Chapter 3

Several minutes passed before Brody felt well enough to stand, walk back to his car, and call for an ambulance from the Southampton Hospital, and it was almost an hour before the ambulance arrived and the truncated corpse was stuffed into a rubber bag and hauled away.

By eleven o'clock, Brody was back in his office, filling out forms about the accident. He had completed everything but "cause of death" when the phone rang.

"Carl Santos, Martin," said the voice of the coroner.

"Yeah, Carl. What have you got for me?"

"Unless you have any reason to suspect a murder, I'd have to say shark."

"Murder?" said Brody.

"I'm not suggesting anything. All I mean is that it's conceivable --just barely

--that some nut could have done this job on the girl with an ax and a saw."

"I don't think it's a murder, Carl. I've got no motive, no murder weapons, and --unless I want to go off into left field --no suspect."

"Then it's a shark. And a big bastard, too. Even the screw on an ocean liner wouldn't have done this. It might have cut her in two, but..."

"Okay, Carl," said Brody. "Spare me the gore. My stomach's none too hot already."

"Sorry, Martin. Anyway, I'm going to put down shark attack. I'd say that makes the most sense for you too, unless there are... you know... other considerations."

"No," said Brody. "Not this time. Thanks for calling, Carl." He hung up, typed

"shark attack" in the "cause of death" space on the forms, and leaned back in his chair. The possibility that "other considerations" might be involved in this case hadn't occurred to Brody. Those considerations were the touchiest part of Brody's job, forcing him constantly to assess the best means of protecting the common wealth without compromising either himself or the law.

It was the beginning of the summer season, and Brody knew that on the success or failure of those twelve brief weeks rested the fortunes of Amity for a whole year. A rich season meant prosperity enough to carry the town through the lean winter. The winter population of Amity was about 1,000; in a good summer the population jumped to nearly 10,000. And those 9,000 summer visitors kept the 1,000 permanent residents alive for the whole year.

Merchants --from the owners of the hardware store and the sporting goods store and the two gas stations to the local pharmacist --needed a boom summer to support them through the winter, during which they never broke even. The wives of carpenters, electricians, and plumbers worked during the summer as waitresses or real estate agents, to help keep their families going over the winter. There were only two year-round liquor licenses in Amity, so the twelve weeks of summer were critical to most of the restaurants and pubs. Charter fishermen needed every break they could get: good weather, good file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt (10 of 131) [1/18/2001 2:02:21 AM]

file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt fishing, and, above all, crowds.

Even after the best of summers, Amity winters were rough. Three of every ten families went on relief. Dozens of men were forced to move for the winter to the north shore of Long Island, where they scratched for work shucking scallops for a few dollars a day.

Brody knew that one bad summer would nearly double the relief rolls. If every house was not rented, there wouldn't be enough work for Amity's blacks, most of whom were gardeners, butlers, bartenders, and maids. And two or three bad summers in a row --a circumstance that, fortunately, hadn't occurred in more than two decades --could create

a cycle that could wreck the town. If people didn't have enough money to buy clothes or gas or ample food supplies, if they couldn't afford to have their houses or their appliances

repaired, then the merchants and service firms would fail to make enough to tide them over until the next summer. They would close down, and Amity's citizens would start shopping elsewhere. The town would lose tax revenue. Municipal services would deteriorate, and people would begin to move away.

So there was a common, though tacit, understanding in Amity, born of the need to survive. Everyone was expected to do his bit to make sure that Amity remained a desirable summer community. A few years ago, Brody remembered, a young man and his brother had moved into town and set themselves up as carpenters. They came in the spring, when there was enough work preparing houses for summer residents to keep everyone busy, so they were welcomed. They seemed competent enough, and several established carpenters began to refer work to them.

But by midsummer, there were disquieting reports about the Felix Brothers. Albert Morris, the owner of Amity Hardware, let it be known that they were buying cheap steel nails instead of galvanized nails and were charging their customers for galvanized. In a seaside climate, steel nails begin to rust in a few months. Dick Spitzer,

who ran the lumberyard, told somebody that the Felixes had ordered a load of low-grade, green wood to use in some cabinets in a house on Scotch Road. The cabinet doors began to warp soon after they were installed. In a bar one night, the elder Felix, Armando, boasted to a drinking buddy that on his current job he was being paid to set supporting studs every sixteen inches but was actually placing them twenty-four inches apart. And the younger Felix, a twenty-one-year-old named Danny with a stubborn case of acne, liked to show his friends erotic books which he bragged he had stolen from the houses he worked in.

