Jaws

ELEVEN

The sea was as flat as gelatin. There was no whisper of wind to ripple the surface. The sun sucked shimmering waves of heat from the water. Now and then, a passing tern would plunge for food, and rise again, and the wavelets from its dive became circles that grew without cease.

The boat sat still in the water, drifting imperceptibly in the tide. Two fishing rods, in rod-holders at the stern, trailed wire line into the oily slick that spread westward behind the boat. Hooper sat at the stern, a twenty-gallon garbage pail at his side. Every few seconds, he dipped a ladle into the pail and spilled it overboard into the slick.

Forward, in two rows that peaked at the bow, lay ten wooden barrels the size of quarter kegs of beer. Each was wrapped in several thicknesses of three-quarter-inch hemp, which continued in a hundred-foot coil beside the barrel. Tied to the end of each rope was the steel head of a harpoon.

Brody sat in the swiveled fighting chair bolted to the deck, trying to stay awake. He was hot and sticky. There had been no breeze at all during the six hours they had been sitting and waiting. The back of his neck was already badly sunburned, and every time he moved his head the collar of his uniform shirt raked the tender skin. His body odor rose to his face and, blended with the stench of the fish guts and blood being ladled overboard, nauseated him. He felt poached.

Brody looked up at the figure on the flying bridge: Quint. He wore a white T-shirt, faded blue-jean trousers, white socks, and a pair of graying Top-Sider sneakers. Brody guessed Quint was about fifty, and though surely he had once been twenty and would one day be sixty, it was impossible to imagine what he would look like at either of those ages. His present age seemed the age he should always be, should always have been. He was about six feet four and very lean — perhaps 180 or 190 pounds. His head was totally bald — not shaven, for there were no telltale black specks on his scalp, but as bald as if he had never had any hair — and when, as now, the sun was high and hot, he wore a Marine Corps fatigue cap. His face, like the rest of him, was hard and sharp. It was ruled by a long, straight nose. When he looked down from the flying bridge, he seemed to aim his eyes — the darkest eyes Brody had ever seen — along the nose as if it were a rifle barrel. His skin was permanently browned and creased by wind and salt and sun. He gazed off the stern, rarely blinking, his eyes fixed on the slick.

A trickle of sweat running down Brody’s chest made him stir. He turned his head, wincing at the sting in his neck, and tried to stare at the slick. But the reflection of the sun on the water hurt his eyes, and he turned away. “I don’t see how you do it, Quint,” he said. “Don’t you ever wear sunglasses?”

Quint looked down and said, “Never.” His tone was completely neutral, neither friendly nor unfriendly. It did not invite conversation.

But Brody was bored, and he wanted to talk. “How come?”

“No need to. I see things the way they are. That’s better.”

Brody looked at his watch. It was a little after two: three or four more hours before they would give up for the day and go home. “Do you have a lot of days like this?” The excitement and anticipation of the early morning had long passed, and Brody was sure they would not sight the fish that day.

“Like what?”

“Like this. When you sit all day long and nothing happens.”

“Some.”

“And people pay you even though they never catch a thing.”

“Those are the rules.”

“Even if they never get a bite?”

Quint nodded. “That doesn’t happen too often. There’s generally something that’ll take a bait. Or something we can stick.”

“Stick?”

“With an iron.” Quint pointed to the harpoons on the bow.

Hooper said, “What kinds of things do you stick, Quint?”

“Anything that swims by.”

“Really? I don’t—”

Quint cut him off. “Something’s taking one of the baits.”

Shading his eyes with his hand, Brody looked off the stern, but as far as he could see, the slick was undisturbed, the water flat and calm. “Where?” he said.

“Wait a second,” said Quint. “You’ll see.”

With a soft metallic hiss, the wire on the starboard fishing rod began to feed overboard, knifing into the water in a straight silver line.

“Take the rod,” Quint said to Brody. “And when I tell you, throw the brake and hit him.”

“Is it the shark?” said Brody. The possibility that at last he was going to confront the fish — the beast, the monster, the nightmare — made Brody’s heart pound. His mouth was sticky-dry. He wiped his hands on his trousers, took the rod out of the holder, and stuck it in the swivel between his legs.

Quint laughed — a short, sour yip. “That thing? No. That’s just a little fella. Give you some practice for when your fish finds us.” Quint watched the line for a few more seconds, then said, “Hit it!”

Brody pushed the small lever on the reel forward, leaned down, then pulled back. The tip of the rod bent into an arc. With his right hand, Brody began to turn the crank to reel in the fish, but the reel did not respond. The line kept speeding out.

“Don’t waste your energy,” said Quint.

Hooper, who had been sitting on the transom, stood up and said, “Here, I’ll tighten down the drag.”

“You will not!” said Quint. “You leave that rod alone.”

Hooper looked up, bewildered and slightly hurt.

Brody noticed Hooper’s pained expression, and he thought: What do you know? It’s about time.

After a moment, Quint said, “You tighten the drag down too far and you’ll tear the hook out of his mouth.”

“Oh,” said Hooper.

“I thought you was supposed to know something about fishing.”

Hooper said nothing. He turned and sat down on the transom.

Brody held on to the rod with both hands. The fish had gone deep and was moving slowly from side to side, but it was no longer taking line. Brody reeled — leaning forward and cranking quickly as he picked up slack, hauling backward with the muscles in his shoulders and back. His left wrist ached, and the fingers in his right hand began to cramp from cranking. “What the hell have I got here?” he said.

“A blue,” said Quint.

“He must weigh half a ton.”

Quint laughed. “Maybe a hundred fifty pounds.”

Brody hauled and leaned, hauled and leaned, until finally he heard Quint say, “You’re getting there. Hold it.” He stopped reeling.

With a smooth, unhurried motion, Quint swung down the ladder from the flying bridge. He had a rifle in his hand, an old army M-1. He stood at the gunwale and looked down. “You want to see the fish?” he said. “Come look.”

Brody stood, and reeling to take up the slack as he walked, he moved to the side of the boat. In the dark water the shark was acrylic blue. It was about eight feet long, slender, with long pectoral fins. It swam slowly from side to side, no longer struggling.

“He’s beautiful, isn’t he?” said Hooper.

Quint flicked the rifle’s safety to “off,” and when the shark moved its head to within a few inches of the surface, he squeezed off three quick shots. The bullets made clean round holes in the shark’s head, drawing no blood. The shark shuddered and stopped moving.

“He’s dead.” said Brody.

“Shit,” said Quint. “He’s stunned, maybe, but that’s all.” Quint took a glove from one of his hip pockets, slipped his right hand into it, and grabbed the wire line. From a sheath at his belt he took a knife. He lifted the shark’s head clear of the water and bent over the gun-wale. The shark’s mouth was open two or three inches wide. Its right eye, partly covered by a white membrane, gazed blankly at Quint. Quint jammed the knife into the shark’s mouth and tried to pry it open farther, but the shark bit down, holding the blade in its small triangular teeth. Quint pulled and twisted until the knife came free. He put it back in its sheath and took a pair of wire cutters from his pocket.

“I guess you’re paying me enough so I can afford to lose a hook and a little leader,” he said. He touched the wire cutters to the leader and was about to snip it. “Wait a minute,” he said, putting the cutters back in his pocket and taking out his knife. “Watch this. This always gives the folks a hoot.” Holding the leader in his left hand, he hoisted most of the shark out of the water. With a single swift motion he slit the shark’s belly from the anal fin to just below the jaw. The flesh pulled apart, and bloody entrails — white and red and blue — tumbled into the water like laundry falling from a basket. Then Quint cut the leader with the wire snips, and the shark slid overboard. As soon as its head was beneath the water, the shark began to thrash in the cloud of blood and innards, biting any morsel that passed into its maw. The body twitched as the shark swallowed, and pieces of intestines passed out the hole in the belly, to be eaten again.

“Now watch,” said Quint. “If we’re lucky, in a minute other blues’ll come around, and they’ll help him eat himself. If we get enough of them, there’ll be a real feeding frenzy. That’s quite a show. The folks like that.”

Brody watched, spellbound, as the shark continued to nibble at the floating guts. In a moment he saw a flash of blue rise from below. A small shark — no more than four feet long — snapped at the body of the disemboweled fish. Its jaws closed on a bit of flapping flesh. Its head shook violently from side to side, and its body trembled, snakelike. A piece of flesh tore away, and the smaller shark swallowed it. Soon another shark appeared, and another, and the water began to roil. Flecks of blood mingled with the drops of water that splashed on the surface.

Quint took a gaff from beneath the gunwale. He leaned overboard, holding the gaff poised like an ax. Suddenly he lunged and jerked backward. Impaled on the gaff hook, squirming and snapping, was a small shark. Quint took the knife from its sheath, slashed the shark’s belly, and released it. “Now you’ll see something,” he said.

Brody couldn’t tell how many sharks there were in the explosion of water. Fins crisscrossed on the surface, tails whipped the water. Amid the sounds of splashes came an occasional grunt as fish slammed into fish. Brody looked down at his shirt and saw that it was spattered with water and blood.

