Chapter 5
Thursday morning was foggy --a wet ground fog so thick that it had a taste: sharp and salty. People drove under the speed limit, with their lights on. Around midday, the fog lifted, and puffy cumulus clouds maundered across the sky beneath a high blanket of cirrus. By five in the afternoon, the cloud cover had begun to disintegrate, like pieces fallen from a jigsaw puzzle. Sunlight streaked through the gaps, stabbing shining patches of blue onto the gray-green surface of the sea.
Brody sat on the public beach, his elbows resting on his knees to steady the binoculars in his hands. When he lowered the glasses, he could barely see the boat --a white speck that disappeared and reappeared in the ocean swells. The strong lenses drew it into plain, though jiggly, view. Brody had been sitting there for nearly an hour. He tried
to push his eyes, to extend his vision from within to delineate more clearly the outline of
what he saw. He cursed and let the glasses drop and hang by the strap around his neck.
"Hey, Chief," Hendricks said, walking up to Brody.
"Hey, Leonard. What are you doing here?"
"I was just passing by and I saw your car. What are you doing?"
"Trying to figure out what the hell Ben Gardner's doing."
"Fishing, don't you think?"
"That's what he's being paid to do, but it's the damnedest fishing I ever saw. I've
been here an hour, and I haven't seen anything move on that boat."
"Can I take a look?" Brody handed him the glasses. Hendricks raised them and looked out at sea. "Nope, you're right. How long has he been out there?"
"All day, I think. I talked to him last night, and he said he'd be taking off at six
this morning."
"Did he go alone?"
"I don't know. He said he was going to try to get hold of his mate --Danny what's-his-name --but there was something about a dentist appointment. I hope to hell he didn't go alone."
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"You want to go see? We've got at least two more hours of daylight."
"How do you plan to get out there?"
"I'll borrow Chickering's boat. He's got an AquaSport with an eighty-horse Evinrude on it. That'll get us out there."
Brody felt a shimmy of fear skitter up his back. He was a very poor swimmer, and the prospect of being on top of --let alone in --water above his head gave him what his mother used to call the wimwams: sweaty palms, a persistent need to swallow, and an ache in his stomach --essentially the sensation some people feel about flying. In Brody's
dreams, deep water was populated by slimy, savage things that rose from below and shredded his flesh, by demons that cackled and moaned. "Okay," he said. "I don't guess we've got much choice. Maybe by the time we get to the dock he'll already have started in. You go get the boat ready. I'll stop off at headquarters and give his wife a call... see if
he's called in on the radio."
Amity's town dock was small, with only twenty slips, a fuel dock, and a wooden shack where hot dogs and fried clams were sold in cardboard sleeves. The slips were in a little inlet protected from the open sea by a stone jetty that ran across half the width of the
inlet's mouth. Hendricks was standing in the AquaSport, the engine running, and he was chatting with a man in a twenty-five-foot cabin cruiser tied up in the neighboring slip. Brody walked along the wooden pier and climbed down the short ladder into the boat.
"What did she say?" asked Hendricks.
"Not a word. She's been trying to raise him for half an hour, but she figures he must have turned off the radio."
"Is he alone?"
"As far as she knows. His mate had an impacted wisdom tooth that had to be taken out today."
The man in the cabin cruiser said, "If you don't mind my saying so, that's pretty strange."
"What is?" said Brody.
"To turn off your radio when you're out alone. People don't do that."
"I don't know. Ben always bitches about all the chatter that goes on between boats
when he's out fishing. Maybe he got bored and turned it off."
"Maybe."
"Let's go, Leonard," said Brody. "Do you know how to drive this thing?" Hendricks cast off the bow line, walked to the stern, uncleated the stern line, and
tossed it onto the deck. He moved to the control console and pushed a knobbed handle forward. The boat lurched ahead, chugging. Hendricks pushed the handle farther forward, and the engine fired more regularly. The stern settled back, the bow rose. As they made the turn around the jetty, Hendricks pushed the lever all the way forward, and the bow dropped down.
"Planing," said Hendricks.
Brody grabbed a steel handle on the side of the console. "Are there any life jackets?" he asked.
"Just the cushions," said Hendricks. "They'd hold you up all right, if you were an
eight-year-old boy."
"Thanks."
What breeze there had been had died, and there was little chop to the sea. But there were small swells, and the boat took them roughly, smacking its prow into each one, recovering with a shudder that unnerved Brody. "This thing's gonna break apart if you don't slow down," he said.
Hendricks smiled, relishing his moment of command. "No worry, Chief. If I slow down, we'll wallow. It'll take us a week to get out there, and your stomach will feel like
it's full of squirrels."
Gardner's boat was about three quarters of a mile from shore. As they drew nearer, Brody could see it bobbing gently in the swells. He could even make out the black file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt (33 of 131) [1/18/2001 2:02:22 AM]
file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt letters on the transom: FLICKA.
"He's anchored," said Hendricks. "Boy, that's some lot of water to anchor a boat in. We must have more than a hundred feet out here."
"Swell," Brody said. "That's just what I wanted to hear." When they were about fifty yards from the Flicka, Hendricks throttled down, and the boat settled into a slow side-to-side roll. They closed quickly. Brody walked forward and mounted a platform in the bow. He saw no signs of life. There were no rods in the rod-holders. "Hey, Ben!" he called. There was no reply.