Other carpenters stopped referring work to the Felixes, but by then they had built enough of a business to keep them going through the winter. Very quietly, the Amity understanding began to work. At first, there were just a few hints to the Felixes that they

had outworn their welcome. Armando reacted arrogantly. Soon, annoying little mishaps began to bother him. All the tires on his truck would mysteriously empty themselves of air, and when he called for help from the Amity Gulf station, he was told that the air pump was broken. When he ran out of propane gas in his kitchen, the local gas company took eight days to deliver a new tank. His orders for lumber and other supplies were inexplicably mislaid or delayed. In stores where once he had been able to obtain credit he

was now forced to pay cash. By the end of October, the Felix Brothers were unable to function as a business, and they moved away.

Generally, Brody's contribution to the Amity understanding --in addition to maintaining the rule of law and sound judgment in the town --consisted of suppressing rumors and, in consultation with Harry Meadows, the editor of the Amity Leader, keeping a certain perspective on the rare unfortunate occurrences that qualified as news. The previous summer's rapes had been reported in the Leader, but just barely (as molestations), because Brody and Meadows agreed that the specter of a black rapist stalking every female in Amity wouldn't do much for the tourist trade. In that case, there

was the added problem that none of the women who had told the police they had been raped would repeat their stories to anyone else.

If one of the wealthier summer residents of Amity was arrested for drunken file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt (11 of 131) [1/18/2001 2:02:21 AM]

file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt driving, Brody was willing, on a first offense, to book him for driving without a license,

and that charge would be duly reported in the Leader. But Brody made sure to warn the driver that the second time he was caught driving under the influence he would be charged, booked, and prosecuted for drunk driving.

Brody's relationship with Meadows was based on a delicate balance. When groups of youngsters came to town from the Hamptons and caused trouble, Meadows was handed every fact --names, ages, and charges lodged. When Amity's own youth made too much noise at a party, the Leader usually ran a one-paragraph story without names or addresses, informing the public that the police had been called to quell a minor disturbance on, say, Old Mill Road.

Because several summer residents found it fun to subscribe to the Leader year-round, the matter of wintertime vandalism of summer houses was particularly sensitive. For years, Meadows had ignored it --leaving it to Brody to make sure that the homeowner was notified, the offenders punished, and the appropriate repairmen dispatched to the house. But in the winter of 1968 sixteen houses were vandalized within a few weeks. Brody and Meadows agreed that the time had come for a full campaign in the Leader against wintertime vandals. The result was the wiring of the forty-eight homes to the police station, which --since the public didn't know which houses were wired and which weren't --all but eliminated vandalism, made Brody's job much easier, and gave Meadows the image of a crusading editor.

Once in a while, Brody and Meadows collided. Meadows was a zealot against the use of narcotics. He was also a man with unusually keen reportorial antennae, and when he sensed a story --one not susceptible to "other considerations" --he would go after it

like a pig after truffles. In the summer of 1971 the daughter of one of Amity's richest families had died off the Scotch Road beach. To Brody, there was no evidence of foul play, and since the family opposed an autopsy, the death was officially listed as drowning.

But Meadows had reason to believe that the girl was on drugs and that she was being supplied by the son of a Polish potato farmer. It took Meadows almost two months to get the story, but in the end he forced an autopsy which proved that at the time she drowned the girl had been unconscious from an overdose of heroin. He also tracked down the pusher and exposed a fairly large drug ring operating in the Amity area. The story reflected badly on Amity and worse on Brody, who, because several federal violations were involved in the case, wasn't even able to redeem his earlier insouciance by making an arrest or two. And it won Meadows two regional journalism prizes. Now it was Brody's turn to press for full disclosure. He intended to close the beaches for a couple of days, to give the shark time to travel far from the Amity shoreline. He didn't know whether or not sharks could acquire a taste for human flesh (as he had heard tigers do), but he was determined to deprive the fish of any more people. This time he wanted publicity, to make people fear the water and stay away from it. Brody knew there would be a strong argument against publicizing the attack. Like the rest of the country, Amity was still feeling the effects of the recession. So far, the

summer was shaping up as a mediocre one. Rentals were up from last year, but they were not "good" rentals. Many were "groupers," bands of ten or fifteen young people who came from the city and split the rent on a big house. At least a dozen of the $7,000 -

$10,000-a-season shore-front houses had not yet been rented, and many more in the

$5,000 class were still without leases. Sensational reports of a shark attack might turn mediocrity into disaster.

