who did Mr. Gary’s chart and discovered that if he is to recover from his injuries expeditiously he must do so in Bangkok. It’s best that everyone here believe that that is where we are heading. Also, I mentioned to the doc that the phee of a man who has it in for Mr. Gary was spotted at the site of tonight’s car-bicycle accident, and he was also observed outside this hospital a little while ago. So we must move the patient for his own protection.”
“And the doctor believed that story?”
“Not necessarily. But he thinks I believe it, and he is acquiescing in my wishes.”
“But won’t he ask Griswold what he wants to do?”
“Ek is at this moment informing Mr. Gary that General Yodying is hot on his trail. And if he wants to complete his 222 Richard Stevenson project instead of being flung into an abyss, he must come along with us and recover from his injuries elsewhere. Ek is also telling him that he will be provided with the phone and computer he wishes to have, and the privacy.”
“Rufus, this is getting dicey. Are we going to make it to April twenty-seventh? I have a bad feeling that guys on motorcycles wielding Chinese revolvers are going to turn up well before then.”
“That, Khun Don, is why it may become necessary quite soon to go on the offensive.”
“And how do we do that?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
The clinic was a small but well-appointed place the size of an American branch bank with a couple of tile- roofed bungalows out back surrounded by flowers and fruit trees. Pugh explained that Thailand had a two-tiered health care system, one public and one private, and as in the US, private was better, though the public system wasn’t bad either.
It was after midnight when we got Griswold into his bungalow. The hospital staff had doped him up for the ride. So he was only half conscious when we laid him in his bed and Pugh’s doctor pal, a woman named Nual Winarungruang, went over Griswold’s charts, checked him out, put him on an IV drip, and hooked him up to her own monitors. A nurse had been called in to keep an eye on Griswold through the night. It did not appear that we had been followed by anyone from outside the hospital, so Pugh left Nitrate and the two part-time Dream Boys to watch over Griswold while the rest of us rode back to the guesthouses.
Everyone had gone to bed except Kawee, Mango and Miss Nongnat, who were still out by the pool drinking beer. Mango was giving Miss Nongnat a massage on the chaise. For the sake of efficiency, Pugh spoke to them in Thai and explained that Griswold was recovering from his injuries, which were not THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 223 severe, and he had been deposited in a safe house outside the hospital.
We were all hot and worn-out, and Pugh said there were extra bathing suits in the pool house if we wanted to have a swim. We did want to, and we floated around under the stars for an hour or so. Pugh excused himself and said he wanted to pop in where Furnace and Miss Aroon were staying up the road and would be back soon.
After Pugh left, Miss Nongnat asked Timmy and me if either of us would like a smoke.
I wasn’t sure if she meant cigarettes or weed. Anyway, I said no thanks, that I had quit years ago. Timmy mentioned that he had never smoked at all, and Nongnat, Mango and Kawee all had a good laugh over that.
Miss Nongnat said to Timmy, “No, honey, a smoke is a blowjob.”
Timmy and I politely demurred, saying we had already had a full day. Though after we excused ourselves and were heading inside, we glanced back to see the three Thais strip off their bathing attire and slide naked into the pool together in a kind of eroticized NFL-style huddle.
Up in our room, Timmy and I talked it over and concluded that it was possible before we left Thailand we might join in one of those friendly huddles. But for the moment we just wanted very much to be next to each other, relieved to be reunited, and happy to be alive.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The unexpected flight from Hua Hin began just after dawn.
Pugh banged on our door and said we were leaving town immediately. Police roadblocks had been set up on all the main routes, and we would be departing Hua Hin by boat in twenty minutes. His police sources had confirmed that General Yodying had learned that we — and Griswold — were in Hua Hin, so there was no way we could safely move about. And anyway the general might dig up information on who Pugh’s friends and acquaintances were in Hua Hin and launch a raid on the compound. Pugh’s wife and children were moving into a beach hotel under assumed names, and Miss Aroon and Furnace would drive the two vans back to Bangkok.
Griswold was already at the compound, accompanied by Dr.
Nual and a nurse. He would be carried down to the nearby beach on a stretcher, and we would have to get him into a small boat and then out to a waiting cabin cruiser.
The skies had clouded over during the night, and just as we began the hike down a sandy track to the beach, the clouds broke loose and rain came crashing down in drops the size of melon balls. Ever efficient, Pugh had anticipated the bad weather and two of his crew had gotten hold of broad-brimmed straw hats that they passed out to each of us. There were a number of extra hats, and the Dream Boys wore those stacked up on their heads one atop another. Occasionally a gust of wind blew the extra hats off and all the Thais went chasing after them, joshing one another and laughing. We were all soaked in under a minute, although the air was so warm that nobody was all that distracted or uncomfortable. Thunder rumbled and I asked Pugh if people were ever struck by lightning on or near this beach. He said sometimes but that on this day he was feeling lucky.
A local guy Pugh knew had dragged his small boat with its outboard motor up onto the beach. The surf was light, even in 226 Richard Stevenson the rainstorm. Griswold was wide-awake and complaining about being pummeled and shoved this way and that, and who could blame him? He still had a headache, he said, and he was sore all over. He agreed, though, that Yodying and his agents were to be avoided at all costs, and it would actually be easier to hide in Bangkok than in Hua Hin, now that Yodying had their number locally.
Kawee, Mango and Miss Nongnat were hungover and not happy about being yanked out of bed to go to sea in a rainstorm, but once they were on the beach, they began to play in the waves. The rest of Pugh’s crew were helpful and attentive, but not without a lot of kidding around in between tasks.
The forty- or fifty-foot cabin cruiser Pugh had arranged for was anchored a hundred yards or more out in the surf, and we were ferried out to it four at a time. There were twelve of us 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.