The frenzy continued for several minutes, until only three large sharks remained, cruising back and forth beneath the surface.

The men watched in silence until the last of the three had vanished.

“Jesus,” said Hooper.

“You don’t approve,” said Quint.

“That’s right. I don’t like to see things die for people’s amusement.” Quint snickered, and Hooper said, “Do you?”

“It ain’t a question of liking it or not. It’s what feeds me.”

Quint reached into an ice chest and took out another hook and leader. The hook had been baited before they left the dock — a squid skewered and tied to the shaft and barb of the hook. Using pliers, Quint attached the leader to the end of the wire line. He dropped the bait overboard, fed out thirty yards of line, and let it drift into the slick.

Hooper resumed his routine of ladling chum into the water. Brody said, “Anybody want a beer?” Both Quint and Hooper nodded, so he went below and took three cans from a cooler. As he left the cabin, Brody noticed two old, cracked, and curling photographs thumbtacked to the bulkhead. One showed Quint standing hip-deep in a pile of big, strange-looking fish. The other was a picture of a dead shark lying on a beach. There was nothing else in the photograph to compare the fish to, so Brody couldn’t determine its size.

Brody left the cabin, gave the others their beers, and sat down in the fighting chair. “I saw your pictures down there,” he said to Quint. “What are all those fish you’re standing in?”

“Tarpon,” said Quint. “That was a while back, when I did some fishing in Florida. I never seen anything like it. We must have got thirty, forty tarpon — big tarpon — in four nights’ fishing.”

“And you kept them?” said Hooper. “You’re supposed to throw them back.”

“Customers wanted ’em. For pictures, I guess. Anyway, they don’t make bad chum, chopped up.”

“What you’re saying is, they’re more use dead than alive.”

“Sure. Same with most fish. And a lot of animals, too. I never did try to eat a live steer.” Quint laughed.

“What’s the other picture?” said Brody. “Just a shark?”

“Well, not just a shark. It was a big white — about fourteen, fifteen feet. Weighed over three thousand pounds.”

“How did you catch it?”

“Ironed it. But I tell you" — Quint chuckled — “for a while there it was a question of who was gonna catch who.”

“What do you mean?”

“Damn thing attacked the boat. No provocation, no nothing. We were sitting out here minding our own business, when whamo! It felt like we was hit by a freight train. Knocked my mate right on his ass, and the customer started screaming bloody murder that we were sinking. Then the bastard hit us again. I put an iron in him and we chased him — Christ, we must have chased him halfway across the Atlantic.”

“How could you follow him?” Brody asked. “Why didn’t he go deep?”

“Couldn’t. Not with that barrel following him. They float, He dragged it down for a little while, but before too long the strain got to him and he came to the surface. So we just kept following the barrel. After a couple hours we got another two irons in him, and he finally came up, real quiet, and we throwed a rope round his tail and towed him to shore. And all the time that customer’s going bullshit, ’cause he’s sure we’re sinking and gonna get et up.

“You know the funniest thing? When we got the fish back and we was all tied up safe and sound and not likely to sink, that dumb fuck of a customer comes up to me and offers me five hundred bucks if I’ll say he caught the fish on hook and line. Iron holes all over it, and he wants me to swear he caught it on hook and line! Then he starts giving me some song and dance about how I ought to cut my fee in half because I didn’t give him a chance to catch the fish on hook and line. I told him that if I had let him try, I’d be out one hook, three hundred yards of wire line, probably one reel and one rod, and definitely one fish. Then he says what about all the valuable publicity I’ll be getting from a trip he’s paying for. I told him he could give me the money and keep the publicity and try to spread it on a cracker for himself and his wife.”

“I wondered about that hook-and-line business,” said Brody.

“What do you mean?”

“What you were saying. You wouldn’t try to catch the fish we’re after on a hook and line, would you?”

“Shit, no. From what I hear, the fish that’s been bothering you makes the one we got look like a pup.”

“Then how come the lines are out?”

“Two reasons. First, a big white might just take a little squid bait like that. It’d cut the line pretty quick, but at least we’d know he was around. It’s a useful telltale. The other reason is, you never know what a chum slick will bring around. Even if your fish doesn’t show up, we might run into something else that’ll take the bait.”

“Like what?”

“Who knows? Maybe something useful. I’ve had swordfish take a drifting squid, and with all the federal bullshit about mercury no one’s catching them commercially any more, so you can get two fifty a pound for broadbill in Montauk. Or maybe just something that’ll give you a boot in the ass to catch, like a mako.

If you’re paying four hundred bucks, you might as well have some fun for your money.”

“Suppose the big white did come around,” said Brody. “What would be the first thing you’d do?”

“Try to keep him interested enough so he’d stick around till we could get at him. It’s no big trick; they’re pretty stupid fish. It depends on how he finds us. If he pulls the same crap the other one did and attacks the boat, we’ll just start pumping irons into him as fast as we can, then pull away from him and let him wear himself down. If he takes one of the lines, there’ll be no way to stop him if he wants to run. But I’ll try to turn him toward us — tighten the drag way down and take the risk of tearing loose. He’ll probably bend the hook out pretty quick, but we might get him close enough for an iron. And once I’ve got one iron in him, it’s only a matter of time.

“Most likely, the way he’ll come will be following his nose — right up the slick, either on the surface or just below. And that’s where we’ll have a little trouble. The squid isn’t enough to keep him interested. Fish that size’ll suck a squid right down and not even know he’s et it. So we’ll have to give him something special that he can’t turn down, something with a big ol’ hook in it that’ll hold him at least until we can stick him once or twice.”

“If the hook’s too obvious,” said Brody, “won’t he avoid the bait altogether?”

“No. These things don’t have the brains of a dog. They eat anything. If they’re feeding, you could throw a bare hook down at ’em and they’ll take it if they see it. A friend of mine had one come up once and try to eat the outboard motor off his dinghy. He only spat it out ’cause he couldn’t get it down in one swallow.”

From the stern, where he was ladling chum, Hooper said, “What’s something special, Quint?”

“You mean that special treat he can’t turn down?” Quint smiled and pointed to a green plastic garbage can nestled in a comer amidships. “Take a look for yourself. It’s in that can. I’ve been saving it for a fish like the one we’re after. On anything else it’d be a waste.”

Hooper walked over to the can, flipped the metal clasps off the sides, and lifted the top. His shock at what he saw made him gasp. Floating vertically in the can full of water, its lifeless head swaying gently with the motion of the boat, was a tiny bottle-nosed dolphin; no more than two feet long. Sticking out from a puncture on the underside of the jaw was the eye of a huge shark hook, and from a hole in the belly the barbed hook itself curled forward. Hooper clutched the sides of the can and said, “A baby.”

“Even better,” Quint said with a grin. “Unborn.”

Hooper gazed into the can for a few more seconds, then slammed the top back on and said, “Where did you get it?”

“Oh, I guess about six miles from here, due east. Why?”

“I mean how did you get it?”

“How do you think? From the mother.”

“You killed her.”

“No.” Quint laughed. “She jumped into the boat and swallowed a bunch of sleeping pills.” He paused, waiting for a laugh, and when none came he said, “You can’t rightly buy them, you know.”

Hooper stared at Quint. He was furious, outraged. But he said only, “You know they’re protected.”

“When I fish, son, I catch what I want.”

“But what about laws? Don’t—”

“What’s your line of work, Hooper?”

“I’m an ichthyologist. I study fish. That’s why I’m here. Didn’t you know that?”

“When people charter my boat, I don’t ask questions about them. But okay, you study fish for a living. If you had to work for a living — I mean the kind of work where the amount of money you make depends on the amount of sweat you put in — you’d know more about what laws really mean. Sure, those porpoise are protected. But that law wasn’t put in to stop Quint from taking one or two for bait. It was meant to stop big-time fishing for them, to stop nuts from shooting them for sport. So I’ll tell you what, Hooper: You can bitch and moan all you want. But don’t tell Quint he can’t catch a few fish to help him make a living.”

“Look, Quint, the point is that these dolphins are in danger of being wiped out, extinguished. And what you’re doing speeds up the process.”

“Don’t give me that horseshit! Tell the tuna boats to stop snaring porpoise in their nets. Tell the Jap longliners to stop hookin’ ’em. They’ll tell you to go take a flying fuck at the moon. They got mouths to feed. Well, so do I. Mine.”

“I get your message,” said Hooper. “Take it while you can, and if after a while there’s nothing left, why, we’ll just start taking something else. It’s so stupid!”

“Don’t overstep, son,” said Quint. His voice was flat, toneless, and he looked directly into Hooper’s eyes.

“What?”

“Don’t go calling me stupid.”

Hooper hadn’t intended to give offense, and he was surprised to find offense taken. “I didn’t mean that, for God’s sake. I just meant…”

On his perch midway between the two men, Brody decided it was time to stop the argument. “Let’s drop it, Hooper, okay?” he said. “We’re not out here to have a debate on ecology.”

“What do you know about ecology, Brody?” said Hooper. “I bet all it means to you is someone telling you you can’t burn leaves in your back yard.”