"Maybe he's below," said Hendricks.
Brody called again, "Hey, Ben!" The bow of the AquaSport was only a few feet from the port quarter of the Flicka. Hendricks pushed the handle into neutral, then gave it
a quick burst of reverse. The AquaSport stopped and, on the next swell, nestled up against the Flicka's gunwale. Brody gabbed the gunwale. "Hey, Ben!" Hendricks took a line from the lazaret, walked forward, and made it fast to a cleat
on the bow of the AquaSport. He looped the line over the railing of the other boat and tied a crude knot. "You want to go on board?" he said.
"Yeah." Brody climbed aboard the Flicka. Hendricks followed, and they stood in the cockpit. Hendricks poked his head through the forward hatch. "You in there, Ben?" He looked around, withdrew his head, and said, "Not there."
"He's not on board," said Brody. "No two ways about it."
"What's that stuff?" said Hendricks, pointing to a bucket in the corner of the stern.
Brody walked to the bucket and bent down. A stench of fish and oil filled his nose. The bucket was full of guts and blood. "Must be chum," he said. "Fish guts and other shit. You spread it around in the water and it's supposed to attract sharks. He didn't
use much of it. The bucket's almost full."
A sudden noise made Brody jump. "Whiskey, zebra, echo, two, five, niner," said a voice crackling over the radio. "This is the Pretty Belle. You there, Jake?"
"So much for that theory," said Brody. "He never turned off his radio."
"I don't get it, Chief. There are no rods. He didn't carry a dinghy, so he couldn't
have rowed away. He swam like a fish, so if he fell overboard he would've just climbed back on."
"You see a harpoon anywhere?"
"What's it look like?"
"I don't know. Like a harpoon. And barrels. Supposedly, you use them as floats."
"I don't see anything like that."
Brody stood at the starboard gunwale, gazing into the middle distance. The boat moved slightly, and he steadied himself with his right hand. He felt something strange and looked down. There were four ragged screw holes where a cleat had been. The screws had obviously not been removed by a screwdriver; the wood around the holes was torn. "Look at this, Leonard."
Hendricks ran his hand over the holes. He looked to the port side, where a teninch steel cleat still sat securely on the wood. "You imagine that what was here was as big as the one over there?" he said. "Jesus, what would it take to pull that mother out?"
"Look here, Leonard." Brody ran his index finger over the outer edge of the gunwale. There was a sear about eight inches long, where the paint had been scraped away and the wood abraded. "It looks like someone took a file to this wood."
"Or else rubbed the hell out of it with an awful tight piece of heavy rope." Brody walked over to the port side of the cockpit and, aimlessly, began to feel his
way along the outer edge of the gunwale. "That's the only place," he said. When he reached the stern, he leaned on the gunwale and gazed down into the water. For a moment, he stared dumbly at the transom, unseeing. Then a pattern began to take shape, a pattern of holes, deep gouges in the wooden transom, forming a rough semicircle more than three feet across. Next to it was another, similar pattern. And at the
bottom of the transom, just at the water line, three short smears of blood. Please, God, file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt (34 of 131) [1/18/2001 2:02:22 AM]
file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt thought Brody, not another one. "Come here, Leonard," he said. Hendricks walked to the stern and looked over. "What?"
"If I hold your legs, you think you can lean over and take a look at those holes down there and try to figure out what made them?"
"What do you think made them?"
"I don't know. But something. I want to find out what. Come on. If you can't dope it out in a minute or two, we'll forget about it and go home. Okay?"
"I guess so." Hendricks lay on the top of the transom. "Hold me tight, Chief... please."
Brody leaned down and grabbed Hendricks' feet. "Don't worry," he said. He took one of Hendricks' legs under each arm and lifted. Hendricks rose, then bent over the transom. "Okay?" said Brody.
"A little more. Not too much! Jesus, you just dipped my head in the water."
"Sorry. How's that?"
"Okay, that's it." Hendricks began to examine the holes. "What if some shark came along right now?" he grunted. "He could grab me right out of your hands."
"Don't think about it. Just look."
"I'm looking." In a few moments he said, "Sonofabitch. Look at that thing. Hey, pull me up. I need my knife."
"What is it?" Brody asked when Hendricks was back aboard. Hendricks unfolded the main blade from the body of his pocket knife. "I don't know," he replied. "Some kind of white chip or something, stuck into one of the holes." Knife in hand, he allowed Brody to lower him over the rail again. He worked briefly, his body twisting from the effort. Then he called: "Okay. I've got it. Pull." Brody stepped backward, hoisting Hendricks over the transom, then lowered Hendricks' feet to the deck. "Let's see," he said, holding out his hand. Into Brody's palm
Hendricks dropped a triangle of glistening white denticle. It was nearly two inches long. The sides were tiny saws. Brody scrapped the tooth against the gunwale, and it cut the wood. He looked out over the water and shook his head. "My God," he said.
"It's a tooth, isn't it?" said Hendricks. "Jesus Christ Almighty. You think the shark
got Ben?"
"I don't know what else to think," said Brody. He looked at the tooth again, then dropped it into his pocket. "We might as well go. There's nothing we can do here."
"What do you want to do with Ben's boat?"