Still, Brody thought, one death in mid-June, before the crowds come, would probably be quickly forgotten. Certainly it would have less effect than two or three more deaths would. The fish might well have disappeared already, but Brody wasn't willing to gamble lives on the possibility: the odds might be good, but the stakes were prohibitively

high.

He dialed Meadows' number. "Hey, Harry," he said. "Free for lunch?"

"I've been wondering when you'd call," said Meadows. "Sure. My place or yours?"

Suddenly Brody wished he hadn't called at mealtime. His stomach was still file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt (12 of 131) [1/18/2001 2:02:21 AM]

file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt groaning, and the thought of food nauseated him. He glanced up at the wall calendar. It was a Thursday. Like all their friends on fixed, tight incomes, the Brodys shopped according to the supermarket specials. Monday's special was chicken, Tuesday's lamb, and so forth through the week. As each item was consumed, Ellen would note it on her list and replace it the next week. The only variables were bluefish and bass, which were inserted in the menu when a friendly fisherman dropped his overage by the house. Thursday's special was hamburger, and Brody had seen enough chopped meat for one day.

"Yours," he said. "Why don't we order out from Cy's? We can eat in your office."

"Fine with me," said Meadows. "What do you want? I'll order now."

"Egg salad, I guess, and a glass of milk. I'll be right there." Brody called Ellen to

tell her he wouldn't be home for lunch.

Harry Meadows was an immense man, for whom the act of drawing breath was exertion enough to cause perspiration to dot his forehead. He was in his late forties, ate

too much, chain-smoked cheap cigars, drank bonded Bourbon, and was, in the words of his doctor, the Western world's leading candidate for a huge coronary infraction. When Brody arrived, Meadows was standing beside his desk, waving a towel at the open window. "In deference to what your lunch order tells me is a tender stomach," he said, "I am trying to clear the air of essence of White Owl."

"I appreciate that," said Brody. He glanced around the small, cluttered room, searching for a place to sit.

"Just throw that crap off the chair there," Meadows said. "They're just government

reports. Reports from the county, reports from the state, reports from the highway commission and the water commission. They probably cost about a million dollars, and from an informational point of view they don't amount to a cup of spit." Brody picked up the heap of papers and piled them atop a radiator. He pulled the chair next to Meadows' desk and sat down.

Meadows rooted around in a large brown paper bag, pulled out a plastic cup and a cellophane-wrapped sandwich, and slid them across the desk to Brody. Then he began to unwrap his own lunch, four separate packages which he opened and spread before himself with the loving care of a jeweler showing off rare gems: a meatball hero, oozing tomato sauce; a plastic carton filled with oily fried potatoes; a dill pickle the size of a

small squash; and a quarter of a lemon meringue pie. He reached behind his chair and from a small refrigerator withdrew a sixteen-ounce can of beer. "Delightful," he said with

a smile as he surveyed the feast before him.

"Amazing," said Brody, stifling an acid belch. "Absofuckinlutely amazing. I must have had about a thousand meals with you, Harry, but I still can't get used to it."

"Everyone has his little quirks, my friend," Meadows said as he lifted his sandwich. "Some people chase other people's wives. Some lose themselves in whiskey. I find my solace in nature's own nourishment."

"That'll be some solace to Dorothy when your heart says, 'That's enough, buster, adios.'"