“Listen, you. I don’t need any of your two-bit, rich-kid bullshit.”

“So that’s it! ‘Rich-kid bullshit.’ That rich-kid stuff really burns your ass, doesn’t it?”

“Listen, damn you! We’re out here to stop a fish from killing people, and if using one porpoise will help us save God knows how many lives, that seems to me a pretty good bargain.”

Hooper smirked and said to Brody, “So now you’re an expert on saving lives, are you? Let’s see. How many could have been saved if you’d closed the beaches after the…”

Brody was on his feet moving at Hooper before he consciously knew he had left his chair. “You shut your mouth!” he said. Reflexively, he dropped his right hand to his hip. He stopped short when he felt no holster at his side, seared by the sudden realization that if he had had a pistol he might have used it. He stood facing Hooper, who glowered back at him.

A quick, sharp laugh from Quint broke the thread of tension. “What a pair of assholes,” he said. “I seen that coming since you came aboard this morning.”

TWELVE

The second day of the hunt was as still as the first. When they left the dock at six in the morning, a light southwest breeze was blowing, promising to cool the day. The passage around Montauk Point was choppy. But by ten the breeze had died, and the boat lay motionless on the glassy sea, like a paper cup in a puddle. There were no clouds, but the sun was dulled by a heavy haze. Driving to the dock, Brody had heard on the radio that the pollution in New York City had reached a crisis stage — something about an air inversion. People were falling sick, and of those who were sick already, or very old, some were dying.

Brody had dressed more sensibly today. He wore a white, short-sleeved shirt with a high collar, light cotton trousers, white socks, and sneakers. He had brought a book along to pass the time, a sex mystery borrowed from Hendricks, called The Deadly Virgin.

Brody did not want to have to fill time with conversation, conversation that might lead to a repeat of yesterday’s scene with Hooper. It had embarrassed him — Hooper, too, he thought. Today they seldom spoke to one another, directing most of their comments at Quint. Brody did not trust himself to feign civility with Hooper.

Brody had observed that in the mornings, Quint was quiet — tight and reserved. Words had to be wrung from him. But as the day wore on, he loosened up and became more and more loquacious. As they had left the dock that morning, for instance, Brody had asked Quint how he knew what spot to pick to wait for the fish.

“Don’t,” said Quint.

“You don’t know?”

Quint moved his head once from left to right, then back again.

“Then how do you choose a place?”

“Just choose one.”

“What do you look for?”

“Nothing.”

“You don’t go by the tide?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Does it matter whether the water’s deep or shallow?”

“Some.”

“How so?”

For a moment, Brody thought Quint would refuse to answer. He stared straight ahead, eyes fixed on the horizon. Then he said, as if it were a supreme effort, “Big fish like that probably won’t be in too shallow water. But you never know.”

Brody knew he should drop the subject and leave Quint in peace, but he was interested, so he asked another question. “If we find that fish, or if he finds us, it’ll be luck, won’t it?”

“Sort of.”

“Like a needle in a haystack.”

“Not quite.”

“Why not?”

“If the tide’s running good, we can put out a slick that’ll cover ten miles and more by the end of the day.”

“Would it be better if we stayed the night out here?”

“What for?” said Quint.

“To keep the slick going. If we can spread ten miles in a day, we could make it more than twenty miles long if we stayed out all night.”

“If a slick gets too big, it’s no good.”

“Why?”

“Gets confusing. If you stayed out here a month, you could cover the whole fuckin’ ocean. Not much sense in that.” Quint smiled, apparently at the thought of a chum slick covering the whole ocean.

Brody gave up and read The Deadly Virgin.

By noon, Quint had opened up. The lines had been in the slick for over four hours. Though no one had specifically assigned him the task, Hooper had taken up the chum ladle as soon as they began to drift, and now he sat at the stern, methodically scooping and dumping. At about ten o’clock, a fish had taken the starboard line and had caused a few seconds of excitement. But it turned out to be a five-pound bonito that could barely get its mouth around the hook. At ten-thirty, a small blue shark took the port line. Brody reeled it in, Quint brought it to gaff, slit its stomach open, and released it. The shark nibbled feebly at a few pieces of itself, then slipped into the deep. No other sharks came around to feed.

At a little after eleven, Quint spied the scythed dorsal fin of a swordfish coming toward them up the slick. They waited silently, begging the fish to take a bait, but it ignored both squid and cruised aimlessly sixty yards off the stern. Quint jiggled one of the baits — tugging the line to make the squid move and seem alive — but the swordfish wasn’t impressed. Finally, Quint decided to harpoon the fish. He turned on his engine, told Brody and Hooper to reel in the lines, and drove the boat in a wide circle. One harpoon dart was already attached to the throwing pole, and a line-covered barrel stood ready at the bow. Quint explained the pattern of attack: Hooper would drive the boat. Quint would stand at the end of the pulpit in the bow, holding the harpoon over his right shoulder. As they came upon the fish, Quint would point the harpoon left or right, depending on which way he wanted the boat to turn. Hooper would turn the boat until the harpoon was again pointing straight ahead. It was like following a compass heading. If all went well, they would be able to creep up on the fish, and Quint could plunge the iron off his right shoulder — a throw of about twelve feet, almost straight down. Brody would stand at the barrel, making sure the line was kept clear as the fish sounded.

All did go well until the last moment. Moving slowly; with the engine sound barely above a murmur, the boat closed on the fish, which lay resting on the surface. The boat had a sensitive helm, and Hooper was able to follow Quint’s directions precisely. Then, somehow, the fish sensed the presence of the boat. Just as Quint raised his arm to cast the iron, the fish lurched forward, thrust its tail, and darted for the bottom. Quint threw, yelling, “Prick!” and missed by six feet.

Now they were back at the head of the slick again.

“You asked yesterday if we have many days like this,” Quint said to Brody. “It’s not often we string two of them together. We should of at least had a bunch of blue sharks by now.”

“Is it the weather?”

“Could be. Makes people feel shitty enough. Maybe fish, too.”

They ate lunch — sandwiches and beer — and when they were finished, Quint checked to see if his carbine was loaded. Then he ducked into the cabin and returned, holding a machine Brody had never seen before. “Still got your beer can?” Quint asked.

“Sure,” said Brody. “What do you want it for?”

“I’ll show you.” The device looked like a potato-masher hand grenade — a metal cylinder with a handle at one end. Quint pushed the beer can down into the cylinder, turned it till there was a click, and took a.22 blank cartridge from his shirt pocket. He slipped the blank into a small hole at the base of the cylinder, then turned the handle until there was another click. He handed the device to Brody. “See that lever there?” he said, pointing to the top of the handle. “Point the thing up to the sky, and when I tell you, push that lever.”

Quint picked up the M-1, released the safety, raised the rifle to his shoulder, and said, “Now.”

Brody flipped the lever. There was a sharp, high report, a mild kick, and the beer can was launched from his hand straight up into the air. It spun, and in the bright sunlight it shone like a sparkler. At the height of its track — the split-second point when it hung suspended in air — Quint fired. He aimed low, to catch the can as it started down, and he hit its bottom. There was a loud whang, and the can cartwheeled down into the water. It did not sink immediately, but floated at a cockeyed angle, bobbing on the surface.

“Want to try?” said Quint.

“You bet,” said Brody.

“Remember to try to catch it right at the top and lead it a little bit low. If you go for it in full rise or full fall, you’ve got to lead by a whole lot, and it’s much harder. If you miss it, drop your sights, lead it again, and squeeze off another round.”

Brody exchanged the launcher for the M-1 and stationed himself at the gunwale. As soon as Quint had reloaded the launcher, Brody shouted, “Now!” and Quint released the can. Brody fired once. Nothing. He tried again at the top of the arc. Nothing. And he led it by too much as it fell. “Boy, that’s a bitch,” he said.

“Takes some getting used to,” said Quint. “See if you can hit it now.”

The can floated upright in the still water, fifteen or twenty yards from the boat. Half of it was exposed above water. Brody aimed — consciously a hair low — and squeezed the trigger. There was a metallic plop as the bullet hit the can at the water line. The can vanished.

“Hooper?” said Quint. “There’s one can left, and we can always drink more beer.”

“No thanks,” said Hooper.

“What’s the problem?”

“Nothing. I just don’t want to shoot, that’s all.”

Quint smiled. “You worried about the cans in the water? That’s an awful lot of tin we’re dropping into the ocean. Probably rust and sink to the bottom and clutter up everything down there.”

“That’s not it,” said Hooper, careful not to rise to Quint’s bait. “It’s nothing. I just don’t feel like it.”

“Afraid of guns?”

“Afraid? No.”

“Ever shot one?”

Brody was fascinated to see Quint press, and pleased to see Hooper squirm, but he didn’t know why Quint was doing it. Maybe Quint got ornery when he was bored and wasn’t catching fish.

Hooper didn’t know what Quint was doing either, but he didn’t like it. He felt he was being set up to be knocked down. “Sure,” he said. “I’ve shot guns before.”

“Where? In the service?”

“No. I…”

“Were you in the service?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Christ, I’d even bet you’re still a virgin.”

