Chapter One - Richard Lewis

"He was a surfer punk harassing Miss Wulandri. The boss's daughter. Teach him a
lesson, the boss said, so I did. But a lesson is only a lesson if you get to learn from it. A
rib punctured an artery. I got eight years."
"Doesn't look like they starved you in there."
Gong patted his stomach. "Boss took care of me. He told me you called me fat
and stupid."
Nol casually held his mirror stick in front of him, ready to whop it down across
Gong's head. "You're not exactly skinny."
"And you're right, I'm not really smart either. But I'm loyal. The Boss tells me to
teach you a lesson, I'll try not to kill you." He waddled across the road to a coffee stall.
Three hours later Nol and Sudana were relieved for an early lunch. First things
first, though. The bamboo matting. Nol retrieved from the back of Sudana's pickup a ratty
golf bag and casually strolled toward the storage shed. Due for demolition, it slumped at
the end of the staff parking. Nol climbed through the side window as Sudana stood watch
for any busybodies. Nol wasn't really stealing—the roll of matting was just sitting there,
gathering cobwebs. The crime was letting it go to waste. Or, what was worse, letting a
Javanese garbage picker get his hands on it.
The roll fit perfectly into the golf bag, which he tossed into the back of Sudana's
pickup.
"You think anybody's going to steal it?" he fretted.
Sudana shrugged. "Easy come, easy go."
"Anybody does, I'll find out who," Nol growled.
In the staff canteen, Nol ate with his fingers, disturbing not a single delicate
foreign soul.
At Nol's insistence, Sudana volunteered to help fix up Mak's shack after work.
Together they rummaged through the junk collected under the granary, looking
for wood to use as a frame for the matting. Mice scurried and crickets jumped. Nol
snatched a big one and held it in a cage of cupped fingers. "Remember when we were
kids, that idea I had to sell shares in a champion cricket?"
"I wonder what happened to that teacher," Sudana said, wiping a strand of
cobweb off his ear.
"Probably in Jakarta office making up National Exam questions."
"Here's some bamboo. Kind of bug eaten, though."
Nol looked up the stairs to the granary's closed doors. "Could be something up
there."
"I don't know," Sudana said reluctantly.
"We're not kids anymore," Nol said. "There's no Luhde Srikandi up there."
"That old story?" Sudana said with a laugh.
"Go on, then, you have a look."
"I'm not the one who needs the wood."
With a sigh, Nol started up the stairs. The two panel doors to the storage roof
squeaked on rusty hinges to Nol's tentative push. With the back of his neck tingling, he
stooped through the opening. The stuffy air clogged his throat, and he coughed as his
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