Chapter One - Richard Lewis

All in all, losing 50 million at a cockfight was a small thing that really shouldn't
be held against him.
Suti flicked the light switch as she entered the room, and the overhead neon flared
brightly to life. She was dressed and ready to leave for her shop, which she opened early
for the domestic tourists who flocked to the seashore to watch the sunrise. "Time for you
to get up," she said, draping Nol's green uniform on the wicker chair. Nol was a volunteer
member of the civil security force, another one of his virtues, and the administrative
district had planned in military detail a coordinated dawn raid on a local whorehouse,
when the girls should be done with their evening charms and asleep in the rooms.
He swung grumpily out of bed. "All we're going to find are empty rooms," he
said. Word of a raid was always leaked, because men in high seats owned the
whorehouses in the first place. He struggled into his trousers.
"You're putting on weight," Suti observed, sitting down to the bedside desk and
turning on her computer.
"Good health," he grunted. He opened his mouth wide. "Sound teeth. You know
how much Sudana paid for his last dentist visit? It's all the tourists coming here for cheap
root canals and driving up the prices for us."
Suti clicked keys, engaging in the arcane rituals of this Internet technology. Nol
was of the opinion that the cell phone was enough modernity in one's life. He still didn't
know half the functions of his Nokia. His daughter Dian had explained some of them.
Later, as he was driving his uncle Dharma to a meeting, the cell phone had gone off in his
trouser pocket, and he thought a creature had snuck into his pants and was going wild
trying to get out. He nearly shot through the roof of the car and about hit the bus in front.
"It's called vibrate mode, Bapa," Dian later explained with longsuffering patience,
and he ordered her to turn off this vibrate and just stick to ring tones.
Suti squinted at the computer monitor and harrumphed unhappily. "Still nothing
from Putu."
"He's probably too busy studying. A top university like Stanford, you have to
keep at the books."
"How long does it take to send a quick email? Is this what they learn in America,
how to ignore your parents?"
"My sister complains she never hears from her son, and he's just up in Tabanan."
"Have you talked to the golf course manager?"
Suti wanted Nol to work full time at the golf course, but two days was enough.
Nol made good money, untaxed money, running errands and driving foreigners and oiling
land deals for Dharma. Suti never really warmed to Nol's uncle, making snide remarks
that Dharma should have all those gray hairs in his ears trimmed so he could listen to
other people. She didn't like how Nol was at Dharma's beck and call.
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