Brody looked at Hooper’s face to see his response, and for a split second he caught Hooper looking at him.

Then Hooper looked away, his face beginning to redden. He said, “What’s on your mind, Quint? What are you getting at?”

Quint leaned back in his chair and grinned. “Not a thing,” he said. “Just making a little friendly conversation to pass the time. Mind if I take your beer can when you’re through? Maybe Brody’d like to take another shot.”

“No, I don’t mind,” said Hooper. “But get off my back, will you?”

For the next hour they sat in silence. Brody dozed in the fighting chair, a hat pulled down over his face to protect it from the sun. Hooper sat at the stern, ladling and occasionally shaking his head to keep awake. And Quint sat on the flying bridge, watching the slick, his Marine Corps cap tilted back on his head.

Suddenly Quint said — his voice flat, soft, matter-of-fact — “We’ve got a visitor.”

Brody snapped awake. Hooper stood up. The starboard line was running out, smoothly and very fast.

“Take the rod,” Quint said. He removed his cap and dropped it onto the bench.

Brody took the rod out of the holder, fit it between his legs, and held on.

“When I tell you,” said Quint, “you throw that brake and hit him.” The line stopped running. “Wait. He’s turning. He’ll start again. Don’t want to hit him now or he’ll spit the hook.” But the line lay dead in the water, limp and unmoving. After several moments, Quint said, “I’ll be goddamned. Reel it in.”

Brody cranked the line in. It came easily, too easily. There was not even the mild resistance of the bait.

“Hold the line with a couple fingers or it’ll snarl,” said Quint. “Whatever that was took the bait gentle as you please. Must have kissed it off the line.”

The line came clear of the water and hung at the tip of the rod. There was no hook, no bait, no leader. The wire had been neatly severed. Quint hopped down from the flying bridge and looked at it. He felt the end, ran his fingers around the edges of the break, and gazed out over the slick.

“I think we’ve just met your friend,” he said.

“What?” said Brody.

Hooper jumped down off the transom and said excitedly, “You’ve got to be kidding. That’s terrific.”

“That’s just a guess,” said Quint. “But I’d bet on it. This wire’s been chewed clean through. One try. No hesitation. No other marks on it. The fish probably didn’t even know he had it in his mouth. He just sucked the bait in and closed his mouth and that did it.”

“So what do we do now?” said Brody.

“We wait and see if he takes the other one, or if he surfaces.”

“What about using the porpoise?”

“When I know it’s him,” said Quint. “When I get a look at him and know the bastard’s big enough to be worth it, then I’ll give him the porpoise. They’re garbage-eating machines, these fish, and I don’t want to waste a prize bait on some little runt.”

They waited. There was no movement on the surface of the water. No birds dived, no fish jumped. The only sound was the liquid plop of the chum Hooper ladled overboard. Then the port line began to run.

“Leave it in the holder,” said Quint. “No sense in getting ready if he’s going to chew through this one too.”

Adrenaline was pumping through Brody’s body. He was both excited and afraid, awed by the thought of what was swimming below them, a creature whose power he could not imagine. Hooper stood at the port gunwhale, transfixed by the running line.

The line stopped and went limp.

“Shit,” said Quint. “He done it again.” He took the rod out of the holder and began to reel. The severed line came aboard exactly as had the other one. “We’ll give him one more chance,” said Quint, “and I’ll put on a tougher leader. Not that that’ll stop him if it’s the fish I think it is.” He reached into the ice chest for another bait and removed the wire leader. From a drawer in the cockpit he took a four-foot length of three-eighths-inch chain.

“That looks like a dog’s leash,” said Brody.

“Used to be,” said Quint. He wired one end of the chain to the eye of the baited hook, the other to the wire line.

“Can he bite through that?”

“I imagine so. Take him a little longer, maybe, but he’d do it if he wanted to. All I’m trying to do is goose him a little and bring him to the surface.”

“What’s next if this doesn’t work?”

“Don’t know yet. I suppose I could take a four-inch shark hook and a length of no-shit chain and drop it overboard with a bunch of bait on it. But if he took it, I wouldn’t know what to do with him. He’d tear out any cleat I’ve got on board, and until I see him I’m not going to take a chance and wrap chain around anything important.” Quint flipped the baited hook overboard and fed out a few yards of line. “Come on, you bugger,” he said. “Let’s have a look at you.”

The three men watched the port line. Hooper bent down, filled his ladle with chum, and tossed it into the slick. Something caught his eye and made him turn to the left. What he saw sucked from him a throaty grunt, unintelligible but enough to draw the eyes of the other two men.

“Jesus Christ!” said Brody.

No more than ten feet off the stern, slightly to the starboard, was the flat, conical snout of the fish. It stuck out of the water perhaps two feet. The top of the head was a sooty gray, pocked with two black eyes. At each side of the end of the snout, where the gray turned to cream white, were the nostrils — deep slashes in the armored hide. The mouth was open not quite halfway, a dim, dark cavern guarded by huge, triangular teeth.

Fish and men confronted each other for perhaps ten seconds. Then Quint yelled, “Get an iron!” and, obeying himself, he dashed forward and began to fumble with a harpoon. Brody reached for the rifle. Just then, the fish slid quietly backward into the water. The long, scythed tail flicked once — Brody shot at it and missed — and the fish disappeared.

“He’s gone,” said Brody.

“Fantastic!” said Hooper. “That fish is everything I thought. And more. He’s fantastic! That head must have been four feet across.”

“Could be,” said Quint, walking aft. He deposited two harpoon barbs, two barrels, and two coils of rope in the stern. “In case he comes back,” he said.

“Have you ever seen a fish like that, Quint?” said Hooper. His eyes were bright, and he felt ebullient, vibrant.

“Not quite,” said Quint.

“How long, would you say?”

“Hard to tell. Twenty feet. Maybe more. I don’t know. With them things, it don’t make much difference over six feet. Once they get to six feet, they’re trouble. And this sonofabitch is trouble.”

“God, I hope he comes back,” said Hooper.

Brody felt a chill, and he shuddered. “That was very strange,” he said, shaking his head. “He looked like he was grinning.”

“That’s what they look like when their mouths are open,” said Quint. “Don’t make him out to be more than he is. He’s just a dumb garbage bucket.”

“How can you say that?” said Hooper. “That fish is a beauty. It’s the kind of thing that makes you believe in a god. It shows you what nature can do when she sets her mind to it.”

“Horseshit,” said Quint, and he climbed the ladder to the flying bridge.

“Are you going to use the porpoise?” said Brody.

“No need. We got him on the surface once. He’ll be back.”

As Quint spoke, a noise behind Hooper made him turn. It was a swishing noise, a liquid hiss. “Look,” said Quint. Heading straight for the boat, thirty feet away, was a triangular dorsal fin more than a foot high, knifing the water and leaving a rippled wake. It was followed by a towering tail that swatted left and right in tight cadence.

“It’s attacking the boat!” cried Brody. Involuntarily, he backed into the seat of the fighting chair and tried to draw away.

Quint came down from the flying bridge, cursing. “No fucking warning this time,” he said. “Hand me that iron.”

The fish was almost at the boat. It raised its flat head, gazed vacantly at Hooper with one of its black eyes, and passed under the boat. Quint raised the harpoon and turned back to the port side. The throwing pole struck the fighting chair, and the dart dislodged and fell to the deck.

“Cocksucker!” shouted Quint. “Is he still there?” He reached down, grabbed the dart, and stuck it back on the end of the pole.

“Your side, your side!” yelled Hooper. “He’s passed this side already.”

Quint turned back in time to see the gray-brown shape of the fish as it pulled away from the boat and began to dive. He dropped the harpoon and, in a rage, snatched up the rifle and emptied the clip into the water behind the fish. “Bastard!” he said. “Give me some warning next time.” Then he put the rifle down and laughed. “I suppose I should be grateful,” he said. “At least he didn’t attack the boat.” He looked at Brody and said, “Gave you a bit of a start.”

“More ’n a bit,” said Brody. He shook his head, as if to reassemble his thoughts and sort out his visions. “I’m still not sure I believe it.” His mind was full of images of a torpedo shape streaking upward in the blackness and tearing Christine Watkins to pieces; of the boy on the raft, unknowing, unsuspecting, until suddenly seized by a nightmare creature; and of the nightmares he knew would come to him, dreams of violence and blood and a woman screaming at him that he killed her son. “You can’t tell me that thing’s a fish,” he said. “It’s more like one of those things they make movies about. You know, the monster from twenty million fathoms.”

“It’s a fish, all right,” said Hooper. He was still visibly excited. “And what a fish! Damn near megalodon.”

“What are you talking about?” said Brody.

“That’s an exaggeration,” said Hooper, “but if there’s something like this swimming around, what’s to say megalodon isn’t? What do you say, Quint?”

“I’d say the sun’s got to you,” said Quint.

“No, really. How big do you think these fish grow?”

“I’m no good at guessing. I’d put that fish at twenty feet, so I’d say they grow to twenty feet. If I see one tomorrow that’s twenty-five feet, I’ll say they grow to twenty-five feet. Guessing is bullshit.”

