I went over to The Next Wave, and the parking lot was nearly empty, which was very unusual. I walked in, and the place was dead. Dario heard the door ring and came over immediately, looking disappointed that I wasn’t an actual customer. He was wearing a polo shirt with the store’s logo on it and a pair of khaki shorts. It was the first time I had seen him wearing a name tag.
“Two of my staff quit this morning.” He waved his arm to encompass the empty aisles of clothing, the fact that no one was looking at surfboards or trying on sunglasses. “Look at this place. My business is going down the toilet.”
“It’s just a momentary panic. A couple of days will pass, and people will start filtering back up here.”
“Yeah, a couple of days like this and I won’t be able to pay my bills.” He stalked away toward his office, and I headed over to the cafe, where I settled down with my laptop. There were only about half a dozen other people in the entire building, most of them employees, so it was unnaturally quiet, the sound of Keola Beamer and his slack key guitar echoing off the surfboard displays.
I logged on to the Advertiser’s web site, and read their follow-up story on the shootings, which agreed with what I’d seen-that people were scared and leaving the North Shore.
The media reports, as usual, distorted things; Brad became a surfer, too, though I knew he’d never stepped on a board. Tommy became a budding champion, though he’d never actually entered a competition, much less won one.
I was getting ready to leave when Dario came over and sat down in the armchair catty-cornered to mine. We were the only people in the lounge area, besides the barista, who was across the room cleaning the cappuccino machine. “Listen, I was out of line yesterday,” he said. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“It’s okay.”
“I guess I always had a little crush on you, you know?” He crossed his legs and his khaki shorts rode up on his thighs. His legs were strong, slim and tanned. He’d put some muscle on in the last ten years, but not much fat. If it wasn’t for the worried look in his eyes or the bags underneath them, he’d be considered pretty handsome.
“I didn’t know, but I’m flattered.”
“Since that time, I’ve thought about what happened between us, at the beach. I think what I was trying to do was pull you out of the closet so that we could be together.” He shrugged. “It had the opposite effect. I pushed you even farther in, and you left, and I lost any chance of a relationship with you.”
Dario was starting to creep me out. Back when we were surfing, I always just considered him a friend. I knew he was gay, because he didn’t try and hide it, but I wasn’t attracted to him. I had no idea he had such feelings about me.
“Anyway, seeing you here again, I just went a little crazy. I hope you can forgive me. I really want us to be friends.”
I sat up a bit in my chair, pulling my legs in. “Sure, Dario. Friends are good. I’ve decided, I’m going to be celibate for a while, you know? Just try and keep my zipper closed and stay out of any more trouble.”
Until I solved these murders, I almost said, but I held back.
“I’ll have to see if I can change your mind,” he said, leaning forward a bit. “Gently, though. No more full frontal attacks.”
“Okay.”
The front door bell rang, and like one of Pavlov’s dogs, Dario jumped up, hoping it was a customer. I used that opportunity to leave The Next Wave.
I must still be giving off some kind of closeted vibe, I thought. Some lost gay boy thing that attracted first Dario, then Brad, then George and Larry. I’ve always thought of myself as ordinary, not movie-star handsome or anything. Nothing that would attract all these guys who seemed to find me irresistible. I’ve been lucky enough to get the best features of my gene pool, starting with a tall, lean physique that I keep in shape with surfing, roller blading, swimming, and any other kind of exercise that strikes my fancy.
I have just enough of an Asiatic look to my eyes to make me exotic, skin just a shade darker than average, so I always look like I have a really good tan, and glossy black hair that I keep cut short. I think I give off a masculine vibe, which gay men seem to find attractive.
Whatever it was, I had never had trouble arousing sexual interest, either in girls, back when I was pretending to be straight, or now with guys. Sometimes it was more of a pain than it was worth. Like now, with Dario.
I drove around Hale’iwa for a while, stopping wherever I saw people gathered, trying to make conversation, but I didn’t learn anything new, just that these last murders, and the publicity that connected them to the first three, had people running scared.
I picked up some groceries and a six-pack of Kona Fire Rock Pale Ale at Fujioka’s and retreated to my house in the hills. I popped the first of the Pipeline tapes Lui had brought into the VCR and settled back to watch some surfing.
They were good quality, and the surfers were excellent. I saw Mike Pratt catch a couple of great waves, and a roving reporter interviewed Lucie Zamora. She was pretty and charming and both her skimpy bikini and the camera emphasized her physical attributes. Seeing both of them there was kind of spooky, knowing that they had been so alive and happy once.
I went out to the small back yard and fired up the gleaming stainless barbecue, a huge, free-standing model I’d seen advertised for close to a thousand dollars. When the coals were glowing red, I put a steak on, along with some sliced peppers and a big Idaho potato I’d pre-baked in the microwave.
Pretty soon I had a great meal-just no one to share it with. I popped open another beer and went back to the TV. I watched the rest of the tapes, nearly four hours worth. I thought I saw Ronald Chang in the background a couple of times, but I couldn’t be sure. But having seen the tapes, I wasn’t sure what I’d hoped to learn from them. At least I had definite proof that both Mike and Lucie had been at Mexpipe, and I felt more connected to both of them after seeing them on tape.
I turned on my laptop and sent an email to Sampson, filling him on what I’d learned from the tapes as well as my interview with Ruiz and Kawamoto. “Can you let me know when ballistics comes in?” I wrote. “Obviously I want to know if there’s a match to the gun used in the other cases. If it doesn’t match I’m sure they’re going to waste a lot more time looking at me.”
I’d just finished sending the email when my cell phone rang, a call from Terri. “I’m coming up to the North Shore tomorrow,” she said. “Will you have some time for me?”
“You’ll be heading the wrong direction. Everybody up here is leaving town. Freaked out by the murders.”
“I won’t get on a board,” she said dryly. “I’m sure I’ll be safe, especially if I’m with you.”
“I wouldn’t count on that. Look what happened to Brad.”
“Brad was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” she said. “That’s what the newspapers and the TV say. That is, when they don’t say he was a surfer.”
“My time is your time,” I said. “I’ve just got surfing and investigating five murders on my agenda.”
“I won’t be up there til noon. Want to meet me for lunch?”
We agreed to meet at Rosie’s Cantina at noon, and hung up. I was pretty beat, but I had trouble getting to sleep. I kept thinking of Brad, wondering if it would have made a difference if I’d tracked him down at Sugar’s. I must have dozed off eventually, because I woke to find a few rosy fingers of light coming in through the bedroom window. I got up, checked for bruises, and took a quick shower before heading down to Pipeline.
In the fifteen or more years I had been surfing there, I had never seen it so empty when the waves were high. It was almost spooky, sharing such a great beach with only a half dozen other surfers. The police had taken away the yellow cones around the hollow where the bodies had been, and I couldn’t even identify that patch of sand again.