"We've discussed that, Dorothy and I," said Meadows, filtering the words through a mouthful of bread and meat, "and we agree that one of the few advantages man has over other animals is the ability to choose the way to bring on his own death. Food may well kill me, but it's also what has made life such a pleasure. Besides, I'd rather go my way than end up in the belly of a shark. After this morning, I'm sure you'll agree." Brody was in the midst of swallowing a bite of egg salad sandwich, and he had to force it past a rising gag. "Don't do that to me," he said. They ate in silence for a few moments. Brody finished his sandwich and milk, wadded the sandwich wrapper and stuffed it into the plastic cup. He leaned back and lit a cigarette. Meadows was still eating, but Brody knew his appetite wouldn't be diminished by any discussion. He recalled a time when Meadows had visited the scene of a bloody automobile accident and proceeded to interview police and survivors while sucking on a coconut Popsicle.

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"About the Watkins thing," Brody said. "I have a couple of thoughts, if you want to hear them." Meadows nodded. "First, it seems to me that the cause of death is cut-anddried. I've already talked to Santos, and –“

"I did, too."

"So you know what he thinks. It was a shark attack, clear and simple. And if you'd

seen the body, you'd agree. There's just no --"

"I did see it."

Brody was astonished, mostly because he couldn't imagine how anyone who had seen that mess could be sitting there now, licking lemon-pie filling off his fingers. "So you agree?"

"Yes. I agree that's what killed her. But there are a few things I'm not so sure of."

"Like what?"

"Like why she was swimming at that time of night. Do you know what the temperature was at around midnight? Sixty. Do you know what the water temperature was? About fifty. You'd have to be out of your mind to go swimming under those conditions."

"Or drunk," said Brody, "which she probably was."

"Maybe. No, you're right --probably. I've checked around a little, and the Footes

don't mess with grass or mescaline or any of that stuff. There's one other thing that bothers me, though."

Brody was annoyed. "For Christ's sake, Harry, stop chasing shadows. Once in a while, people do die by accident."

"It's not that. It's just that it's damn funny that we've got a shark around here when

the water's still this cold."

"Is it? Maybe there are sharks who like cold water. Who knows about sharks?"

"There are some. There's the Greenland shark, but they never come down this far, and even if they did, they don't usually bother people. Who knows about sharks? I'll tell you this: At the moment I know a hell of a lot more about them than I did this morning. After I saw what was left of Miss Watkins, I called a young guy I know up at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. I described the body to him, and he said it's likely that only

one kind of shark would do a job like that."

"What kind?"

"A great white. There are others that attack people, like tigers and hammerheads and maybe even makos and blues, but this fellow Hooper --Matt Hooper --told me that to cut a woman in half like that you'd have to have a fish with a mouth like this" --he spread his hands about three feet apart --"and the only shark that grows that big and attacks people is the great white. There's another name for them."

"Oh?" Brody was beginning to lose interest. "What's that?"

"Man-eater. Other sharks kill people once in a while, for all sorts of reasons --hunger, maybe, or confusion or because they smell blood in the water. By the way, did the Watkins girl have her period last night?"

"How the hell would I know?"

"Just curious. Hooper said that's one way to guarantee yourself an attack if there's

a shark around."

"What did he say about the cold water?"

"That it's quite common for a great white to come into water this cold. Some years

ago, a boy was killed by one near San Francisco. The water temperature was fifty-seven." Brody sucked a long drag from his cigarette and said, "You've really done a lot of

checking into this, Harry."

"It seemed to me a matter of --shall we say --common sense and public interest to determine exactly what happened and the chances of it happening again."

"And did you determine those chances?"

"I did. They're almost nonexistent. From what I can gather, this was a real freak file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt (14 of 131) [1/18/2001 2:02:21 AM]

file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt accident. According to Hooper, the only thing good about great whites is that they're scarce. There's every reason to believe that the shark that attacked the Watkins girl is long

gone. There are no reefs around here. There's no fish-processing plant or slaughterhouse that dumps blood or guts into the water. So there's nothing at all to keep the shark interested." Meadows paused and looked at Brody, who returned his gaze silently. "So it seems to me, Martin, that there's no reason to get the public all upset over something that's almost sure not to happen again."

"That's one way to look at it, Harry. Another is that since it's not likely to happen

again, there's no harm in telling people that it did happen this once." Meadows sighed. "Journalistically, you may be right. But I think this is one of those times, Martin, when we have to forget the book and think of what's best for the people. I don't think it would be in the public interest to spread this around. I'm not thinking about the townspeople. They'll know about it soon enough, the ones that don't know already. But what about the people who read the Leader in New York or Philadelphia or Cleveland?"