“How big do they grow?” Brody asked, wishing immediately that he hadn’t said anything. He felt that the question subordinated him to Hooper.

But Hooper was too caught up in the moment, too flushed and happy, to be patronizing. “That’s the point,” he said. “Nobody knows. There was one in Australia that got snarled in some chains and drowned. He was measured at thirty-six feet, or so said the reports.”

“That’s almost twice as big as this one,” said Brody. His mind, barely able to comprehend the fish he had seen, could not grasp the immensity of the one Hooper described.

Hooper nodded. “Generally, people seem to accept thirty feet as a maximum size, but the figure is fancy. It’s like what Quint says. If they see one tomorrow that’s sixty feet, they’ll accept sixty feet. The really terrific thing, the thing that blows your mind, is imagining — and it could be true — that there are great whites way down in the deep that are a hundred feet long.”

“Oh bullshit,” said Quint.

“I’m not saying it’s so,” said Hooper. “I’m saying it could be so.”

“Still bullshit.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Look, the Latin name for this fish is Carcharodon carcharias, okay? The closest ancestor we can find for it is something called Carcharodon megalodon, a fish that existed maybe thirty or forty thousand years ago. We have fossil teeth from megalodon. They’re six inches long. That would put the fish at between eighty and a hundred feet. And the teeth are exactly like the teeth you see in great whites today. What I’m getting at is, suppose the two fish are really one species. What’s to say megalodon is really extinct? Why should it be? Not lack of food. If there’s enough down there to support whales, there’s enough to support sharks that big. Just because we’ve never seen a hundred-foot white doesn’t mean they couldn’t exist. They’d have no reason to come to the surface. All their food would be way down in the deep. A dead one wouldn’t float to shore, because they don’t have flotation bladders. Can you imagine what a hundred-foot white would look like? Can you imagine what it could do, what kind of power it would have?”

“I don’t want to,” said Brody.

“It would be like a locomotive with a mouth full of butcher knives.”

“Are you saying this is just a baby?” Brody was beginning to feel lonely and vulnerable. A fish as large as what Hooper was describing could chew the boat to splinters.

“No, this is a mature fish,” said Hooper. “I’m sure of it. But it’s like people. Some people are five feet tall, some people are seven feet tall. Boy, what I’d give to have a look at a big megalodon.”

“You’re out of your mind,” said Brody.

“No, man, just think of it. It would be like finding the Abominable Snowman.”

“Hey, Hooper,” said Quint, “do you think you can stop the fairy tales and start throwing chum overboard? I’d kind of like to catch a fish.”

“Sure,” said Hooper. He returned to his post at the stern and began to ladle chum into the water.

“You think he’ll come back?” said Brody.

“I don’t know,” said Quint. “You never know what these bastards are going to do.” From a pocket he took a note pad and a pencil. He extended his left arm and pointed it toward shore. He closed his right eye and sighted down the index finger of his left hand, then scribbled something on the pad. He moved his hand a couple of inches to the left, sighted again, and made another note. Anticipating a question from Brody, Quint said, “Taking bearings. I want to see where we are, so if he doesn’t show up for the rest of today, I’ll know where to come tomorrow.”

Brody looked toward Shore. Even shading his eyes and squinting, all he could see was a dim gray line of land. “What are you taking them on?”

“Lighthouse on the point and the water tower in town. They line up different ways depending where you are.”

“You can see them?” Brody strained his eyes, but he saw nothing more distinct than a lump in the line.

“Sure. You could too, if you’d been out here for thirty years.”

Hooper smiled and said, “Do you really think the fish will stay in one place?”

“I don’t know,” said Quint. “But this is where we found him this time, and we didn’t find him anywhere else.”

“And he sure as hell stayed around Amity,” said Brody.

“That’s because he had food,” said Hooper. There was no irony in his voice, no taunt. But the remark was like a needle stabbing into Brody’s brain.

They waited for three more hours, but the fish never returned. The tide slackened, carrying the slick ever slower.

At a little after five, Quint said, “We might as well go in. It’s enough to piss off the Good Humor man.”

“Where do you think he went?” said Brody. The question was rhetorical; he knew there was no answer.

“Anywhere,” said Quint. “When you want ’em, they’re never around. It’s only when you don’t want ’em, and don’t expect ’em, that they show up. Contrary fuckers.”

“And you don’t think we should spend the night, to keep the slick going.”

“No. Like I said, if the slick gets too big, it’s no good. We don’t have any food out here. And last but not least, you’re not paying me for a twenty-four-hour day.”

“If I could get the money, would you do it?”

Quint thought for a moment. “Nope. It’s tempting, though, ’cause I don’t think there’s much chance anything would happen at night. The slick would be big and confusing, and even if he came right up alongside and looked at us, we wouldn’t know he was there unless he took a bite out of us. So it’d be taking your money just to let you sleep on board. But I won’t do it, for two reasons. First off, if the slick did get too big, it would screw us up for the next day. Second, I like to get this boat in at night.”

“I guess I can’t blame you,” said Brody. “Your wife must like it better, too, having you home.”

Quint said flatly, “Got no wife.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I never saw the need for one.” Quint turned and climbed the ladder to the flying bridge.

Ellen was fixing the children’s supper when the doorbell rang. The boys were watching television in the living room, and she called to them, “Would somebody please answer the door?”

She heard the door open, heard some words exchanged, and, a moment later, saw Larry Vaughan standing at the kitchen door. It had been less than two weeks since she had last seen him, yet the change in his appearance was so startling that she couldn’t help staring at him. As always, he was dressed perfectly — a two-button blue blazer, button-down shirt, gray slacks, and Gucci loafers. It was his face that had changed. He had lost weight, and like many people who have no excess on their bodies, Vaughan showed the loss in his face. His eyes had receded in their sockets, and their color seemed to Ellen lighter than normal — a pasty gray. His skin looked gray, too, and appeared to droop at the cheekbones. His lips were moist, and he licked them every few seconds.

Embarrassed when she found herself staring, Ellen lowered her eyes and said, “Larry. Hello.”

“Hello, Ellen. I stopped by to…” Vaughan backed up a few steps and peered into the living room. “First of all, do you suppose I could have a drink?”

“Of course. You know where everything is. Help yourself. I’d get it for you, but my hands are covered with chicken.”

“Don’t be silly. I can find everything.” Vaughan opened the cupboard where the liquor was kept, took out a bottle, and poured a glass full of gin. “As I started to say, I stopped by to say farewell.”

Ellen stopped shuffling pieces of chicken in the frying pan and said, “You’re going away? For how long?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps for good. There’s nothing here for me any more.”

“What about your business?”

“That’s gone. Or it soon will be.”

“What do you mean, gone? A business doesn’t just go away.”

“No, but I won’t own it any more. What few assets there are will belong to my… partners.” He spat the word and then, as if to cleanse his mouth of its unpleasant residue, took a long swallow of gin. “Has Martin told you about our conversation?”

“Yes.” Ellen looked down at the frying pan and stirred the chicken.

“I imagine you don’t think very highly of me any more.”

“It’s not up to me to judge you, Larry.”

“I never wanted to hurt anybody. I hope you believe that.”

“I believe it. How much does Eleanor know?”

“Nothing, poor dear. I want to spare her, if I can. That’s one reason I want to move away. She loves me, you know, and I’d hate to take that love away… from either of us.” Vaughan leaned against the sink. “You know something? Sometimes I think — and I’ve thought this from time to time over the years — that you and I would have made a wonderful couple.”

Ellen reddened. “What do you mean?”

“You’re from a good family. You know all the people I had to fight to get to know. We would have fit together and fit in Amity. You’re lovely and good and strong. You would have been a real asset to me. And I think I could have given you a life you would have loved.”

Ellen smiled. “I’m not as strong as you think, Larry. I don’t know what kind of… asset I would have been.”

“Don’t belittle yourself. I only hope Martin appreciates the treasure he has.” Vaughan finished his drink and put the glass in the sink. “Anyway, no point in dreaming.” He walked across the kitchen, touched Ellen’s shoulder, and kissed the top of her head. “Good-by, dear,” he said. “Think of me once in a while.”

Ellen looked at him. “I will.” She kissed his cheek. “Where are you going?”

“I don’t know. Vermont, maybe, or New Hampshire. I might sell land to the skiing crowd. Who knows? I might even take up the sport myself.”

“Have you told Eleanor?”

“I told her we might be moving. She just smiled and said, ‘Whatever you wish.’”

“Are you leaving soon?”

“As soon as I chat with my lawyers about my… liabilities.”

“Send us a card so we’ll know where you are.”

“I will. Good-by.” Vaughan left the room, and Ellen heard the screen door close behind him.

When she had served the children their supper, Ellen went upstairs and sat on her bed. “A life you would have loved,” Vaughan had said. What would a life with Larry Vaughan have been like? There would have been money, and acceptance. She would never have missed the life she led as a girl, for it would never have ended. There would have been no craving for renewal and self-confidence and confirmation of her femininity, no need for a fling with someone like Hooper.