"We'll leave it here till tomorrow. Then we'll have someone come get it."
"I'll drive it back if you want."
"And leave me to drive the other one? Forget it."
"We could tow one of them in."
"No. It's getting dark, and I don't want to have to fool around trying to dock two
boats in the dark. This boat'll be all right overnight. Just go check the anchor up front and
make sure it' s secure. Then let's go. No one's going to need this boat before tomorrow...
especially not Ben Gardner."
They arrived at the dock in late twilight. Harry Meadows and another man, unknown to Brody, were waiting for them. "You sure have good antenna, Harry," Brody said as he climbed the ladder onto the dock.
Meadows smiled, flattered. "That's my trade, Martin." He gestured toward the man beside him. "This is Matt Hooper, Chief Brody." The two men shook hands. "You're the fellow from Woods Hole," Brody said, trying to get a good look at him in the fading light. He was young --mid-twenties, Brody thought --and handsome: tanned, hair bleached by the sun. He was about as tall as Brody, an inch over six feet, but leaner: Brody guessed 170 pounds, compared to his own 200. A mental reflex scanned Hooper for possible threat. Then, with what Brody recognized as juvenile pride, he determined that if it ever came to a face-off, he could take Hooper. Experience would make the difference.
"That's right," said Hooper.
"Harry's been tapping your brain long-distance," Brody said. "How come you're file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt (35 of 131) [1/18/2001 2:02:22 AM]
file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt here?"
Meadows said, "I called him. I thought he might be able to figure out what's going
on."
"Shit, Harry, all you had to do was ask me," said Brody. "I could have told you. You see, there's this fish out there, and... "
"You know what I mean."
Brody sensed his own resentment at the intrusion, the complication that Hooper's expertise was bound to add, the implicit division of authority that Hooper's arrival had created. And he recognized the resentment as stupid. "Sure, Harry," he said. "No problem. It's just been a long day."
"What did you find out there?" Meadows asked. Brody started to reach in his pocket for the tooth, but he stopped. He didn't want
to go through it all, standing on a dock in near darkness. "I'm not sure," he said. "Come on back to the station and I'll fill you in."
"Is Ben going to stay out there all night?"
"It looks that way, Harry." Brody turned to Hendricks, who had finished tying up the boat. "You going home, Leonard?"
"Yeah. I want to clean up before I go to work." Brody arrived at police headquarters before Meadows and Hooper. It was almost eight o'clock. He had two phone calls to make --to Ellen, to see if the dinner leftovers could be reheated or if he should pick up something on the way home, and, the call he dreaded, to Sally Gardner. He called Ellen first: pot roast. It could be reheated. It might
taste like a sneaker, but it would be warm. He hung up, checked the phone book for the Gardner number, and dialed it.
"Sally? This is Martin Brody." Suddenly he regretted having called without thinking the call through. How much should he tell her? Not much, he decided, at least not until he had had a chance to check with Hooper to see if his theory was plausible or absurd.
"Where's Ben, Martin?" The voice was calm, but pitched slightly higher than Brody remembered as normal.
"I don't know, Sally."
"What do you mean, you don't know? You went out there, didn't you?"
"Yes. He wasn't on the boat."
"But the boat was there."
"The boat was there."
"You went on board? You looked all over it? Even below?"
"Yes." Then a tiny hope. "Ben didn't carry a dinghy, did he?"
"No. How could he not be there?" The voice was shriller now.
"I... "
"Where is he?"
Brody caught the tone of incipient hysteria. He wished he had gone to the house in person. "Are you alone, Sally?"
"No. The kids are here." She seemed calmer, but Brody was sure the calm was a lull before the burst of grief that would come when she realized that the fears with which
she had lived every day for the sixteen years Ben had been fishing professionally -closet fears shoved into mental recesses and never uttered because they would seem ridiculous - had come true. Brody dug at his memory for the ages of the Gardner children. Twelve, maybe; then nine, then about six. What kind of kid was the twelve-year-old? He didn't know. Who was the nearest neighbor? Shit. Why didn't he think of this before? The Finleys.
"Just a second, Sally." He called to the officer at the front desk. "Clements, call Grace Finley and tell her to get her ass over to Sally Gardner's house right now."
"Suppose she asks why."
"Just tell her I said to go. Tell her I'll explain later." He turned back to the phone.
"I'm sorry, Sally. All I can tell you for sure is that we went out to where Ben's boat is file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt (36 of 131) [1/18/2001 2:02:22 AM]
file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt anchored. We went on board and Ben wasn't there. We looked all around, downstairs and everything."
Meadows and Hooper walked into Brody's office. He motioned them to chairs.
"But where could he be?" said Sally Gardner. "You don't just get off a boat in the
middle of the ocean."
"No."
"And he couldn't have fallen overboard. I mean, he could have, but he'd get right back in again."
"Yes."
"Maybe someone came and took him off in another boat. Maybe the engine wouldn't start and he had to ride with someone else. Did you check the engine?"
"No," Brody said, embarrassed.
"That's probably it, then." The voice was subtly lighter, almost girlish, coated with
a veneer of hope that, when it broke, would shatter like iced crystal. "And if the battery
was dead, that would explain why he couldn't call on the radio."
"The radio was working, Sally."
