“The politics here do resemble Albany politics in the mid twentieth century when the O’Connell machine ran it.”
“But the O’Connells didn’t smile so much.”
“I guess we’d better wait and see how all this shakes out,”
Timmy said. “But have our bags packed just in case.”
“You really like this place, don’t you? And these sweet, formal, spiritual, humorous people.”
“I do like Thailand. A lot. If we had come here under any other circumstances, I can imagine being totally smitten with the place.”
“You predicted back home that we might get hurt by the culture’s nasty underside. And we did. You especially. Will you ever forgive me for almost getting you tossed off a balcony?”
272 Richard Stevenson
“I think I will. Not quite yet, Donald. But soon enough.
Anyway, I’ve become much more philosophical about dying since I’ve been here. I can’t say I’ll ever believe in reincarnation, but being around people who do believe in it and who accept death as a natural part of being human has been good for my perspective. I feel more at peace here than anywhere I’ve ever been.”
“And the undercurrent of violence and corruption doesn’t just make you want to scream? Or run away?”
Timmy thought about this. Crowds were moving now toward the soldiers gathered in front of the kickboxing arena.
From where we stood, we could make out people starting to throw things at the soldiers. At first it seemed as if something was wrong and we had misunderstood the situation, and perhaps violence would suddenly break out. Then we realized it was flowers that people were tossing through the air, and some of the soldiers had wrapped garlands of marigolds and jasmine around their helmets.
Timmy said, “I hate the corruption in Thailand. I really do.
And I’m not prepared to mutter, ‘It’s Chinatown, Jake,’ and just gloomily move on. If I were Thai, I would definitely be up to my receding hairline working with the good-government groups, just like I did in Albany in the eighties. But the corruption here isn’t what’s most profoundly Thai. What’s most deeply Thai, I think, is Buddhist perspective and ethics and sane-heartedness.”
“Don’t forget sanuk.”
“Maybe that especially.”
“And of course, lying down in the early evening with some satiny-skinned butch lady-boy for a few kisses and a relaxing mutual wank before enjoying a splendid green curry under a full moon.”
“Those are definitely among the most enchanting forms of Thai sanuk.”
I said, “It’s a shame about the Griswolds. Especially Gary — the guy’s instincts were as pure as they could possibly be. He was oh so naive, but his heart was good. We have to track him down when we get home and see if we can be of any help. It’s the least we can do, since I was hired to get the guy out of any scrape he was in and I didn’t exactly succeed at that. Anyway, without Griswold, it’s unlikely we would have come here and rediscovered — discovered for the first time in your case — this magical kingdom.”
“I wonder,” Timmy said, “what really happened with Sheila Griswold? It was her disappearance that set all this craziness in motion in the first place.”
“Sometimes,” I said, “‘It’s Chinatown, Jake’ isn’t about a strange and unknowable place. It’s about a strange and unknowable family. The Griswolds may be one of those families.”
Timmy said, “Do you think we’ll ever know the truth about Sheila?”
“Maybe in our next lives,” I said. “We’ll just have to be more patient than we’re used to.”
But then people all around us began to shush one another, and us. For the king was about to speak.
EPILOGUE
Thailand was inexpensive enough for us to stay around for another eight days without breaking the bank. The coup discouraged new tourists from arriving, so it was never hard to get a table in a restaurant, and there were fewer buff Bavarians to compete with during our predinner visits to Paradisio.
Both General Yodying and Anant na Ayudhaya, choosing exile over jail, had flown to Singapore for extended stays, so it was unclear what would become of Gary Griswold’s condo.
Meanwhile, Kawee, Mango and Miss Nongnat moved into the apartment. All three had been hired by Pugh to work as operatives for him, so among them they could afford the maintenance on the condo.
A few months later, we heard from Pugh, the condo was sold for a good price. Pugh took a commission, but the bulk of the proceeds went to Griswold back in the US. He used the money to open up a Sayadaw U storefront Buddhist meditation and study center on Duvall Street in Key West. Somebody also established a Sayadaw U center in Bangkok, but it wasn’t a thirty-eight-million-dollar operation. That money had flown away, into Algonquin Steel stock and elsewhere. The Bangkok center was just a stall in the lobby of the Grand Hyatt, and Griswold’s request for a visa to attend the formal opening was denied. He never returned to Thailand, although he told us later that he had become involved with a Thai-American orthodontist in Miami who was into ballroom dancing and model railroading. Also, a friend in Massachusetts ran into the two men when they got married on a beach in Provincetown in a Buddhist ceremony.
Timmy and I were startled to read in the Albany Times Union a month or so after we returned from Thailand that two men had died when they somehow fell from the roof of the high-rise apartment building where they lived together on Central Avenue in Albany. The two were identified as Duane Hubbard, 276 Richard Stevenson a local personal trainer, and Matthew Mertz, a businessman and sometime actor. Police said it looked like an accident — tests showed that the two men were high on crystal meth when they fell — although officials were not ruling out a double suicide.
Friends said both men had been despondent after losing money in a business investment that had not worked out.
Bill Griswold was just barely able to wrest back control of Algonquin Steel. A sizable minority share of the company remained with a group whose base was in Singapore, although Griswold found out that this organization was almost certainly a front for unidentified Thais.
I learned about Algonquin Steel’s fate when I ran into Ellen Griswold at the Subway shop down the street from my office in the early fall of that year. She was a morning-shift volunteer at the fund drive for the public radio station across from my building, and she had stopped in at Subway to pick up some eats to take home for her kids’ lunch.
“Well,” she said, “if it isn’t the man who swindled me out of
— how much was it?”
“I actually lost money on your case,” I said. “Or broke even at best. And I didn’t appreciate your trying to have my business-class plane ticket back to New York downgraded to coach.
Somebody Rufus Pugh knows at Thai Airways tipped him off, and he told me what you were trying to pull.”
“The airline basically told me to go fly a kite. I was just terrifically upset at that point. So was Bill.”
“But he’s still CEO at Algonquin, I see. So you two landed on your feet well enough, it looks like.”
It was then that she told me about the legal machinations — as well as a sizable cash payment to the group in Singapore — that enabled the family to retain control of the company.
“So you must have some fairly bitter feelings about Thailand,” I said. “Your experience with the place was less happy than mine was in the end.”
“Yes, for a while that was true. But it’s all worked out for the best between Bill and me and Thailand. Bill is opening three Econo-Build stores in Bangkok next year and one in Chiang Mai. In fact, he’s in Bangkok right now working on the financing. Three of the younger army generals are investing, as well as a few others. I’m actually looking forward to going along on Bill’s next trip. Both of us have always loved travel, and we travel well together. It’s one of the best things about our basically good marriage. Speaking of significant others, how is your partner Timothy? Has he fully recovered from his nearplunge-off-a-balcony ordeal?”
“Timmy came through all of that less traumatized than you might expect,” I said. “In fact, he’s so