"You flatter yourself."

"Balls. You know what I mean. And you know what the real estate situation is like around here this summer. We're right on the edge, and other places are, too, like Nantucket and the Vineyard and East Hampton. There are people who still haven't made their summer plans. They know they've got their pick of places this year. There's no shortage of houses for rent... anywhere. If I run a story saying that a young woman was bitten in two by a monster shark off Amity, there won't be another house rented in this town. Sharks are like ax-murderers, Martin. People react to them with their guts. There's something crazy and evil and uncontrollable about them. If we tell people there's a killer

shark around here, we can kiss the summer good-by."

Brody nodded. "I can't argue with that, Harry, and I don't want to tell the people

that there is a killer shark around here. Look at it from my point of view, just for a second. I won't dispute your odds or anything. You're probably right. That shark has probably gone a hundred miles from here and won't ever show up again. The most dangerous thing out there in the water is probably the undertow. But, Harry, there's a chance you're wrong, and I don't think we can take that chance. Suppose --just suppose

--we don't say a word, and somebody else gets hit by that fish. What then? My ass is in a sling. I'm supposed to protect people around here, and if I can't protect them from something, the least I can do is warn them that there is a danger. Your ass is in a sling,

too. You're supposed to report the news, and there's just no question but that someone killed by a shark is news. I want you to run the story, Harry. I want to close the beaches,

just for a couple of days, and just for insurance sake. It won't be a great inconvenience to

anybody. There aren't that many people here yet, and the water's cold. If we tell it straight, tell people what happened and why we're doing what we're doing, I think we'll be way ahead."

Meadows sat back in his chair and thought for a moment. "I can't speak for your job, Martin, but as far as mine is concerned, the decision has already been made."

"What does that mean?"

"There won't be any story about the attack in the Leader."

"Just like that."

"Well, not exactly. It wasn't entirely my decision, though I think that generally I

agree with it. I'm the editor of this paper, Martin, and I own a piece of it, but not a big

enough piece to buck certain pressures."

"Such as?"

"I've gotten six phone calls already this morning. Five were from advertisers --one restaurant, one hotel, two real estate firms, and an ice cream shop. They were most file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt (15 of 131) [1/18/2001 2:02:21 AM]

file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt anxious to know whether or not I planned to run a story on the Watkins thing, and most anxious to let me know they felt Amity would best be served by letting the whole thing fade quietly away. The sixth call was from Mr. Coleman in New York. Mr. Coleman who owns fifty-five per cent of the Leader. It seems Mr. Coleman had received a few phone calls himself. He told me there would be no story in the Leader."

"I don't suppose he said whether the fact that his wife is a real estate broker had

anything to do with his decision."

"No," said Meadows. "The subject never came up."

"Figures. Well, Harry, where does that leave us? You're not going to run a story, so as far as the good readers of the Leader are concerned, nothing ever happened. I'm going to close the beaches and put up a few signs saying why."

"Okay, Martin. That's your decision. But let me remind you of something. You're an elected official, right?"

"Just like the President. For four thrill-filled years."

"Elected officials can be impeached."

"Is that a threat, Harry?"

Meadows smiled. "You know better than that. Besides, who am I to be making threats? I just want you to be aware of what you're doing before you tinker with the lifeblood of all those sage and discriminating souls who elected you." Brody rose to go. "Thanks, Harry. I've always heard it's lonely here at the top. What do I owe you for lunch?"

"Forget it. I couldn't take money from a man whose family will soon be begging for food stamps."

Brody laughed. "No way. Haven't you heard? The great thing about police work is the security."