But no. She might have been driven to it by boredom, like so many of the women who spent their weeks in Amity while their husbands were in New York. Life with Larry Vaughan would have been life without challenge, a life of cheap satisfactions.

As she pondered what Vaughan had said, she began to recognize the richness of her life: a relationship with Brody more rewarding than any Larry Vaughan would ever experience; an amalgam of minor trials and tiny triumphs that, together, added up to something akin to joy. And as her recognition grew, so did a regret that it had taken her so long to see the waste of time and emotion in trying to cling to her past. Suddenly she felt fear — fear that she was growing up too late, that something might happen to Brody before she could savor her awareness. She looked at her watch: 6.20. He should have been home by now. Something has happened to him, she thought. Oh please, God, not him.

She heard the door open downstairs. She jumped off the bed, ran into the hall and down the stairs. She wrapped her arms around Brody’s neck and kissed him hard on the mouth.

“My God,” he said when she let him go. “That’s quite a welcome.”

THIRTEEN

“You’re not putting that thing on my boat,” said Quint.

They stood on the dock in the brightening light. The sun had cleared the horizon, but it lay behind a low bank of clouds that touched the eastern sea. A gentle wind blew from the south. The boat was ready to go. Barrels lined the bow; rods stood straight in their holders, leaders snapped into eyelets on the reels. The engine chugged quietly, sputtering bubbles as tiny waves washed against the exhaust pipe, coughing diesel fumes that rose and were carried away by the breeze.

At the end of the dock a man got into a pickup truck and started the engine, and the truck began to move slowly off down the dirt road. The words stenciled on the door of the truck read: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute.

Quint stood with his back to the boat, facing Brody and Hooper, who stood on each side of an aluminum cage. The cage was slightly over six feet tall and six feet wide and four feet deep. Inside, there was a control panel: atop were two cylindrical tanks. On the floor of the cage were a scuba tank, a regulator, a face mask, and a wet suit.

“Why not?” said Hooper. “It doesn’t weigh much, and I can lash it down out of the way.”

“Take up too much room.”

“That’s what I said,” said Brody. “But he wouldn’t listen.”

“What the hell is it anyway?” said Quint.

“It’s a shark cage,” said Hooper. “Divers use them to protect themselves when they’re swimming in the open ocean. I had it sent down from Woods Hole — in that truck that just left.”

“And what do you plan to do with it?”

“When we find the fish, or when the fish finds us, I want to go down in the cage and take some pictures. No one’s ever been able to photograph a fish this big before.”

“Not a chance,” said Quint. “Not on my boat.”

“Why not?”

“It’s foolishness, that’s why. A sensible man knows his limits. That’s beyond your limits.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s beyond any man’s limits. A fish that big could eat that cage for breakfast.”

“But would he? I don’t think so. I think he might bump it, might even mouth it, but I don’t think he’d seriously try to eat it.”

“He would if he saw something as juicy as you inside.”

“I doubt it.”

“Well, forget it.”

“Look, Quint, this is a chance of a lifetime. Not just for me. I wouldn’t have thought of doing it until I saw the fish yesterday. It’s unique, at least in this hemisphere. And even though people have filmed great whites before, no one’s ever filmed a twenty-foot white swimming in the open ocean. Never.”

“He said forget it,” said Brody. “So forget it. Besides, I don’t want the responsibility. We’re out here to kill that fish, not make a home movie about it.”

“What responsibility? You’re not responsible for me.”

“Oh yes I am. The town of Amity is paying for this trip, so what I say goes.”

Hooper said to Quint, “I’ll pay you.”

Quint smiled. “Oh yeah? How much?”

“Forget it,” said Brody. “I don’t care what Quint says. I say you’re not bringing that thing along.”

Hooper ignored him and said to Quint, “A hundred dollars. Cash. In advance, the way you like it.” He reached into his back pocket for his wallet.

“I said no!” said Brody.

“What do you say, Quint? A hundred bucks. Cash. Here it is.” He counted five twenties and held them out to Quint.

“I don’t know.” Then Quint reached for the money and said, “Shit, I don’t suppose it’s my business to keep a man from killing himself if he wants to.”

“You put that cage on the boat,” Brody said to Quint, “and you don’t get your four hundred.” If Hooper wants to kill himself, Brody thought, let him do it on his own time.

“And if the cage doesn’t go,” said Hooper, “I don’t go.”

“Fuck yourself,” said Brody. “You can stay here, for all I care.”

“I don’t think Quint would like that. Right, Quint? You want to go out and take on that fish with just you and the chief? You feel good about that?”

“We’ll find another man,” said Brody.

“Go ahead,” Hooper snapped. “Good luck.”

“Can’t do it,” said Quint. “Not on this short notice.”

“Then the hell with it!” said Brody. “We’ll go tomorrow. Hooper can go back to Woods Hole and play with his fish.”

Hooper was angry — angrier, in fact, than he knew, for before he could stop himself, he had said, “That’s not all I might… Oh, forget it.”

For several seconds, a leaden silence fell over the three men. Brody stared at Hooper, unwilling to believe what he had heard, uncertain how much substance there was in the remark and how much empty threat. Then suddenly he was overcome by rage. He reached Hooper in two steps, grabbed both sides of his collar, and rammed his fists into Hooper’s throat. “What was that?” he said. “What did you say?”

Hooper could hardly breathe. He clawed at Brody’s fingers. “Nothing!” he said, choking. “Nothing!” He tried to back away, but Brody gripped him tighter.

“What did you mean by that?”

“Nothing, I tell you! I was angry. It was something to say.”

“Where were you last Wednesday afternoon?”

“Nowhere!” Hooper’s temples were throbbing. “Let me go! You’re choking me!”

“Where were you?” Brody twisted his fists tighter.

“In a motel! Now let me go!”

Brody eased his grip. “With who?” he said, praying to himself, God, don’t let it be Ellen; let his alibi be a good one.

“Daisy Wicker.”

“Liar!” Brody tightened his grip again, and he felt tears begin to squeeze from his eyes.

“What do you mean?” said Hooper, struggling to free himself.

“Daisy Wicker’s a goddam lesbian! What were you doing, knitting?”

Hooper’s thoughts were fogging. Brody’s knuckles were cutting off the flow of blood to his brain. His eyelids flickered and he began to lose consciousness. Brody released him and pushed him down to the dock, where he sat, sucking air.

“What do you say to that?” said Brody. “Are you such a hotshot you can fuck a lesbian?”

Hooper’s mind cleared quickly, and he said, “No. I didn’t find it out until… until it was too late.”

“What do you mean? You mean she went with you to a motel and then turned you down? No dyke is gonna go to any motel room with you.”

“She did!” said Hooper, desperately trying to keep pace with Brody’s questions.

“She said she wanted… that it was time she tried it straight. But then she couldn’t go through with it. It was awful.”

“You’re bullshitting me!”

“I’m not! You can check with her yourself.” Hooper knew it was a weak excuse. Brody could check it out with no trouble. But it was all he could think of. He could stop on the way home that evening and call Daisy Wicker from a phone booth, beg her to corroborate his story. Or he could simply never return to Amity — turn north and take the ferry from Orient Point and be out of the state before Brody could reach Daisy Wicker.

“I will check,” said Brody. “You can count on it.”

Behind him, Brody heard Quint laugh and say, “That’s the funniest thing I ever did hear. Tried to lay a lesbian.”

Brody tried to read Hooper’s face, searching for anything that might betray a lie. But Hooper kept his eyes fixed on the dock.

“Well, what do you say?” said Quint. “We going today or not? Either way, Brody, it’ll cost you.”

Brody felt shaken. He was tempted to cancel the trip, to return to Amity and discover the truth about Hooper and Ellen. But suppose the worst was true. What could he do then? Confront Ellen? Beat her? Walk out on her? What good would that do? He had to have time to think. He said to Quint, “We’ll go.”

“With the cage?”

“With the cage. If this asshole wants to kill himself, let him.”

“Okay by me,” said Quint. “Let’s get this circus on the road.”

Hooper stood and walked to the cage. “I’ll get in the boat,” he said hoarsely. “If you two can push it over to the edge of the dock and lean it toward me, then one of you come down into the boat with me, we can carry it over into the corner.”

Brody and Quint slid the cage across the wooden boards, and Brody was surprised at how light it was. Even with the diving gear inside, it couldn’t have weighed more than two hundred pounds. They tipped it toward Hooper, who grabbed two of the bars and waited until Quint joined him in the cockpit. The two men easily carried the cage a few feet and pushed it into a corner under the overhang that supported the flying bridge. Hooper secured it with two pieces of rope.

Brody jumped aboard and said, “Let’s go.”

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” said Quint.

“What?”

“Four hundred dollars.”

Brody took an envelope from his pocket and handed it to Quint. “You’re going to die a rich man, Quint.”

