The 38 Million Dollar Smile, стр. 53
Khun Pongsak, read Khun Anant’s chart and discovered that it
is essential that events transpire in the manner Khun Don and I
have just described? Wouldn’t that make a difference?”
“Of course it would. But Seer Pongsak would never do such
a thing. He is a man of integrity.”
“What if you paid him half a million dollars to do it? You
could write it off as overhead.”
“Bribe a seer? Has that ever been done in Thailand?”
Pugh said, “Uh-huh.”
Griswold screwed up his banged-up face and said after a
moment, “I’ll have to think about that.”
“Think fast,” Pugh said. “Khun Pongsak will be here in
twenty minutes.”
§ § § § §
The great seer arrived in a gold Mercedes with two young
monks in tow. He was a slight, bony fellow with gold-rimmed
specs who wore a formal black dinner jacket over a Brooks
Brothers button-down striped shirt. He had on a Burmese
sarong instead of pants and on his feet he wore dollar-store flip-flops. His fingers bore a number of gold rings. Around his neck
hung a gold amulet with a picture of a wizened monk on it. The
seer’s overall presentation of himself was that of a dubious
character who had gotten away with some casual shoplifting at
Harry Winston’s.
The Thais all wai - ed the soothsayer. Timmy and I picked up on the cue and performed a show of respect, too. Griswold
shook his hand, and the two had a brief, chatty back-and-forth
like a couple of old Cornell alums. Pugh informed Khun
Pongsak that rice was on the way, and we adjourned to the
236 Richard Stevenson
spacious living room for some small talk next to an enormous
stone Buddha figure before which candles had been lined up.
Each of us lit one.
Khun Pongsak said to Timmy and me, “So, how do you like
Thailand?”
I told him that we had not had much time to enjoy its many
pleasures but we hoped to do so as soon as our work was
completed.
The seer did not ask about the nature of our work, but he
did ask, “Have you ever been to the Trump Tower?”
Timmy and I both said we had walked by it.
“I hope one day to see the Trump Tower with my own
eyes.”
Pugh said, “You should go there, Khun Pongsak. You will
be amazed. The Trump Tower is made of solid gold.”
“So I have heard.”
There were some more pleasantries exchanged and then the
food arrived. We sat around a teak table while Pugh’s crew
served up rice, fish red curry and morning glory vines in a spicy sauce. Pugh and I had a beer, and the seer requested green tea.
Griswold asked if any chardonnay was available, and somehow
a chilled bottle was soon produced.
Pugh’s staff and the seer’s monk posse were then asked to
step outside the room, and Pugh got to the point.
“Khun Pongsak,” Pugh said, “as security agents for Mr.
Gary, we wish to make a request of you. General Yodying, as
you may know, wants Mr. Gary taught a lesson following the
unfortunate currency speculation scheme that went amiss when
Mr. Gary pulled out of it. General Yodying passionately desires
that Mr. Gary be thrown down from a high place and smashed
to pieces. And the general’s wishes for us, Mr. Gary’s
protectors, are now, we have every reason to believe, nearly
identical. Mr. Gary needs to remain alive, however, because for
one, he so much enjoys living and breathing, and secondly, to
complete the Sayadaw U project that you yourself have invested
THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 237
in and which we all believe has earned the blessings of the spirit of the Enlightened One.”
“Ah,” said the seer.
“Now, we have been led to understand that General
Yodying is scheduled for early retirement, so to speak, following a government shake-up which perusal of the heavens has
determined should take place on April twenty-seventh. But
sooner than April twenty-seventh would be so much safer and
more convenient for Mr. Gary and for all of us. What if a
reconsideration of the comings and goings of the planets and
stars were to reveal that April eighteenth is the more auspicious date?”
We all watched the soothsayer, who was peering over at
Pugh with fierce concentration.
“It is not just the charts that must be taken into
consideration,” the soothsayer said finally. “It is practical
considerations also.”
“But surely,” Pugh said, “if these events are fated to occur
on April eighteenth, how could reality not fail to keep up?
Would the army — or whoever it is that’s prepared to move —
dare to defy the karma of the occasion as it has been revealed in your latest examinations of the heavens?”
Khun Pongsak continued to stare at Pugh, and we could all
but hear the whirring sounds of his brain cells attempting to
rearrange themselves lucratively.
It was Griswold who spoke up. He said, “How much do you
want?”
“Oh, dear me.” the seer said. “I can reveal but I cannot
control what is fated.”
“Let’s say a hundred thousand US.”
“No, a million. You are asking me to alter history.”
“Two hundred thousand. That’s final.”
“I don’t think that’s final at all. You are over a barrel.”
“Two fifty.”
238 Richard Stevenson
“Eight hundred thousand.”
“You’re mad.”
“No deal.”
“Half a million. Cash.”
“All right. Five hundred thousand. Half of it in advance.
Tonight.”
Griswold said, “Well, it is all for the spirit of the Buddha,
isn’t it? And for the memory of Sayadaw U.”
“This moment will live in Thai history,” Pugh said. “I
congratulate each and every one of you.” He raised his bottle of Singha beer in a toast, and the soothsayer solemnly lifted his
cup of green tea.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Everything began to unravel when Ellen Griswold woke me
up in the middle of the night. Griswold had been successfully
spirited over to his condo and back, and half a million dollars
extracted from a vault that had been constructed under his
spirit house. Seer Pongsak had been paid off and been driven
away in his gold car. Fate had been nudged into moving our
way. But then my cell phone rang at two forty-eight a.m.
“Strachey?”
“Ellen?”
“What the hell are you trying to pull?”
“I’m not sure I should explain to you what I’m doing. You
fired me, and I’m working for your brother-in-law now. It’s a
question of professional ethics. I think I can’t talk to you. Also, I’m half asleep.”
“What I am about to say will wake you up fast. Listen to me.
Gary is trying to take over Algonquin Steel, and I think you not only know all about it but you are a party to the conspiracy. As is Bob Chicarelli. Who probably sent me to you so that you
could spy on me and keep Gary up to speed on what I know
about this monstrous betrayal and what I don’t know. What you
are doing is so professionally beyond the pale that I am certain I can get you disbarred. Would you like to comment on that?”
Timmy was now stirring next to me.
I said, “I’m not an attorney who can be disbarred, but there
is a licensing commission for private investigators. Just Google New York State PI licenses to file a complaint. But here’s the
thing, Ellen. You’ve got things really bollixed up. Where did you come up with this wild-eyed theory anyway?”
“And the other thing is,” she went on, as if I had never
spoken, “you are dragging Duane Hubbard and Matthew Mertz
into this, and I am so mad — and so insulted and so offended
— that I am just…beside myself with anger! Is Gary himself