"Wait a minute. Who's there? Oh, it's you." There was a pause. Brody heard Sally talking to Grace Finley. Then Sally came back on the line. "Grace says you told her to come over here. Why?"
"I thought --"
"You think he's dead, don't you? You think he drowned." The veneer shattered, and she began to sob.
"I'm afraid so, Sally. That's all we can think at the moment. Let me talk to Grace
for a minute, will you please?"
A couple of seconds later, the voice of Grace Finley said, "Yes, Martin?"
"I'm sorry to do this to you, but I couldn't think of anything else. Can you stay with her for a while?"
"All night. I will."
"That might be a good idea. I'll try to get over later on. Thanks."
"What happened, Martin?"
"We don't know for sure."
"Is it that... thing again?"
"Maybe. That's what we're trying to figure out. But do me a favor, Grace. Don't say anything about a shark to Sally. It's bad enough as it is."
"All right, Martin. Wait. Wait a minute." She covered the mouthpiece of the phone with her hand, and Brody heard some muffled conversation. Then Sally Gardner came on the line.
"Why did you do it, Martin?"
"Do what?" Apparently, Grace Finley tried to take the phone from her hand, for Brody heard Sally say, "Let me speak, damn you!" Then she said to him, "Why did you send him? Why Ben?" Her voice wasn't particularly loud, but she spoke with an intensity that struck Brody as hard as if she were yelling.
"Sally, you're --"
"This didn't have to happen!" she said. "You could have stopped it." Brody wanted to hang up. He didn't want a repetition of the scene with the Kintner boy's mother.
But he had to defend himself. She had to know that it wasn't his fault. How could she blame him? He said, "Crap! Ben was a fisherman, a good one. He knew the risks."
"If you hadn't --"
"Stop it, Sally!" Brody let himself stamp on her words. "Try to get some rest." He
hung up the phone. He was furious, but his fury was confused. He was angry at Sally Gardner for accusing him, and angry at himself for being angry at her. If, she had said. If
what? If he had not sent Ben. Sure. And if pigs had wings they'd be eagles. If he had gone
himself. But that wasn't his trade. He had sent the expert. He looked up at Meadows. file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt (37 of 131) [1/18/2001 2:02:22 AM]
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"You heard."
"Not all of it. But enough to gather that Ben Gardner has become victim number four."
Brody nodded. "I think so." He told Meadows and Hooper about his trip with Hendricks. Once or twice, Meadows interrupted with a question. Hooper listened, his angular face placid and his eyes --a light, powder blue --fixed on Brody. At the end of his tale, Brody reached into his pants pocket. "We found this," he said. "Leonard dug it out of the wood." He flipped the tooth to Hooper, who turned it over in his hand.
"What do you think, Matt?" said Meadows.
"It's a white."
"How big?"
"I can't be sure, but big. Fifteen, twenty feet. That's some fantastic fish." He looked at Meadows. "Thanks for calling me," he said. "I could spend a whole lifetime around sharks and never see a fish like that."
Brody asked, "How much would a fish like that weigh?"
"Five or six thousand pounds."
Brody whistled. "Three tons."
"Do you have any thoughts about what happened?" Meadows asked.
"From what the chief says, it sounds like the fish killed Mr. Gardner."
"How?" said Brody.
"Any number of ways. Gardner might have fallen overboard. More likely, he was pulled over. His leg may have gotten tangled in a harpoon line. He could even have been taken while he was leaning over the stern."
"How do you account for the teeth in the stern?"
"The fish attacked the boat."
"What the hell for?"
"Sharks aren't very bright, Chief. They exist on instinct and impulse. The impulse
to feed is powerful."
"But a thirty-foot boat..."
"A shark doesn't think. To him it wasn't a boat. It was just something large."
"And inedible."
"Not till he'd tried it. You have to understand. There's nothing in the sea this fish
would fear. Other fish run from bigger things. That's their instinct. But this fish doesn't
run from anything. He doesn't know fear. He might be cautious --say around an even bigger white. But fear --no way."
"What else do they attack?"
"Anything."
"Just like that. Anything."
"Pretty much, yes."
"Do you have any idea why he's hung around here so long?" said Brody. "I don't know how much you know about the water here, but..."
"I grew up here."
"You did? In Amity?"
"No, Southampton. I spent every summer there, from grade school through grad school."
"Every summer. So you didn't really grow up there." Brody was groping for something with which to re-establish his parity with, if not superiority to, the younger man, and what he settled for was reverse snobbism, an attitude not uncommon to yearround residents of resort communities. It gave them armor against the contempt they sensed radiating from the rich summer folk. It was an "I'm all right, Jack" attitude, a social machismo that equated wealth with effeteness, simplicity with goodness, and poverty (up to a point) with honesty. And it was an attitude that, in general, Brody found
both repugnant and silly. But he had felt threatened by the younger man he wasn't really sure why --and the sensation was so alien that he had reached for the most convenient carapace, the one Hooper had handed him.
"You're picking nits," Hooper said testily. "Okay, so I wasn't born here. But I've
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file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt spent a lot of time in these waters, and I wrote a paper on this coastline. Anyway, I know
what you're getting at, and you're right. This shoreline isn't an environment that would normally support a long stay by a shark."
"So why is this one staying?"
