Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 35, No. 10, October 1990

A note of interest. Jakarta is situated at seven degrees south latitude, just about as tropical as tropical can be. But if you spend the night in a banyan tree while pursued by killers, you will become cold.

The next morning I was afraid to go to my hotel room, afraid I had somehow been traced. An irrational and paranoiac fear, true, but I stuck with Malik nonetheless. He maintained an outward calm, but we didn’t travel a familiar route. He, who knew everyone, was as much a stranger as I.

I again pleaded that we seek professional assistance. Malik relented. I thought we were bound for a police precinct station. I thought otherwise when we stopped in the core of a kampung, at a wooden and corrugated iron house.

It was the home of Malik’s dukun.

A dukun is a traditional Javanese mystic. A dukun is consulted for his magical powers to cure diseases, to discombobulate enemies, and to predict the future.

Swell.

If age were a valid yardstick of wisdom, we had it made. The dukun was a graybeard as old as Malik and I combined. Malik explained our dilemma, and I gave the dukun the jade ring to examine.

The dukun pondered awhile, then recited a short chant, gave us cups of foul-tasting herb tea, and handed me the ring as if it were on fire.

The ring is evil, said the dukun.

Plausible, Malik and I agreed. But what should we do?

Return it to the evildoing owner, advised the dukun. The evil departed his foul heart into the ring. It will stay locked in the green stone and infect you both until it can escape to its origin. Nor can Mr. Lee’s soul depart to the abode of the dead specified by his particular religion until the ring evil escapes.

Will the ring help catch Mr. Lee’s killer? I asked.

The dukun shrugged ancient, bony shoulders. He could not answer; he was a magician, not a detective.

We thanked and paid the dukun. Malik’s mood had improved substantially. We have a purpose, he said, a solution.

I was not so upbeat. I wondered how to express my feelings without insulting Malik’s dukun and therefore Malik too. I turned through my pocket dictionary, seeking the Indonesian words for “figurative” and “literal.”

I know everyone, Malik reminded me before I could open my mouth; I’ll ask around, I’ll find out who the men in that splendid Menteng home are.

I repocketed my dictionary. So much for reason.

It didn’t take much time or money for a network of taxi drivers and merchants and people with no apparent occupation to identify the owner of that swank Menteng address. His name, quite appropriately, was Hardcastle.

Hardcastle was either American, Canadian, or Australian. Nobody was certain. His mercenary soldier apparel was no facade. Hardcastle had been in Zimbabwe when it was Rhodesia, Zaire when it was the Belgian Congo. He was no stranger to Central America and the Indochina nations.

Hardcastle had evidently retired from the kill-for-hire profession. With a nice nest egg. Besides the villa, he owned a yupscale jewelry shop on Jalan Thamrin.

Malik’s sources weren’t as sure about No Neck. He was believed to be an unemployed actor who did odd jobs for Hardcastle, but they were rarely seen together.

No Neck had played a villain in a dozen martial arts films, but could not or would not pull his punches. He was hurting the good guys, costing the production companies too much money. No longer would any Jakarta filmmaker risk casting him. He also had ties to an assortment of lowlife types — thugs and burglars and whatnot.

Quite a pair, I said. What do you recommend we do?

Easy, Malik said, smiling cheerily. You go see him.

Me? And say what?

You will think of the right thing to say when the time comes. I have the utmost confidence you shall.

Sure. Yeah. Easy.

Unshaven, wearing clothing for the second day, stained by banyan sap, I took a cab to a thirty story office tower on Jalan Thamrin. The lower level was a frigidly air-conditioned arcade of glittery boutiques and expensive restaurants. I could have been in the affluent maw of Chicago or Hong Kong or Berlin.

Hardcastle’s shop was on the mezzanine. Gold leaf on the glass door simply announced Hardcastle, Ltd.

He was too modest. The rings, necklaces, and earrings on display sported rubies, sapphires, star sapphires, and — yes, jade. You didn’t need a schooled eye to know that this stuff wasn’t paste. If that wasn’t enough to convince me that we weren’t talking about costume jewelry, no price tags were visible and the young Indonesian clerk in the spiffy suit was as haughty as his Rodeo Drive and Fifth Avenue counterparts.

Well, perhaps my appearance and aroma put him off, but I think the young man would flare his nostrils at the Prince of Wales. I asked, please, to see Mr. Hardcastle.

Impossible, he said. Mr. Hardcastle is indisposed.

Un-indispose him, I politely requested. Inform him that I would like to speak to him regarding a gold and diamond and Burmese jade ring.