Ten minutes after Brody returned to his office, the intercom buzzer sounded and a voice announced, "The mayor's here to see you, Chief." Brody smiled. The mayor. Not Larry Vaughan, just calling to check in. Not Lawrence Vaughan of Vaughan & Penrose Real Estate, stopping by to complain about some noisy tenants. But Mayor Lawrence P. Vaughan, the people's choice --by seventyone votes in the last election. "Send his honor in," Brody said. Larry Vaughan was a handsome man, in his early fifties, with a full head of saltand-pepper hair and a body kept trim by exercise. Though he was a native of Amity, over the years he had developed an air of understated chic. He had made a great deal of money in postwar real estate speculation in Amity, and he was the senior partner (some thought the only partner, since no one had ever met or spoken to anyone named Penrose in Vaughan's office) in the most successful agency in town. He dressed with elegant simplicity, in timeless British jackets, button-down shirts, and Weejun loafers. Unlike Ellen Brody, who had descended from summer folk to winter folk and was unable to make the adjustment, Vaughan had ascended smoothly from winter folk to summer folk, adjusting each step of the way with grace. He was not one of them, for he was technically a local merchant, so he was never asked to visit them in New York or Palm Beach. But in Amity he moved freely among all but the most aloof members of the summer community, which, of course, did an immense amount of good for his business. He was asked to most of the important summer parties, and he always arrived alone. Very few of his friends knew that he had a wife at home, a simple, adoring woman who spent much of her time doing needlepoint in front of her television set.

Brody liked Vaughan. He didn't see much of him during the summer, but after Labor Day, when things calmed down, Vaughan felt free to shed some of his social scales, and every few weeks he and his wife would ask Brody and Ellen out to dinner at one of the better restaurants in the Hamptons. The evenings were special treats for Ellen,

and that in itself was enough to make Brody happy. Vaughan seemed to understand Ellen. He always acted most graciously, treating Ellen as a clubmate and comrade. Vaughn walked into Brody's office and sat down. "I just talked to Harry Meadows," he said.

Vaughan was obviously upset, which interested Brody. He hadn't expected this reaction.

"I see," he said. "Harry doesn't waste any time." file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt (16 of 131) [1/18/2001 2:02:21 AM]

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"Where are you going to get the authority to close the beaches?"

"Are you asking me as the mayor or as a real estate broker or out of friendly interest or what, Larry?"

Vaughan pressed, and Brody could see he was having trouble controlling his temper. "I want to know where you're going to get the authority. I want to know now."

"Officially, I'm not sure I have it," Brody said. "There's something in the code that

says I can take whatever actions I deem necessary in the event of an emergency, but I think the selectmen have to declare a state of emergency. I don't imagine you want to go through all that rigmarole."

"Not a chance."

"Well, then, unofficially I figure it's my responsibility to keep the people who live

here as safe as I can, and at the moment it's my judgment that that means closing the beaches for a couple of days. If it ever came down to cases, I'm not sure I could arrest anyone for going swimming. Unless," Brody smiled, "I could make a case of criminal stupidity."

Vaughan ignored the remark. "I don't want you to close the beaches," he said.

"So I see."

"You know why. The Fourth of July isn't far off, and that's the make-or-break weekend. We'd be cutting our own throats."

"I know the argument, and I'm sure you know my reasons for wanting to close the beaches. It's not as if I have anything to gain."

"No. I'd say quite the opposite is true. Look, Martin, this town doesn't need that

kind of publicity."

"It doesn't need any more people killed, either."

"Nobody else is going to get killed, for God's sake. All you'd be doing by closing

the beaches is inviting a lot of reporters to come snooping around where they don't have any business."

"So? They'd come out here, and when they didn't find anything worth reporting, they'd go home again. I don't imagine the New York Times has much interest in covering a lodge picnic or a garden-club supper."

"We just don't need it. Suppose they did find something. There'd be a big to-do that couldn't do anybody any good."

"Like what, Larry? What could they find out? I don't have anything to hide. Do you?"

"No, of course not. I was just thinking about... maybe the rapes. Something unsavory."

"Crap," said Brody. "That's all past history."

"Dammit, Martin!" Vaughan paused for a moment, struggling to calm himself.

"Look, if you won't listen to reason, will you listen to me as a friend? I'm under a lot of

pressure from my partners. Something like this could be very bad for us." Brody laughed. "That's the first time I've heard you admit you had partners, Larry.

I thought you ran that shop like an emperor."

Vaughan was embarrassed, as if he felt he had said too much. "My business is very complicated," he said. "There are times I'm not sure I understand what's going on. Do me this favor. This once."

Brody looked at Vaughan, trying to fathom his motives. "I'm sorry, Larry, I can't.

I wouldn't be doing my job."

"If you don't listen to me," said Vaughan, "you may not have your job much longer."

"You haven't got any control over me. You can't fire any cop in this town."