"It's impossible to say. It's definitely uncharacteristic, but sharks do so many uncharacteristic things that the erratic becomes the normal. Anyone who'd risk money --not to mention his life --on a prediction about what one big shark will do in a given situation is a fool. This shark could be sick. The patterns of his life are so beyond his control that damage to one small mechanism could cause him to disorient and behave strangely."
"If this is how he acts when he's sick," said Brody, "I'd hate to see what he does
when he's feeling fine."
"No. Personally, I don't think he's sick. There are other things that could cause him to stay here --many of them things we'll never understand, natural factors, caprices."
"Like what?"
"Changes in water temperature or current flow or feeding patterns. As food supplies move, so do the predators. A few summers ago, for example, a completely inexplicable phenomenon took place off the shore of parts of Connecticut and Rhode Island. The whole coastline was suddenly inundated with menhaden --fishermen call them bunker. Huge schools. Millions of fish. They coated the water like an oil slick. There were so many that you could throw a bare hook in the water and reel it in, and more often than not you'd catch a menhaden by foul-hooking it. Bluefish and bass feed on menhaden, so all of a sudden there were masses of bluefish feeding in schools right off the beaches. In Watch Hill, Rhode Island, people were wading into the surf and catching bluefish with rakes. Garden rakes! Just shoveling the fish out of the water. Then
the big predators came --big tuna, four, five, six hundred pounds. Deep-sea fishing boats
were catching bluefin tuna within a hundred yards of the shore. In harbors sometimes. Then suddenly it stopped. The menhaden went away, and so did the other fish. I spent three weeks down there trying to figure out what was going on. I still don't know. It's all
part of the ecological balance. When something tips too far one way or the other, peculiar
things happen."
"But this is even weirder," said Brody. "This fish has stayed in one place, in one
chunk of water only a mile or two square, for over a week. He hasn't moved up or down the beach. He hasn't touched anybody in East Hampton or Southampton. What is it about Amity?"
"I don't know. I doubt that anyone could give you a good answer." Meadows said, "Minnie Eldridge has the answer."
"Balls," said Brody.
"Who's Minnie Eldridge?" asked Hooper.
"The postmistress," said Brody. "She says it's God's will, or something like that.
We're being punished for our Sins."
Hooper smiled. "Right now, anyway, that's as good an answer as I've got."
"That's encouraging," said Brody. "Is there anything you plan to do to get an answer?"
"There are a few things. I'll take water samples here and in East Hampton. I'll try
to find out how other fish are behaving --if anything extraordinary is around, or if anything that should be here isn't. And I'll try to find that shark. Which reminds me, is there a boat available?"
"Yes, I'm sorry to say," said Brody. "Ben Gardner's. We'll get you out to it tomorrow, and you can use it at least until we work something out with his wife. Do you really think you can catch that fish, after what happened to Ben Gardner?" file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt (39 of 131) [1/18/2001 2:02:22 AM]
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"I didn't say I was going to try to catch it. I don't think I'd want to try that. Not
alone, anyway."
"Then what the hell are you going to do?"
"I don't know. I'll have to play it by ear." Brody looked into Hooper's eyes and said, "I want that fish killed. If you can't do
it, we'll find someone who can."
Hooper laughed. "You sound like a mobster. 'I want that fish killed.' So go get a contract out on him. Who are you going to get to do the job?"
"I don't know. What about it, Harry? You're supposed to know everything that goes on around here. Isn't there any fisherman on this whole damn island equipped to catch big sharks?"
Meadows thought for a moment before he spoke. "There may be one. I don't know much about him, but I think his name is Quint, and I think he operates out of a private pier somewhere around Promised Land. I can find out a little more about him if you like."
"Why not?" said Brody. "He sounds like a possible." Hooper said, "Look, Chief, you can't go off half-cocked looking for vengeance against a fish. That shark isn't evil. It's not a murderer. It's just obeying its own instincts.
Trying to get retribution against a fish is crazy."
"Listen you..." Brody was growing angry --an anger horn of frustration and humiliation. He knew Hooper was right, but he felt that right and wrong were irrelevant to the situation. The fish was an enemy. It had come upon the community and killed two men, a woman, and a child. The people of Amity would demand the death of the fish. They would need to see it dead before they could feel secure enough to resume their normal lives. Most of all, Brody needed it dead, for the death of the fish would be a catharsis for him. Hooper had touched that nerve, and that infuriated Brody further. But he swallowed his rage and said, "Forget it."
The phone rang. "It's for you, Chief," said Clements. "Mr. Vaughan."
"Oh swell. That's just what I need." He punched the flashing button on the phone and picked up the receiver. "Yeah, Larry."
"Hello, Martin. How are you?" Vaughan's voice was friendly, almost effusively so. Brody thought, he's probably had a couple of belts.
"As well as could be expected, Larry."
"You're working pretty late. I tried to get you at home."
"Yeah. Well, when you're the chief of police and your constituents are getting themselves killed every twenty minutes, that kind of keeps you busy."
"I heard about Ben Gardner."
"What did you hear?"
"That he was missing."
"News travels pretty fast."
"Are you sure it was the shark again?"
"Sure? Yeah, I guess so. Nothing else seems to make any sense."
"Martin, what are you going to do?" There was a pathetic urgency in Vaughan's voice.
