department will personally escort you to the airport at nine tomorrow morning. You will be placed on a flight to Frankfurt and you will never be admitted to Thailand again. We don’t want your ilk in our country. We simply will not stand for it.”
Griswold said, “What about the Sayadaw U center? Will it be built?”
The general smiled. “Of course, of course it will be built. If that’s what you’re worried about, have no fear. Your name will not be associated with the shrine, however, now that you have the taint of moral corruption on you. And I should mention perhaps that the center will be completed on a scale somewhat reduced from what you had in mind. Your idea of it was far too grandiose for Thai tastes. We are a humble people.”
Griswold sat quietly gazing at the general. After a moment, he said, “I still love Thailand.”
“Oh, even though it has disappointed you! I am relieved to hear that, Mr. Griswold. You are in many ways a good man — despite your proclivities. You are a man of spiritual depth and perspective. Perhaps after your soul has been purified by chaste behavior and generous offerings over a series of lives, you will return to Thailand under another, better guise. I am certain our immigration department would have no objection to that.”
Griswold said, “What about my friends here? They have done nothing wrong. Of course, neither have I. But it seems as if there is no point in discussing that.”
“No. You are correct. There is no point in discussing that.
But your friends will be released in the morning. Khun Rufus can resume his colorful career as Bangkok’s Mickey Spillane.
And Mr. Donald and Mr. Timothy will, I hope, enjoy some of the splendors of Siamese culture and civilization, and perhaps have a pleasant visit at one of our hundreds of excellent beaches. I don’t want them to return to America with a poor impression of my country.”
Timmy said, “I like your beaches, General. We’ve been to Hua Hin. But your criminal justice system leaves a lot to be desired.”
Had Timmy fallen off his bicycle and landed on his head? I had been determined to keep my mouth shut and leave for the airport at the first opportunity. I thought, My God, he’s turning into me.
But General Yodying nodded sympathetically. “I do apologize for detaining you, Mr. Timothy, and for doing so in our admittedly fetid accommodations. Do understand, however, that I could have left you all to rot over the weekend in that cell.
But I did not. In fact, I drove over here following my own sixtieth birthday celebration at the Dusit Thani to deal with Khun Gary and to assure the rest of your group that in the morning I will be totally out of your hair. I could have gone straight home with my wife or to my delightful girlfriend’s house. So don’t complain too much.”
Pugh said, “Today is your sixtieth birthday, general? Please let me offer my heartiest congratulations.”
“My birthday is actually tomorrow, the nineteenth,” the general said. “Ah, it’s after midnight now. If I may say so, happy birthday to me!”
Pugh sang out, “How wonderful!”
Pugh’s enthusiasm seemed weirdly misplaced, until we got back to our cell and he explained to me that the confluence of events he had just learned of was heavy with auspiciousness.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
True to his soiled word, the deeply corrupt General Yodying had Griswold escorted out of our cell at nine Saturday morning.
Griswold’s passport had been retrieved from his apartment in Sukhumvit, and the police had picked up clean clothes for him too. He was also handed ten twenty-dollar bills for his immediate expenses once he arrived in Frankfurt. After that, he was on his own. The general said he would not notify Interpol that Griswold was a notorious sex offender, so long as Griswold left Thailand forever and didn’t raise a fuss about his having been bilked out of thirty-eight million dollars.
We all said good-bye to Griswold, and I told him how sorry I was that it had all turned out so badly for him. I asked him what I should tell Ellen and Bill.
He thought about this, and said, “Just tell them I said mai pen rai. And that I hope they enjoy the rest of their stay in Thailand. It’s really a lovely country.”
Griswold was led away, and we thought we would be leaving at the same time and stood ready to go. But a guard said, “You wait.”
Around nine thirty, a whole squad of corrections officers arrived at our cell. The sergeant in charge told us to take off all our clothes and hand them out. What was this? Were we going to be deloused? Hosed down? Gang- raped?
Anxiously, we disrobed and handed out our garments, including — as we were ordered to do — our underwear. One of the guards then passed out large plastic garbage bags, one to each of us. Holes had been cut for our arms to protrude, and when instructed to do so, we donned the garbage bags. Our money, wallets and keys, confiscated the day before, were returned to us.
We were then led out to a convoy of police vans and driven to Wat Pho, the magnificent temple that housed the largest reclining Buddha in Thailand. Hundreds of tourists were 270 Richard Stevenson queued up outside in the sunshine waiting their turn to enter the sacred shrine. They pointed and laughed as we were dropped off and the police vans drove away, and the tourists all got some great snapshots.
We had enough money among us to take taxis back to the safe house, where we had all left a few belongings. Timmy’s and my plan was to return to the Topmost, clean up, and then track down Ellen and Bill Griswold and try to explain how and why they had lost control of the family company despite their not being murderers, and why Gary Griswold was en route, or soon to be en route, to Germany.
My cell phone was at the safe house, and it had one message, from Ellen: “Call me at the hotel immediately.” I did call and when the Griswolds didn’t answer the phone in their room, I left a message at the Oriental for them to try me again. Maybe, I thought, they were among the throngs at Wat Pho waiting for a glimpse of the giant reclining Buddha and they didn’t recognize Pugh, Timmy and me dressed in garbage bags.
Pugh got on his own phone, made a call to people close to Seer Thammarak Visetchote, the soothsayer working with the younger, anticorruption army officers. Then he hung up and gave me thumbs-up. “Four nineteen!” he shouted and gave a little hop.
Kawee, Mango and Miss Nongnat shared a cab back to Sukhumvit, though Kawee said he wanted to drop by Griswold’s condo on the way and water the plants and light some candles.
Just after noon, as Timmy and I were walking back to the Topmost, we noticed military vehicles moving in convoys up ahead on Rama IV Road. We walked on past the hotel and watched as the trucks soon pulled over on the main thoroughfare and soldiers poured out of the trucks across the road near the kickboxing arena and the night market. We could make out other groups of soldiers down the road toward the Silom metro station, as well as four tanks.
Timmy said, “Tanks. There’s something we don’t see on Central Avenue in Albany.”
People were coming out of all the restaurants now, and the shops and 7-Elevens, and traffic was starting to clog up. Small groups were forming, and some of the people in them had radios and every few minutes a cheer went up. There were occasional bursts of laughter. We overheard somebody say in English that in just a few minutes His Majesty King Bhumibol would be making a statement to the nation about the change in government.
Timmy said, “It’s a Land of Smiles coup d’etat. It’s the best kind, if you’re going to have one.”
Soon there were sirens, and traffic parted for an army convoy of SUVs with flashing lights coming from the north. In the mess of traffic, the convoy had to slow briefly to a crawl as it went by us, and we caught a glimpse of a big man in a police uniform inside the middle vehicle seated between two smaller army commandos. No other police were visible anywhere. The senior police officer in the SUV appeared to be in army custody, and Timmy said, “Could that be who I think it is?”
“It does appear to be who you think it is.”
“It looks like he’s under arrest.”
“Yeah, unless this is yet another feint.”
