Griswold lay on a chaise on the front deck and gradually his headache lessened and his mood improved. He tried to place a call on Pugh’s cell phone, but by then we were too far from shore. And the ship-to-shore radio was not acceptable, he said, because he required privacy. When Griswold returned Pugh’s cell phone to him, Pugh went belowdecks and I followed him.
We both wanted to see what number Griswold had dialed. Pugh did not recognize the number, but he said it was in Bangkok.
He wrote it down.
Pugh had said the journey to Bangkok would take about six hours. Back on deck, Timmy and I stretched out in the sun.
Mango, Kawee and Miss Nongnat lay on mats in the shade of a canopy and snoozed as we plowed over the friendly swells of the gulf.
We overtook a Thai Royal Navy patrol boat and watched it a little anxiously as we passed. But its crew showed no interest in us. A garland of marigolds had been draped over the Navy boat’s gun turret. Similarly protected against bad spirits was our boat, which had a sizable Buddha figure on a shelf in the wheelhouse just above us. Fresh jasmine hung nearby next to a wooden carving of an erect penis, which I remembered from my first visit to Thailand was a good-luck charm. Betty Friedan might have had something to say about that practice, but we were a long way from her aura.
Everybody on board gathered for lunch around noon. We had rice, tom yam kung and spicy pig colon salad, plus bottled water, fruit juices, and bird-spit drink for anybody who cared for some.
As we neared Bangkok, cell phone service came back and Pugh made some calls. He told Timmy and me after he hung up that it might be a good idea if we delayed our arrival in Bangkok until after dark. He had no reason to think that Yodying knew where we were, but that the general was definitely in a major snit, according to one of Pugh’s cop friends, and precautions were called for. Pugh spoke with the captain of our boat, an elderly Isaan man with a formal manner and a high smooth forehead and tattoos all over his face that looked like a bead curtain in a Berkeley bar in 1968. The boat soon slowed and headed east as we began to cruise around near the mouth of the Chao Phraya for the rest of the afternoon.
Pugh summoned me belowdecks again and said, “The number Mr. Gary attempted to call in Bangkok was that of Seer Pongsak Sutiwipakorn. I am going to go out on a short limb and predict that Seer Pongsak has replaced the late Khun Khunathip as the soothsayer for former Minister Anant and for 228 Richard Stevenson the Sayadaw U project. This is good. It may open up opportunities for us.”
“Isn’t that the seer who predicted a coup by the end of April?”
“That is he. Khun Pongsak failed to predict the last coup, the one that sent Prime Minister Thaksin fleeing with his billions of baht to the UK. But now the wizard is wielding his zodiacal instrument like a cudgel or perhaps a threat or possibly a warning. Or, maybe he is just a vain, oafish fellow who likes to get his name in the papers. I don’t know which it is. In any case, maybe he would like to make a splash again by moving his prediction up a week. From April twenty-seventh to April eighteenth, another lucky number. The advantage of the earlier date is, it’s the day after tomorrow. And if these momentous events could be accelerated, we would have a better chance of staring into the abyss and not having the abyss stare back for a very long eleven days.”
“How would we get him to do that? Griswold is wedded to April twenty-seventh. The date plainly has magical properties for him. It’s even when the Algonquin Steel annual meeting will happen.”
“Ah, but these events are far larger than any mere corporation and its machinations.”
“Tell Griswold that.”
Pugh said, “I have obtained additional information that is likely to be helpful, though I am not yet certain exactly how. I found out that Griswold carried out a very large money transfer from the Commercial Bank of Siam to an account in Albany, New York last October fifteenth.”
“One and five. That unlucky day when the two Americans showed up in Bangkok and made Griswold angry and sad.”
“Yes.”
“Do you have the name of the account holder?”
“I do. It is Mr. Duane Hubbard.”
“No shit?”
“Who is Duane Hubbard?”
“He is the former personal trainer of Ellen Griswold, Mr.
Gary’s ex-wife and current sister-in-law.”
“What is his connection to Khun Gary?”
“Good question. What’s interesting about Hubbard is, he and his boyfriend, a sometime-criminal goon named Matthew Mertz, were present on a Caribbean cruise ship fourteen years ago when Bill Griswold’s first wife, Sheila, disappeared at sea.
Sheila Griswold was a huge pain in the neck and a financial drain on Bill. There were people in Albany who believed at the time that Bill — or even Bill and Ellen — paid Hubbard and Mertz to toss the endlessly annoying ex- Mrs. Griswold into the sea. There was no evidence, and nothing ever came of it. And Ellen turns indignant over any insinuation that Sheila’s apparent drowning was anything but a stupid accident caused perhaps by Sheila’s tippling habits.”
Pugh said, “Rounding.”
“What’s that?”
“When Khun Gary was moaning in his semi-delirium, he kept going on about rounding, Ek said. But perhaps Mr. Gary was experiencing nightmares not about rounding but about drowning.”
“Drowning doesn’t have two Ds in it.”
“I know that. I attended college in New Jersey, just like you.
But the guy was slurring his words, and Ek may have been slurring his hearing. Not having gone to Rutgers.”
I said, “This is fascinating stuff, but my mind is a little dizzy over what it might actually mean.”
“Well, Khun Don, hang on to your hat. Would you like to know how much money Khun Gary had transferred into Duane Hubbard’s Albany account on October fifteenth?”
“How much?”
“Two million US dollars.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
The first thing Timmy said was, “It sounds like the family member who committed the terrible sin that had to be atoned for was Gary Griswold himself.”
“You mean Gary had his former sister-in-law murdered?”
“Possibly. And then maybe he paid off these two lowlifes to keep them from talking? The original fee was insufficient and they were broke, and they knew just where go for an infusion of cash.”
“Why would Griswold do that?” I said. “He says he’s interested in justice. Karmic and Old Testament.”
“There is that. And he does seem sincere. Also, why would he want to get rid of his brother’s ex-wife in the first place? He didn’t even like Bill Griswold. He and Ellen remained friends, but Bill was just some annoying Bushophile Gary put up with for business and peace-in-the-family reasons.”
“Plus,” I said, “the appeal of Buddhism for Griswold is its adherence to nonviolence. He hates militarism and talks up peaceful solutions. Is that a guy who arranges to have his former sister-in-law fed to the sharks?”
“It’s not a particularly Buddhist type of offering.”
We were approaching Khlong Toei, the Bangkok waterfront area with its docks and warehouses and light industry. The sun was setting and the light was splashing flame all over everything: ships, fishing boats, docks, cranes, us. Everyone was on deck now and alert. Pugh had arranged for us to be picked up in three cars and driven to a house not far from Griswold’s condo owned by a sometime client of Pugh’s in Sathorn. Timmy and I were about to come full circle in our five-day Gulf of Thailand odyssey.
Griswold was feeling better now, and he was sitting on a bamboo mat under a canopy with Mango, Egg and