"That's a good question, Larry. We're doing every-thing we can fight now. We've got the beaches dosed down. We've --"
"I'm aware of that, to say the very least."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Have you ever tried to sell healthy people real estate in a leper colony?"
"No, Larry," Brody said wearily.
"I'm getting cancellations every day. People are walking out on leases. I haven't had a new customer in here since Sunday."
"So what do you want me to do?"
"Well, I thought... I mean, what I'm wondering is, maybe we're overreacting to this whole thing."
"You're kidding. Tell me you're kidding."
"Hardly, Martin. Now calm down. Let's discuss this rationally."
"I'm rational. I'm not sure about you, though." file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt (40 of 131) [1/18/2001 2:02:22 AM]
file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt There was a moment of silence, and then Vaughan said, "What would you say to opening the beaches, just for the Fourth of July weekend?"
"Not a chance. Not a fucking chance."
"Now listen..."
"No, you listen, Larry. The last time I listened to you, we had two people killed. If
we catch that fish, if we kill the sonofabitch, then we'll open the beaches. Until then, forget it."
"What about nets?"
"What about them?"
"Why couldn't we put steel nets out to protect the beaches? Someone told me that's what they do in Australia."
He must be drunk, Brody thought. "Larry, this is a straight coastline. Are you going to put nets out along two and a half miles of beaches? Fine. You get the money. I'd say about a million dollars, for openers."
"What about patrols? We could hire people to patrol up and down the beaches in boats."
"That's not good enough, Larry. What is it with you, anyway? Are your partners on your ass again?"
"That's none of your damn business, Martin. For God's sake, man, this town is dying!"
"I know it, Larry," Brody said softly. "And as far as I know, there's not a damn thing we can do about it. Good night." He hung up the phone. Meadows and Hooper rose to leave. Brody walked them to the front door of the station house, As they started out the door, Brody said to Meadows, "Hey, Harry, you left your lighter inside." Meadows started to say something, but Brody stepped on his words.
"Come on back inside and I'll give it to you. If you leave it around here overnight, it's likely to disappear." He waved to Hooper. "See you." When they were back in Brody's office, Meadows took his lighter from his pocket and said, "I trust you had something to say to me." Brody shut the door to his office. "You think you can find out something about Larry's partners?"
"I guess so. Why?"
"Ever since this thing began, Larry has been on my ass to keep the beaches open. And now, after all that's just happened, he says he wants them open for the Fourth. The other day he said he was under pressure from his partners. I told you about it."
"And?"
"I think we should know who it is who has enough clout to drive Larry bullshit. I wouldn't care if he wasn't the mayor of this town. But if there are people telling him what
to do, I think we ought to know who they are."
Meadows sighed. "Okay, Martin. I'll do what I can. But digging around in Larry Vaughan's affairs isn't my idea of fun."
"There's not a whole hell of a lot that is fun these days, is there?" Brody walked Meadows to the door, then went back to his desk and sat down. Vaughan had been right about one thing, he thought: Amity was showing all the signs of imminent death. It wasn't just the real estate market, though its sickness was as contagious as smallpox. Evelyn Bixby, the wife of one of Brody's officers, had lost her job as a real estate agent and was working as a waitress in a hash house on Route 27. Two new boutiques that were scheduled to open the next day had put off their debuts until July 3, and the proprietors of both made a point of calling on Brody to tell him that if the beaches weren't open by then, they wouldn't open their stores at all. One of
them was already looking at a site for rent in East Hampton. The sporting goods store had posted signs announcing a clearance sale --a sale that normally took place over the Labor
Day weekend. The only good thing about the Amity economy, as far as Brody was concerned, was that Saxon's was doing so badly that it laid off Henry Kimble. Now that he didn't have his bartending job, he slept during the day and could occasionally survive through a shift of police work without a nap.
Beginning on Monday morning --the first day the beaches were closed --Brody file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt (41 of 131) [1/18/2001 2:02:22 AM]
file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt had posted two officers on the beaches. Together, they had had seventeen confrontations with people who insisted on swimming. One was with a man named Robert Dexter, who claimed a constitutional right to swim off his own beach and who allowed his dog to terrorize the officer on duty, until the cop pulled his pistol and threatened to shoot the
dog. Another dustup took place on the public beach, when a New York lawyer started reading the United States Constitution to a policeman and a multitude of cheering youths.
Still, Brody was convinced that --so far, at least --no one had gone swimming. On Wednesday, two kids had rented a skiff and rowed about three hundred yards offshore, where they spent an hour ladling blood, chicken guts, and duck heads overboard. A passing fishing boat spotted them and called Brody via the marine operator. Brody called Hooper, and together they went in Flicka and towed the boys to shore. In the skiff the boys had a flying gaff attached to two hundred yards of clothesline, secured
to the prow by a square knot. They said they planned to hook the shark with the gaff and go for a "Nantucket sleigh ride." Brody told them that if they ever tried the stunt again,
he'd arrest them for attempted suicide.
There had been four reports of shark sightings. One had turned out to be a floating
log. Two, according to the fisherman who followed up the reports, were schools of jumping bait fish. And one, as far as anyone could tell, was a flat nothing. On Tuesday evening, just at dusk, Brody had received an anonymous phone call telling him that a man was dumping shark bait into the water off the public beach. It turned out to be not a man, but a woman dressed in a man's raincoat --Jessie Parker, one of the clerks at Walden's Stationery Store. At first she denied throwing anything into the
water, but then she admitted that she had tossed a paper bag into the surf. It contained three empty vermouth bottles.
