she said. “But I do believe in managing the assets you have like a grown-up. Whether you earn it or you inherited much of it, as

Gary and Bill did, flushing your money down the toilet I find

totally incomprehensible.”

“Who is Bill?” I asked.

“My husband, Bill Griswold. Gary’s older brother.”

This was getting complex. I said, “What did the Reagans

make of all this?’

She smiled rather sweetly. “Around the time Gary’s and my

marriage was unraveling — largely because of his coming to

terms with his being gay — Bill’s fell apart, too. He had married a Long Island JAP of a certain type when he was nineteen — a

looker, a serious shopper, and not much else — and Bill needed

somebody more stimulating. We had always liked each other,

and we both liked to read and travel. For fun, we took a trip to Budapest together, and that was it. It’s been as good a marriage as anybody could hope for, overall.”

“And your husband’s first wife was not Japanese?”

“Jewish American Princess. You’ve heard the term, I’m

sure.”

“It could have been another Asian in the picture.”

“I would not have used Jap that way.”

Her cell phone played what Timothy Callahan might have

identified as the opening strains of Gluck’s overture to Orpheus and Eurydice, but for all I knew could have been Andrew Lloyd Webber. She flipped it out of her handbag and told me with an

apologetic shrug, “It’s either one or the other.”

Ellen Griswold’s end of a brief conversation included the

words please don’t more often than I normally use them on the phone.

“That was Amanda,” she said, putting her phone away. I

noted a diamond on one finger that, while not quite

10 Richard Stevenson

ostentatious, did not hide its light under a bushel, as well as a demure ruby on a nearby digit.

“Amanda is thirteen,” Mrs. Griswold said. “Mark is fifteen.

They’re both good kids, but they are kids. They pretty much

have their feet on the ground, but there are times when I have

to try hard not to scream.”

“These are Bill’s children, not Gary’s?”

“That’s right. Do the math.”

“Gotcha. But we’re not here to talk about Amanda and

Mark, apparently.”

“No.”

“On the phone, you said you believed that a family member

was in trouble, and you wanted my help in getting him out of it.

So we’re talking about your former husband and current

brother-in-law?”

This was the moment when, in the olden days, Mrs.

Griswold would rummage in her handbag for a cigarette, and I

would light it for her and then fire up one of my own. Now we

both had to make do with a barely perceptible tightening of her

facial restructuring and a swig of beer for me.

Watching me with no particular expression, she said, “Gary

has vanished in Thailand with thirty-eight million dollars. I’d

like you to find him, check to see if he is all right, and help him out if he isn’t. And if Gary is alive and hasn’t gone completely around the bend, help us talk some sense into him.”

I said, “That sounds simple enough.”

“Look, don’t laugh. I know it’s a big job. Bob Chicarelli said

you could do it.”

“Okay.”

“I could hire an international private investigations agency. I

know that.”

“You could. It’s what most people would do.”

“Or, Bob told me he could locate some reputable private

detective in Bangkok, if such a thing exists.”

THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 11

“I’ll bet such a thing does.”

She thought for a moment and said, “You could farm out

some of the work to people there. That would be up to you.

But I’m more comfortable paying someone who is known and

trusted by someone Bill and I know and trust. And since you’re

familiar with that part of the world, it’s a huge advantage, no?

Plus, of course, you presumably would have easier entrée to the

Thai gay scene, a good place to start looking for Gary. He went

over there on vacation two years ago, and in addition to

reincarnation, apparently discovered some gay Shangri-La. He

never really came home, except to sell his condo in Key West

and then fly straight back to Bangkok. But Thailand has not

turned out to be a paradise for Gary. At least not from where

I’m sitting, it hasn’t.”

Where she seemed to be sitting was pretty. A second portion

of a sizable family fortune remained intact if I was hearing her correctly. I said, “Please tell me (a) about the rather large sum of money Gary took along — can I assume he didn’t earn it over

there? — and (b) about his vanishing, as you put it.”

This got a look of mild surprise. “So you’re interested in

taking this on?”

“Maybe.”

“I was beginning to think you wouldn’t. You seem so

skeptical about everything.”

“Not everything. My, no.”

“But,” she said, “I think you’re skeptical about me.”

“A little.”

“Why would you be?”

I noticed that the flat-screen television set over the bar was

tuned to CNBC, where a reporter who looked something like

Mrs. Griswold was mouthing words that I supposed concerned

the day’s main news topic, the crashing dollar. If I had been

able to read lips I might have phoned my bank immediately and

converted everything into Burmese kyat.

I said, “Mrs. Griswold —”

12 Richard Stevenson

“Please call me Ellen. I think we’re more or less

contemporaries.”

“Yeah, more or less. Ellen, this thirty-eight million dollars

— which, by the way, might now be worth somewhat less than

it was worth ten minutes ago — this thirty-eight million your

ex-husband has or had in his possession — to whom does it

belong?”

“To Gary, of course. But the point is, there are indications

— and I’ll get to those — that Gary is throwing his money

away. That’s the issue.”

“Well, it is and it isn’t. That’s where a lot of my skepticism

— you’re right about that — comes in. Your gay ex-husbandbrother-in-law may well be over in the Land of Smiles, as the brochures call it, spending thirty-eight million dollars on things you would not necessarily spend thirty-eight million dollars on.

Beach houses, money boys, dried squid on a stick, who knows

what. But spending money foolishly is what some people do.

And while the spectacle can be upsetting to others, nauseating

even, especially to the spendthrift’s loved ones, there’s rarely anything anybody can do about it. Or needs to. Hiring a private

investigator is seldom called for — even when it’s a family

member who appears to have gone off the rails, fiscally

speaking.”

She was looking increasingly unhappy. “So Bill and I should

just — sit back?”

I said, “When you say your ex-husband has vanished, what

do you mean by that?”

“It means what it sounds like. No one has heard from Gary

for nearly six months. He doesn’t respond to e-mails. His snail

mail letters don’t get answered. His home phone and Thai cell

phone accounts have both been shut down. He just seems to

have — you know.”

“I know.” Fallen off the face of the earth. She heard herself thinking the cliché and decided she was not someone who

would use it.

THE 38 MILLION DOLLAR SMILE 13

“Gary was never much for staying in touch,” she said.

“Even during his Key West years, he rarely e-mailed or phoned.

Business matters with Bill, but little else. And after his and Bill’s parents died, we saw very little of Gary. Even though I think he was basically happy that Bill and I had gotten together — at

some level, relieved even — he seemed to feel awkward around