Griswold would not agree to see his brother and sister-inlaw until the day after their arrival late Thursday afternoon. He said this was for their own safety. On Friday, Griswold said, a change of government would remove General Yodying from power, and he would no longer be a threat to any of us. Friday would also, of course, be too late for Bill and Ellen to talk Gary into holding on to the controlling shares of Algonquin Steel instead of turning them over to the Thai group running the Sayadaw U project. I asked Griswold about that, and he said,
“Yep. Too bad.”
Griswold was kept under close watch at the safe house through the day, and then while Nitrate picked up Bill and Ellen at Suvarnabhumi. They were coming in on the same flight from New York that Timmy and I had arrived on six days earlier.
Kawee, Mango and Timmy splashed around in the swimming pool throughout the day. I had a brief swim too, and also managed to reach Bob Chicarelli in Albany just before he went to bed.
“Hey, Bob, somebody you were asking about Hubbard and Mertz blabbed to Bill and Ellen. They’re spitting nickels. It isn’t pretty.”
“I know. Sorry, Strachey. They’re trying to get me disbarred.”
“Can they?”
“Nah. I’m not representing them in anything.”
“Me either. I’m not sure I’m representing anybody. At this point, it’s all for the Enlightened One.”
“Don’t forget to send him a bill.”
“So, did you pick up anything on Hubbard and Mertz?”
“They’re in Albany and not doing all that great. Hubbard is back working as a personal trainer, and Mertz is supposedly dealing crystal meth. They got hold of a lot of money 248 Richard Stevenson somewhere last fall, but they lost it. Some guy from Miami conned them out of it with a scheme to open a Mexican fast-food chain where you could also work out. But then this dude disappeared with most of the dough. It was going to be called Taco Terrifico or something like that.”
I told Chicarelli that Ellen and Bill Griswold were at that moment high above the Pacific en route to Thailand to confront Gary. “Gary thinks Ellen and Bill had Sheila Griswold killed by Hubbard and Mertz, and he’s determined to ruin their lives. Their present lives anyway. Over here people make those distinctions. I’m not sure what Bill and Ellen know or think, but they absolutely deny any involvement in Sheila’s death. The only really sure thing is, we’ve got quite a face-off in the works over here.”
“It might interest you to know,” Chicarelli said, “that Hubbard and Mertz used to dabble in gay porn. They’re a little too mature for that by now. But a guy I know in the DA’s office said there was a gay porn video production operation in Schenectady for a while in the nineties, and those two were involved in both production work and performing.”
“So Schenectady was the Budapest of the Mohawk Valley? I never knew that.”
“It didn’t last, apparently.”
I said, “Was it just gay? Or did they do bi stuff, too?”
“That I can’t tell you.”
“Well, good luck keeping your license, Bob”
“You too, Strachey.”
The Oriental Hotel, where the Griswolds had chosen to stay despite their apparent precarious financial state, had retained its cachet but only a little of its former Victorian-era charm. The ghosts of Conrad and Maugham did not greet us as Pugh and I strode past the doorman toward the elevators. But even the rooms in the modern tower section of the hotel were spiffy and THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 249 spacious and had a nice view of the hotel’s riverside gardens and the dragon-tail boats on the Chao Phraya beyond.
The rooms also had TV sets with built-in DVD players, and that was useful for taking a gander at the video Pugh and I were about to watch along with Ellen and Bill.
“I’m really hurt,” Ellen said to me, “that Gary would think I could kill another person. I thought he knew me better than that, and this really all just breaks my heart.”
“Gary and I were never close,” Bill said, “and I know he rejects many of my values. But same as Ellen, I’m really just terribly, terribly disappointed that my brother would see me as a person who would take a human life.”
“Even Sheila’s,” Ellen added and threw me a look.
The Griswolds were not their freshest. Both had showered and changed clothes before Pugh and I arrived just after eight Thursday night. But the seventeen-hour slog across the Pacific and the twelve-hour time difference had beaten them down, and they looked as if they could have used a week on the beach at Phuket instead of a confrontation with a man bent on making them pay for committing a murder they denied having anything to do with.
Ellen had flopped onto an easy chair in her aubergine pantsuit and tangerine headband, and Bill was seated at the desk in fresh khakis and a white polo shirt. Here was the man I remembered from the Albany airport ten days earlier, a beefier version of Gary, with thinning hair and puffy dark eyes. He had popped a piece of Nicorette gum soon after Pugh and I arrived, and I felt for the guy. Having your wealth and your life’s work crumbling while you were in nicotine withdrawal was a lot of people’s idea of hell. I wondered if he would make it through the next few days without bolting down the street to pick up a pack of Marlboros, which in Thailand were required by law to display hideous pictures of rotting gums on the front of each package.
The Griswolds did not appear pleased to have Pugh in the room — their handshakes with him were brief and perfunctory 250 Richard Stevenson
— but they apparently accepted my explanation that he was the man who would keep us all safe while these complex Griswold family matters got sorted out.
I laid out Gary Griswold’s story that he had let himself be blackmailed by Hubbard and Mertz in order to keep Bill and Ellen from going to prison and to protect the memories of Bill and Gary’s parents. They both shook their heads and threw up their hands.
“That’s idiotic,” Ellen said.
“Pure bullshit,” said Bill.
“And what proof did Duane and Matthew offer of this heinous crime supposedly sponsored by Bill and me?”
“They said they had an incriminating recording and you had a copy of it too.”
“Well, they did bring Ellen and me a DVD and try to extort money from us,” Bill said. “But it was no proof of murder, for God’s sake. It’s the DVD you are about to see. They said we should pay up, or the family would be embarrassed by Sheila’s history. Apparently they were bluffing with Gary about proof of a murder having been committed, and their outrageous bluff paid off. How much did Gary give them?”
“A lot. Two million dollars.”
“Oh no!”
“He did it for you two supposedly. And for the future wellbeing of your souls.”
“Oh, please,” Ellen said.
Now Pugh spoke up. “Mr. Gary plans on building a Buddhist study and meditation center here in Bangkok, also with an aim of easing your way along the bumpy paths of time.
It is a gesture of great magnanimity, and you will be among its primary beneficiaries. You may not wish to thank him in this life, but I am guessing that on down the road your gratitude and appreciation will be immense.”
“Mr. Pugh,” Ellen said, “when I die, I plan on staying dead.
So if Gary wants to ease Bill’s and my burdens, he might start by dropping this insane plan to rob us of the great company that Bill’s father built out of literally nothing. And he might fucking apologize to Bill and me for going around calling us goddamn murderers!”
Pugh shrugged. “You two are of course free to aim your souls in any direction you wish, including anybody’s idea of heaven, hell, purgatory or Venezuela. But it is your actions that will decide things, not your intentions.”
The Griswolds shot each other a Who-is-this-guy? look.
Ellen said, “Thanks for clearing that up. Now I can just close my eyes anytime I feel like it and drift toward the white light.”
