Chapter One - Richard Lewis

Chapter 22
Nol's cell phone blasted him awake as the first light of the day reached through
his window.
"Get down here," Suti barked. "Somebody's broken into the shop."
Nol still hadn't told her he'd been fired from the golf course, so he yanked on his
guard uniform, which she would be expecting him to wear, and rushed out to the garage.
Traffic was light, but Nol got stuck behind a Family Ride for Health bicycle rally, the
bicycles spilling across two lanes, families out for a leisurely spin before the sun got too
hot.
When he finally got to the beach, he parked in the public lot by the local karaoke
bars. Three drunken men sat outside one establishment, empty bottles of arak littering the
table. Gong hailed Nol with an exaggerated wave of his hand. Two of his skinny friends
grinned sloppily. One seemed to have a smear of blood or paint on his arm. Gong's eyes
were red but alert. He had the bulk to absorb a whole tanker of arak.
"What's this, Nol," he said, "you don't have clothes to wear so you keep wearing
that uniform?"
Nol ignored him and trudged on. Javanese tourists thronged the boardwalk, a
good number of them gawking at Suti's shop, third in the arcade. Nol pushed through the
crowd and halted in shock.
The interior of the shop was a shambles. Smashed cabinets, splintered carvings,
hacked souvenirs. T-shirts and dresses and baseball caps had been thrown into a pile and
drenched with red paint. The same red paint was brushed onto the back wall in big letters:
COMMUNIST WHORE. A hammer and a sickle flanked the words.
Suti and a friend squatted by the broken glass, picking out pieces of silver
jewelry. Nol scanned the shop front's rolling door, rolled up normally on its hinges. It
hadn't been forced, but the ceiling panel that led into the attic was ajar.
He picked his away around the pile of clothing, the paint still sticky, and knelt by
Suti. "They came in from the attic," she said, picking up a pair of earrings. "And the only
way into the attic is from the access in the back office."
"I'll take care of it," Nol said.
Suti sat back and brushed hair from her forehead. "I don't know why you keep
wearing that silly uniform when they've fired you."
Nol grabbed a handful of ruined clothes, still wet with paint, and rubbed the fabric
over the slogan and sign, obliterating it with red the color of blood.
Three hours later Nol was back home, scrubbing red paint off his hands with
gasoline. The paint had gotten onto his uniform, which now was only good for rags. Suti
was still at the shop, starting to fix it up. Cops had also shown up to strut and scold Nol
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