"Not off the force, no. But believe it or not, I do have discretion over the job of

chief of police."

"I don't believe it."

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file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt From his jacket pocket Vaughan took a copy of the corporate charter of the town of Amity. "You can read it yourself," he said, flipping through until he found the page he

sought. "It's right here." He handed the pamphlet across the desk to Brody. "What it says,

in effect, is that even though you were elected to the chief's job by the people, the selectmen have the power to remove you."

Brody read the paragraph Vaughan had indicated. "I guess you're right," he said.

"But I'd love to see what you put down for 'good and sufficient cause.'"

"I dearly hope it doesn't come to that, Martin. I had hoped this conversation wouldn't even get this far. I had hoped that you would go along, once you knew how I and the selectmen felt."

"All the selectmen?"

"A majority."

"Like who?"

"I'm not going to sit here and name names for you. I don't have to. All you have to

know is that I have the board behind me, and if you won't do what's right, we'll put someone in your job who will."

Brody had never seen Vaughan in a mood so aggressively ugly. He was fascinated, but he was also slightly shaken. "You really want this, don't you, Larry?"

"I do." Sensing victory, Vaughan said evenly, "Trust me, Martin. You won't be sorry."

Brody sighed. "Shit," he said. "I don't like it. It doesn't smell good. But okay, if

it's that important."

"It's that important." For the first time since he had arrived, Vaughan smiled.

"Thanks, Martin," he said, and he stood up. "Now I have the rather unpleasant task of visiting the Footes."

"How are you going to keep them from shooting off their mouths to the Times or the News?"

"I hope to be able to appeal to their public-spiritedness," Vaughan said, "just as I

appealed to yours."

"Bull."

"We do have one thing going for us. Miss Watkins was a nobody. She was a drifter. No family, no close friends. She said she had hitchhiked East from Idaho. So she won't be missed."

Brody arrived home a little before five. His stomach had settled down enough to permit him a beer or two before dinner. Ellen was in the kitchen, still dressed in the pink

uniform of a hospital volunteer. Her hands were immersed in chopped meat, kneading it into a meat loaf.

"Hello," she said, turning her head so Brody could plant a kiss on her cheek.

"What was the crisis?"

"You were at the hospital. You didn't hear?"

"No. Today was bathe-the-old-ladies day. I never got off the Ferguson wing."

"A girl got killed off Old Mill."

"By what?"

"A shark." Brody reached into the refrigerator and found a beer. Ellen stopped kneading meat and looked at him. "A shark! I've never heard of that around here. You see one once in a while, but they never do anything."

"Yeah, I know. It's a first for me, too."

"So what are you going to do?"

"Nothing."

"Really? Is that sensible? I mean, isn't there anything you can do?"

"Sure, there are some things I could do. Technically. But there's nothing I can actually do. What you and I think doesn't carry much weight around here. The powersthat-be are worried that it won't look nice if we get all excited just because one stranger

file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt (18 of 131) [1/18/2001 2:02:21 AM]

file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt got killed by a fish. They're willing to take the chance that it was just a freak accident that

won't happen again. Or, rather, they're willing to let me take the chance, since it's my responsibility."

"What do you mean, the powers-that-be?"

"Larry Vaughn, for one."

"Oh. I didn't realize you had talked to Larry."

"He came to see me as soon as he heard I planned to dose the beaches. He wasn't what you'd call subtle about telling me he didn't want the beaches closed. He said he'd have my job if I did dose them."

"I can't believe that, Martin. Larry isn't like that."

"I didn't think so, either. Hey, by the way, what do you know about his partners?"

"In the business? I didn't think there were any. I thought Penrose was his middle name, or something like that. Anyway, I thought he owned the whole thing."

"So did I. But apparently not."

"Well, it makes me feel better to know you talked to Larry before you made any decision. He tends to take a wider, more over-all view of things than most people. He probably does know what's best."

Brody felt the blood rise in his neck. He said simply, "Crap." Then he tore the metal tab off his beer can, flipped it into the garbage can, and walked into the living room

to turn on the evening news.

From the kitchen Ellen called, "I forgot to tell you: you had a call a little while

ago."

"Who from?"

"He didn't say. He just said to tell you you're doing a terrific lob. It was nice of

him to call, don't you think?"