“That’s my aim. Uncleat the stern line, will you?” Quint uncleated the bow and midships spring lines and tossed them onto the dock, and when he saw that the stern line was clear, too, he pushed the throttle forward and guided the boat out of the slip. He turned right and pushed the throttle forward, and the boat moved swiftly through the calm sea — past Hicks Island and Goff Point, around Shagwong and Montauk points. Soon the lighthouse on Montauk Point was behind them, and they were cruising south by southwest in the open ocean.

Gradually, as the boat fell into the rhythm of the long ocean swells, Brody’s fury dulled. Maybe Hooper was telling the truth. It was possible. A person wouldn’t make up a story that was so easy to check. Ellen had never cheated on him before, he was sure of that. She never even flirted with other men. But, he told himself, there’s always a first time. And once again the thought made his throat tighten. He felt jealous and injured, inadequate and outraged. He hopped down from the fighting chair and climbed up to the flying bridge.

Quint made room on the bench for Brody, and Brody sat down next to him. Quint chuckled. “You boys almost had a no-shit punch-up back there.”

“It was nothing.”

“Looked like something to me. What is it, you think he’s been poking your wife?”

Confronted with his own thoughts stated so brutally, Brody was shocked. “None of your damn business,” he said.

“Whatever you say. But if you ask me, he ain’t got it in him.”

“Nobody asked you.” Anxious to change the subject, Brody said, “Are we going back to the same place?”

“Same place. Won’t be too long now.”

“What are the chances the fish will still be there?”

“Who knows? But it’s the only thing we can do.”

“You said something on the phone the other day about being smarter than fish. Is that all there is to it? Is that the only secret of success?”

“That’s all there is. You just got to outguess ’em. It’s no trick. They’re stupid as sin.”

“You’ve never found a smart fish?”

“Never met one yet.”

Brody remembered the leering, grinning face that had stared up at him from the water. “I don’t know,” he said. “That fish sure looked mean yesterday. Like he meant to be mean. Like he knew what he was doing.”

“Shit, he don’t know nothing.”

“Do they have different personalities?”

“Fish?” Quint laughed. “That’s giving them more credit than they’re due. You can’t treat ’em like people, even though I guess some people are as dumb as fish. No. They do different things sometimes, but after a while you get to know everything they can do.”

“It’s not a challenge, then. You’re not fighting an enemy.”

“No. No more ’n a plumber who’s trying to unstick a drain. Maybe he’ll cuss at it and hit it with a wrench. But down deep he don’t think he’s fighting somebody. Sometimes I run into an ornery fish that gives me more trouble than other ones, but I just use different tools.”

“There are fish you can’t catch, aren’t there?”

“Oh sure, but that don’t mean they’re smart or sneaky or anything. It only means they’re not hungry when you try to catch ’em, or they’re too fast for you, or you’re using the wrong bait.”

Quint fell silent for a moment, then spoke again. “Once,” he said, “a shark almost caught me. It was about twenty years ago. I had a fair-size blue shark to gaff and he gave a big yank and hauled me overboard with him.”

“What did you do?”

“I come up over that transom so fast I don’t think my feet touched anything between water and deck. I was lucky I fell over the stern, where it’s fairly low down, near the water. If I’d of fallen over amidships, I don’t know what I would’ve done. Anyway, I was out of that water before the fish even knew I was in it. He was busy trying to shake the gaff.”

“Suppose you fell over with this fish. Is there anything you could do?”

“Sure. Pray. It’d be like falling out of an airplane without a parachute and hoping you’ll land in a hay-stack. The only thing that’d save you would be God, and since He pushed you overboard in the first place, I wouldn’t give a nickel for your chances.”

“There’s a woman in Amity who thinks that’s why we’re having trouble,” said Brody. “She thinks it’s some sort of divine retribution.”

Quint smiled. “Might be. He made the damn thing, I suppose He can tell it what to do.”

“You serious?”

“No, not really. I don’t put much stock in religion.”

“So why do you think people have been killed.”

“Bad luck.” Quint pulled back on the throttle. The boat slowed and settled in the swells. “We’ll try to change it.” He took a piece of paper from his pocket, unfolded it, read the notes, and sighting along his outstretched arm, checked his bearings. He turned the ignition key, and the engine died. There was a weight, a thickness, to the sudden silence. “Okay, Hooper,” he said. “Start chuckin’ the shit overboard.”

Hooper took the top off the chum bucket and began to ladle the contents into the sea. The first ladleful spattered on the still water, and slowly the oily smear spread westward.

By ten o’clock a breeze had come up — not strong, but fresh enough to ripple the water and cool the men, who sat and watched and said nothing. The only sound was the regular splash as Hooper poured chum off the stern.

Brody sat in the fighting chair, struggling to stay awake. He yawned, then recalled that he had left the half-read copy of The Deadly Virgin in a magazine rack below. He stood, stretched, and went down the three steps into the cabin. He found the book and started topside again, when his eye caught the ice chest. He looked at his watch and said to himself, the hell with it; there’s no time out here.

“I’m going to have a beer,” he called. “Anybody want one?”

“No,” said Hooper.

“Sure,” said Quint. “We can shoot at the cans.”

Brody took two beers from the chest, removed the metal tabs, and started to climb the stairs. His foot was on the top step when he heard Quint’s flat, calm voice say, “There he is.”

At first, Brody thought Quint was referring to him, but then he saw Hooper jump off the transom and heard him whistle and say, “Wow! He sure is!”

Brody felt his pulse speed up. He stepped quickly onto the deck and said, “Where?”

“Right there,” said Quint. “Dead off the stern.”

It took Brody’s eyes a moment to adjust, but then he saw the fin — a ragged, brownish-gray triangle that sliced through the water, followed by the scythed tail sweeping left and right with short, spasmodic thrusts. The fish was at least thirty yards behind the boat, Brody guessed. Maybe forty. “Are you sure it’s him?” he said.

“It’s him,” said Quint.

“What are you going to do?”

“Nothing. Not till we see what he does. Hooper, you keep ladling that shit. Let’s bring him in here.”

Hooper lifted the bucket up onto the transom and scooped the chum into the water. Quint walked forward and fastened a harpoon head to the wooden shaft. He picked up a barrel and put it under one arm. He held the coiled rope over his other arm and clutched the harpoon in his hand. He carried it all aft and set it on the deck.

The fish cruised back and forth in the slick, seeming to search for the source of the bloody miasma.

“Reel in those lines,” Quint said to Brody. “They won’t do any good now we’ve got him up.”

Brody brought in the lines one by one and let the squid bait fall to the deck. The fish moved slightly closer to the boat, still cruising slowly.

Quint set the barrel on the transom to the left of Hooper’s bucket and arranged the rope beside it. Then he climbed up on the transom and stood, his right arm cocked, holding the harpoon. “Come on,” he said. “Come on in here.”

But the fish would come no closer than fifty feet from the boat.

“I don’t get it,” said Quint. “He should come in and take a look at us. Brody, take the cutters out of my back pocket and clip off those squid bait and throw ’em overboard. Maybe some food’ll bring him in. And splash the hell out of the water when you throw ’em. Let him know something’s there.”

Brody did as he was told, slapping and roiling the water with a gaff, always keeping the fin in sight, for he imagined the fish suddenly appearing from the deep and seizing him by the arm.

“Throw some other ones while you’re at it,” said Quint. “They’re in the chest there. And throw those beers over, too.”

“The beers? What for?”

“The more we can get in the water, the better. Don’t make no difference what it is, so long as it gets him interested enough to want to find out.”

Hooper said, “What about the porpoise?”

“Why, Mr. Hooper,” said Quint. “I thought you didn’t approve.”

“Never mind that,” Hooper said excitedly. “I want to see that fish!”

“We’ll see,” said Quint. “If I have to use it, I will.”

The squid had drifted back toward the shark, and one of the beers bobbed on the surface as it slowly faded aft of the boat. But still the fish stayed away.

They waited — Hooper ladling, Quint poised on the transom, Brody standing by one of the rods.

“Shit,” said Quint. “I guess I got no choice.” He set the harpoon down and jumped off the transom. He flipped the top off the garbage can next to Brody, and Brody saw the lifeless eyes of the tiny porpoise as it swayed in the briny water. The sight repelled him, and he turned away.

“Well, little fella,” said Quint. “The time has come.” From the lazaret he took a length of dog-leash chain and snapped one end of it into the hook eye protruding from beneath the porpoise’s jaw. To the other end of the chain he tied a length of three-quarter-inch hemp. He uncoiled several yards of the rope, cut it, and made it fast to a cleat on the starboard gunwale.

“I thought you said the shark could pull out a cleat,” said Brody.

“It might just,” said Quint. “But I’m betting I can get an iron in him and cut the rope before he pulls it taut enough to yank the cleat.” Quint took hold of the dog chain and lifted the starboard gunwale and set it down. He climbed onto the transom and pulled the porpoise after him. He took the knife from the sheath at his belt. With his left hand he held the porpoise out in front of him. Then, with his right, he cut a series of shallow slashes in the porpoise’s belly. A rank, dark liquid oozed from the animal and fell in droplets on the water. Quint tossed the porpoise into the water, let out six feet of line, then put the rope under his foot on the transom and stepped down hard. The porpoise floated just beneath the surface of the water, less than six feet from the boat.

