My Dinner With Al

Harry had to load up his car himself, because though I didn’t want to, I had to jump in the shower, then throw on an aloha shirt and khaki shorts. We told each other to take care, and I promised to call him the next day after my meeting with Sampson. “You think you’ll stay in town, or come back up here?”

“I should see my parents. I’ll probably stay at my place tomorrow night.” We gave each other shakas and hit the road.

It was probably forty-five minutes before I made it to the Surfrider, and Al Kawamoto was just starting his third beer.

I sat down across from him. “So what’s so important?”

“I didn’t know who else to go to,” he said.

I’d been getting attitude from Kawamoto for days, and I was in the mood to give him some back. “Al. Don’t tell me you’re really gay and you’ve been in the closet all this time.”

He gave me the dirtiest of dirty looks. “All right. I’m here. I’m listening. Talk.”

“Me and Kevin, we’ve been partners for six years. He’s a stand-up guy. Jesus, I hate this.”

My sensors started to go off. “Hate what, Al?”

“Maybe I’m just crazy. But I don’t want to jam Kevin up if I’m wrong.”

Al Kawamoto looked genuinely anguished. I had to figure he wasn’t happy about having to come to me—from day one, he hadn’t been my biggest fan. So what he had to say had to be that much more important, for him to overcome his dislike of me.

“You’re a cop, Al. You know you can’t make accusations without evidence. So lay the evidence out for me.”

He took a long sip of his beer—Dutch courage, my father called it. “We caught that first murder, the guy, Pratt. One of his buddies told me he thought Pratt had gotten mixed up in some kind of drug deal. I brought it to Kevin, he pooh-poohed it. ‘The guy’s a straight arrow,’ he said.” He looked up at me. “No offense.”

“None taken,” I said. “Your partner was right. Pratt was a good guy. Everybody liked him. Didn’t fit the profile of a guy mixed up in drugs.”

“Nope.”

I took a sip of my beer and considered. “Except for the fact that surfing’s an expensive hobby. If you don’t win tournaments you don’t get sponsors and you’ve got to come up with all the cash yourself for equipment, entry fees, travel, all that stuff. Pratt taught surfing on the side, but you’ve got to give a lot of lessons to make any real money.”

“That was what I thought, but Kevin, he wouldn’t listen. Finally I gave up.”

“Okay. What else?”

“Same thing with the girl. We started hearing rumors she was a dealer. Even connected her to that surf shop where she used to work, The Next Wave.”

“I heard those same rumors, you know.”

He nodded. “We couldn’t connect Pratt to the girl except through ballistics. Some reason, Kevin didn’t want to explore the drug angle. And I have to say I didn’t push as hard as I could have.”

“Hey, I’ve had partners. It’s a give and take.”

He finished his beer. “You ready for another round?”

“I’m still working on this one. And why don’t you get a burger or something, Al? You don’t want to let the beer get too far ahead of you.”

He called a waiter over and we both ordered burgers. He ordered another beer, too, but I noticed he started taking that one more slowly.

“So far, Al, you haven’t got much to worry about. Kevin didn’t want to follow a couple of leads, well, maybe he thought they were a waste of time. Can’t argue with a judgment call.” I looked at him. “Do you think he’s using something himself?”

He looked up at the thatched roof above us. We were in a glorified tiki hut, a couple of big poles holding up the sloping roof, only a few other high-topped tables around us. A pretty private area, even when the rest of the place was busy. That night, only about half the tables were filled.

It was clear he didn’t want to answer that question, but I waited. Finally he said, “I think so.” That admission seemed to take something out of him, and his whole body sagged.

“Why?” I asked gently.

“His moods have been all over the place, and he’s always complaining about money. And lately he’s been cagey sometimes, about where he’s going or where he’s been.”

Nothing was damning, but Al was a good detective. He’d been assembling small clues for a while. “Anything else?” I asked.

“He wouldn’t let me talk to Vice. Got all angry. Said he’d handle it. Like he didn’t trust me. That’s not like the old Kevin. Jesus, I was best man at his wedding.”

“You talk to Vice anyway?”

He looked down at the table. “Nope. I didn’t want them to get suspicious. I was thinking maybe you could.”

“Al, I’m undercover. Nobody’s supposed to know I’m working these cases. Not even you guys, until a couple days ago.”

His head popped up suddenly. “You think Sampson suspected something?”

I shrugged. “I know he was suspicious that you guys couldn’t come up with anything. Not surprising if it turns out Kevin was hiding stuff.”

“What can we do?” Al asked.

The waitress appeared with our burgers. “We can eat,” I said.

We ate in silence, and then finally I said, “I got called down to headquarters tomorrow for a meeting with Sampson.”

Fear immediately jumped into Al’s eyes. “You think he knows something?”

I shook my head. “I had the same suspicions about The Next Wave that you did, only I tried to ignore them because I know the guy who owns the place. We used to surf together years ago.” I figured that was all Al Kawamoto really needed to know about my relationship with Dario. “I finally emailed Sampson what I was thinking.” I took a drink of my beer. “Plus somebody shot at me yesterday at Pipeline.”

“Jesus!” Al dropped his fork on the laminated table.

“Probably wasn’t him shooting at me,” I said. “I’m sure he could use thunderbolts or a plague of frogs or something. I found a couple of shell casings on the beach; I’m taking them with me.”

“Are you going to tell Sampson about Kevin?”

“What do you want me to do? He’s your partner.”

Al didn’t say anything for a while. I could only imagine how he was feeling; a partnership is like a marriage in many ways, and you cover for each other, you support each other… but that only goes so far, and I could see Al knew it.

“You gotta tell him.” He reached down to the floor and picked up a briefcase he’d brought in with him. Opening it, he pulled out a file folder. “Copies of everything we found. You can read between the lines, you’ll see what Kevin didn’t want to follow up. You can point that out to Sampson.”

That must have been hard for him, photocopying that file on Sunday afternoon, knowing exactly what he was going to have to do with it. I was starting to feel sorry for Al—and I hate it when somebody I don’t like starts to get me on his side.

We finished dinner, and Al picked up the check. “No arguments,” he said.

“All right.” I took the file back home with me to Cane Landing and read it over, and then read it through a second time, taking notes. I already knew almost everything in it; what I was interested in was what Ruiz knew when, and what he chose to ignore.

It was almost eleven when I closed the folder and went to sleep.