"Why didn't you throw them in the garbage?" Brody had asked.
"I didn't want the garbage man to think I'm a heavy drinker."
"Then why didn't you throw them in someone else's garbage?"
"That wouldn't be nice," she said. "Garbage is... sort of private, don't you think?"
Brody told her that from now on, she should take her empty bottles, put them in a plastic bag, put that bag in a brown paper bag, then smash the bottles with a hammer until
they were ground up. Nobody would ever know they had been bottles. Brody looked at his watch. It was after nine, too late to pay a visit to Sally Gardner. He hoped she was asleep. Maybe Grace Finley had given her a pill or a glass of whiskey to help her rest. Before he left the office, he called the Coast Guard station at Montauk and told the duty officer about Ben Gardner. The officer said he would dispatch a patrol boat at first light to search for the body.
"Thanks," said Brody. "I hope you find it before it washes up." Brody was suddenly appalled at himself. "It" was Ben Gardner, a friend. What would Sally say if she heard Brody refer to her husband as "it"? Fifteen years of friendship wiped out, forgotten.
There was no more Ben Gardner. There was only an "it" that should be found before it became a gory nuisance.
"We'll try," said the officer. "Boy, I feel for you guys. You must be having a hell
of a summer."
"I only hope it isn't our last," said Brody. He hung up, turned out the light in his
office, and walked out to his car.
As he turned into his driveway, Brody saw the familiar blue-gray light shining from the living room windows. The boys were watching television. He walked through the front door, flipped off the outside light, and poked his head into the dark living room.
The oldest boy, Billy, lay on the couch, leaning on an elbow. Martin, the middle son, age file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt (42 of 131) [1/18/2001 2:02:22 AM]
file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt twelve, lounged in an easy chair, his shoeless feet propped up on the coffee table. Eightyear-old Sean sat on the floor, his back against the couch, stroking a cat in his lap.
"How
goes it?" said Brody.
"Good, Dad," said Bill, without shifting his gaze from the television.
"Where's your mom?"
"Upstairs. She said to tell you your dinner's in the kitchen."
"Okay. Not too late, Sean, huh? It's almost nine-thirty."
"Okay, Dad," said Sean.
Brody went into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and took out a beer. The remains of the pot roast sat on the kitchen table in a roasting pan, surrounded by a scum of congealed gravy. The meat was brownish-gray and stringy. "Dinner?" said Brody to himself. He checked the icebox for sandwich makings. There was some hamburger, a package of chicken legs, a dozen eggs, a jar of pickles, and twelve cans of soda pop. He found a piece of American cheese, dried and curled with age, and he folded it and popped it into his mouth. He debated heating up the pot roast, then said aloud, "The hell with it."
He found two pieces of bread, spread mustard on them, took a carving knife from a magnetic board on the wall, and sliced a thick slab of roast. He dropped the meat on one of the pieces of bread, scattered a few pickles on top of it, covered it with the other piece
of bread, and mashed the sandwich down with the heel of his hand. He put it on a plate, picked up his beer, and climbed the stairs to his bedroom.
Ellen was sitting up in bed, reading Cosmopolitan. "Hello," she said. "A tough day? You didn't say anything on the phone."
"A tough day. That's about all we're having these days. You heard about Ben Gardner? I wasn't really positive when I talked to you." He put the plate and the beer on the dresser and sat on the edge of the bed to remove his shoes.
"Yes. I got a call from Grace Finley asking if I knew where Dr. Craig was. His service wouldn't say, and Grace wanted to give Sally a sedative."
"Did you find him?"
"No. But I had one of the boys take some Seconal over to her."
"What's Seconal?"
"Sleeping pills."
"I didn't know you were taking sleeping pills."
"I don't, often. Just every now and then."
"Where did you get them?"
"From Dr. Craig, when I went to him last time about my nerves. I told you."
"Oh." Brody tossed his shoes into a corner, stood up, and took off his trousers, which he folded neatly over the back of a chair. He took off his shirt, put it on a hanger,
and hung it in the closet. In T-shirt and undershorts he sat down on the bed and began to eat his sandwich. The meat was dry and flaky. All he could taste was mustard.
"Didn't you find the roast?" said Ellen.
Brody's mouth was full, so he nodded.
"What's that you're eating, then?"
He swallowed. "The roast."
"Did you heat it up?"
"No. I don't mind it like this."
Ellen made a face and said, "Yech."
Brody ate in silence, as Ellen aimlessly turned the pages of her magazine. After a
few moments, she closed the magazine, put it in her lap, and said, "Oh, dear."
"What's the matter?"
"I was just thinking about Ben Gardner. It's so horrible. What do you think Sally will do?"
"I don't know," said Brody. "I worry about her. Have you ever talked money with her?"
"Never. But there can't be much. I don't think her children have had new clothes in a year, and she's always saying that she'd give anything to be able to afford meat file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt (43 of 131) [1/18/2001 2:02:22 AM]
file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt more
than once a week, instead of having to eat the fish Ben catches. Will she get social security?"
"I'd think so, but it won't amount to much. There's welfare."
"Oh, she couldn't," said Ellen.
"You wait. Pride is something she won't be able to afford. Now there won't even be fish any more."
"Is there anything we can do?"
"Personally? I don't see how. We're not exactly in fat city ourselves. But there may be something the town can do. I'll talk to Vaughan about it."
"Have you made any progress?"
"You mean about catching that damn thing? No. Meadows called that oceanographer friend of his down from Woods Hole, so he's here. Not that I see what good he's going to do."
"What's he like?"
"He's all right, I guess. He's young, a decent-looking guy. He's a bit of a know-itall, but that's not surprising. He seems to know the area pretty well."
"Oh? How so?"
"He said he was a summer kid in Southampton. Spent all his summers there."
"Working?"
"I don't know, living with the parents probably. He looks to be the type."
"What type?"
"Rich. Good family. The Southampton summer type. You ought to know it, for God's sake."
"Don't get angry. I was just asking."
"I'm not angry. I just said you ought to know the type, that's all. I mean, you're the
type yourself."
Ellen smiled. "I used to be. But now I'm just an old lady."
"That's a crock," Brody said. "Nine out of ten of the summer broads in this town can't do what you can for a bathing suit." He was happy to see her fishing for compliments, and happy to give them to her. This was one of their ritual preludes to sex, and the sight of Ellen in bed made Brody yearn for sex. Her hair hung down to her shoulders on both sides of her head, then tucked inward in a curl. Her nightgown was cut so deeply in front that both her breasts were visible, all but the nipples, and was so diaphanous that Brody was sure he could actually see the dark flesh of the nipples. "I'm going to brush my teeth," he said. "I'll be right back." When he returned from the bathroom, he was tumescent. He walked to the dresser to turn out the light.
"You know," Ellen said, "I think we should give the boys tennis lessons."
"What for? Have they said they want to play tennis?"
"No. Not in so many words. But it's a good sport for them to know. It will help them when they're gown-up. It's an entree."
"To what?"
"To the people they should know. If you play tennis well you can walk into a club anywhere and get to know people. Now's the time they should be learning."
"Where are they going to get lessons?"
"I was thinking of the Field Club."
"As far as I know, we're not members of the Field Club."
"I think we could get in. I still know a few people who are members. If I asked them, I'll bet they'd propose us."
"Forget it."
"Why?"
"Number one, we can't afford it. I bet it costs a thousand bucks to join, and then
it's at least a few hundred a year. We haven't got that kind of money."
"We have savings."
"Not for tennis lessons, for Christ sake! Come on, let's drop it." He reached for the
light.
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"It would be good for the boys."
Brody let his hand fall to the top of the dresser.
"Look, we're not tennis people. We wouldn't feel right there. I wouldn't feel right
there. They don't want us there."
"How do you know? We've never tried."
"Just forget it." He switched off the light, walked over to the bed, pulled back the
covers, and slid in side Ellen. "Besides," he said, nuzzling her neck, "there's another sport
I'm better at."
"The boys are awake."
"They're watching television. They wouldn't know it if a bomb went off up here." He kissed her neck and began to rub his hand in circles on her stomach, moving higher with each rotation.
Ellen yawned. "I'm so sleepy," she said. "I took a pill before you came home." Brody stopped rubbing. "What the hell for?"
"I didn't sleep well last night, and I didn't want to wake up if you came home late.
So I took a pill."
"I'm going to throw those goddam pills away." He kissed her cheek, then tried to kiss her mouth but caught her in mid-yawn.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm afraid it won't work."
"It'll work. All you have to do is help a little."
"I'm so tired. But you go ahead if you want. I'll try to stay awake."
"Shit," said Brody. He rolled back to his side of the bed. "I'm not very big on screwing corpses."
"That was uncalled-for." Brody didn't reply. He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling and feeling his erection dwindle. But the pressure inside him was still there, a dull
ache in his groin.
A moment later, Ellen said, "What's Harry Meadows' friend's name?"
"Hooper."
"Not David Hooper."
"No. I think his name is Matt."
"Oh. I went out with a David Hooper a long, long time ago. I remember..." Before she could finish the sentence, her eyes shut, and soon she slipped into the deep breathing
of sleep.
A few blocks away, in a small clapboard house, a black man sat at the foot of his son's bed. "What story do you want to read?" he said.
"I don't want to read a story," said the boy, who was seven. "I want to tell a story."
"Okay. What'll we tell one about?"
"A shark. Let's tell one about a shark." The man winced. "No. Let's tell one about
... a bear."
"No, a shark. I want to know about sharks."
"You mean a once-upon-a-time story?"
"Sure. Like, you know, once upon a time there was a shark that ate people."
"That's not a very nice story."
"Why do sharks eat people?"
"I guess they get hungry. I don't know."
"Do you bleed if a shark eats you?"
"Yes," said the man. "Come on. Let's tell a story about another kind of animal. You'll have nightmares if we tell about a shark."
"No, I won't. If a shark tried to eat me, I'd punch him in the nose."
"No shark is going to try to eat you."
"Why not? If I go swimming I bet one would. Don't sharks eat black people?"
"Now stop it! I don't want to hear any more about sharks." The man lifted a pile file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt (45 of 131) [1/18/2001 2:02:22 AM]
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books from the bedside table. "Here. Let's read Peter Pan."