“That’s pretty close,” said Brody.

“Has to be,” said Quint. “I can’t get a shot at him if he’s thirty feet away.”

“Why are you standing on the rope?”

“To keep the little fella where he is. I don’t want to cleat it down that close to the boat. If he took it and didn’t have any running room, he could thrash around and beat us to pieces.” Quint hefted the harpoon and looked at the shark’s fin.

The fish moved closer, still cruising back and forth but closing the gap between itself and the boat by a few feet with every passage. Then it stopped, twenty or twenty-five feet away, and for a second seemed to lie motionless in the water, aimed directly at the boat. The tail dropped beneath the surface; the dorsal fin slid backward and vanished; and the great head reared up, mouth open in a slack, savage grin, eyes black and abysmal.

Brody stared in mute horror, sensing that this was what it must be like to try to stare down the devil.

“Hey, fish!” Quint called. He stood on the transom, legs spread, his hand curled around the shaft of the harpoon that rested on his shoulder. “Come see what we’ve got for you!”

For another moment the fish hung in the water, watching. Then, soundlessly, the head slid back and disappeared.

“Where’d he go?” said Brody.

“He’ll be coming now,” said Quint. “Come, fish,” he purred. “Come, fish. Come get your supper.” He pointed the harpoon at the floating porpoise.

Suddenly the boat lurched violently to the side. Quint’s legs skidded out from under him, and he fell on his back on the transom. The harpoon dart separated from the shaft and clattered to the deck. Brody tumbled sideways, grabbed the back of the chair, and twirled around as the chair swiveled. Hooper spun backward and slammed into the port gunwale.

The rope attached to the porpoise tautened and shivered. The knot by which it was secured to the cleat tightened so hard that the rope flattened and its fibers popped. The wood under the cleat began to crack. Then the rope snapped backward, went slack, and curled in the water beside the boat.

“I’ll be fucked!” said Quint.

“It was like he knew what you were trying to do,” said Brody, “like he knew there was a trap set for him.”

“Goddammit! I never have seen a fish do that before.”

“He knew if he knocked you down he could get to the porpoise.”

“Shit, he was just aiming for the porpoise, and he missed.”

Hooper said, “Aiming from the opposite side of the boat?”

“Well, it don’t make no nevermind,” said Quint. “Whatever he did, it worked.”

“How do you think he got off the hook?” said Brody. “He didn’t pull the cleat out.”

Quint walked over to the starboard gunwale and began to pull in the rope. “He either bit right through the chain, or else… uh-huh, that’s what I figured.” He leaned over the gunwale and grabbed the chain. He pulled it aboard. It was intact, the clip still attached to the eye of the hook. But the hook itself had been destroyed. The steel shaft no longer curled. It was nearly straight, marked by two small bumps where once it had been tempered into a curve.

“Jesus Christ!” said Brody. “He did that with his mouth?”

“Bent it out nice as you please,” said Quint. “Probably didn’t slow him down for more than a second or two.”

Brody felt light-headed. His fingertips tingled. He sat down in the chair and drew several deep breaths, trying to stifle the fear that was mounting inside him.

“Where do you suppose he’s gone?” said Hooper, standing at the stern and looking at the water.

“He’s around here somewhere,” said Quint. “I imagine he’ll be back. That porpoise wasn’t any more to him than an anchovy is to a bluefish. He’ll be looking for more food.” He reassembled the harpoon, recoiled the rope, and set them on the transom. “We’re just gonna have to wait. And keep chumming. I’ll tie up some more squid and hang ’em overboard.”

Brody watched Quint as he wrapped twine around each squid and dropped it overboard, attached to the boat at cleats, rod-holders, and almost anything else around which he could tie a knot. When a dozen squid had been placed at various points and various depths around the boat, Quint climbed to the flying bridge and sat down.

Hoping to be contradicted, Brody said, “That sure does seem to be a smart fish.”

“Smart or not, I wouldn’t know,” said Quint. “But he’s doing things I’ve never seen a fish do before.” He paused, then said — as much to himself as to Brody — “but I’m gonna get that fucker. That’s one thing for sure.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I know it, that’s all. Now leave me be.”

It was a command, not a request, and though Brody wanted to talk — about anything, even the fish itself, as long as he could steer his mind away from the image of the beast lurking in the water below him — he said nothing more. He looked at his watch: 11.05.

They waited, expecting at any moment to see the fin rise off the stern and cut back and forth through the water. Hooper ladled chum, which sounded to Brody, every time it hit the water, like diarrhea.

At eleven-thirty, Brody was startled by a sharp, resonant snap. Quint leaped down the ladder, across the deck, and onto the transom. He picked up the harpoon and held it at his shoulder, scanning the water around the stern.

“What the hell was that?” said Brody.

“He’s back.”

“How do you know? What was that noise?”

“Twine snapping. He took one of the squid.”

“Why would it snap? Why wouldn’t he chew right through it?”

“He probably never bit down on it. He sucked it in, and the twine came tight behind his teeth when he closed his mouth. He went like this, I imagine" — Quint jerked his head to the side — “and the line parted.”

“How could we hear it snap if it snapped under water?”

“It didn’t snap under water, for Christ sake! It snapped right there.” Quint pointed to a few inches of limp twine hanging from a cleat amidships.

“Oh,” said Brody. As he looked at the remnant, he saw another piece of twine — a few feet farther up the gun-wale — go limp. “There’s another one,” he said. He stood and walked to the gunwale and pulled in the line. “He must be right underneath us.”

Quint said, “Anybody care to go swimming?”

“Let’s put the cage overboard,” said Hooper.

“You’re kidding,” said Brody.

“No, I’m not. It might bring him out.”

“With you in it?”

“Not at first. Let’s see what he does. What do you say, Quint?”

“Might as well,” said Quint. “Can’t hurt just to put it in the water, and you paid for it.” He put down the harpoon, and he and Hooper walked to the cage.

They tipped the cage onto its side, and Hooper opened the top hatch and crawled through it. He removed the scuba tank, regulator, face mask, and neoprene wet suit, and set them on the deck. They tipped the cage upright again and slid it across the deck to the starboard gunwale. “You got a couple of lines?” said Hooper. “I want to make it fast to the boat.” Quint went below and returned with two coils of rope. They tied one to an after cleat, one to a cleat amidships, then secured the ends to the bars on top of the cage. “Okay,” said Hooper. “Let’s put her over.” They lifted the cage, tipped it backward, and pushed it overboard. It sank until the ropes stopped it, a few feet beneath the surface. There it rested, rising and falling slowly in the swells. The three men stood at the gunwale, looking into the water.

“What makes you think this’ll bring him up?” said Brody.

“I didn’t say ‘up,’” said Hooper. “I said ‘out.’ I think he’ll come out and have a look at it, to see whether he wants to eat it.”

“That won’t do us any damn good,” said Quint. “I can’t stick him if he’s twelve feet under water.”

“Once he comes out,” said Hooper, “maybe he’ll come up. We’re not having any luck with anything else.”

But the fish did not come out. The cage lay quietly in the water, unmolested.

“There goes another squid,” said Quint, pointing forward. “He’s there, all right.” He leaned overboard and shouted, “God damn you, fish! Come out where I can have a shot at you.”

After fifteen minutes, Hooper said, “Oh well,” and went below. He reappeared moments later, carrying a movie camera in a waterproof housing, and what looked to Brody like a walking stick with a thong at one end.

“What are you doing?” Brody said.

“I’m going down there. Maybe that’ll bring him out.”

“You’re out of your goddam mind. What are you going to do if he does come out?”

“First, I’m going to take some pictures of him. Then I’m going to try to kill him.”

“With what, may I ask?”

“This.” Hooper held up the stick.

“Good thinking,” Quint said with a derisive cackle. “If that doesn’t work you can tickle him to death.”

“What is that?” said Brody.

“Some people call it a bang stick. Others call it a power head. Anyway, it’s basically an underwater gun.” He pulled both ends of the stick, and it came apart in two pieces. “In here,” he said, pointing to a chamber at the point where the stick had come apart, “you put a twelve-gauge shotgun shell.” He took a shotgun shell from his pocket and pushed it into the chamber, then rejoined the two ends of the stick. “Then, when you get close enough to the fish, you jab it at him and the shell goes off. If you hit him right — in the brain’s the only sure place — you kill him.”

“Even a fish that big?”

“I think so. If I hit him right.”

“And if you don’t? Suppose you miss by just a hair.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of.”

“I would be, too,” said Quint. “I don’t think I’d like five thousand pounds of pissed-off dinosaur trying to eat me.”

“That’s not my worry,” said Hooper. “What concerns me is that if I miss, I might drive him off. He’d probably sound, and we’d never know if he died or not.”

“Until he ate someone else,” said Brody.

“That’s right.”

“You’re fucking crazy,” said Quint.

“Am I, Quint? You’re not having much success with this fish. We could stay here all month and let him eat your bait right out from under us.”

“He’ll come up,” said Quint. “Mark my words.”

“You’ll be dead of old age before he comes up, Quint. I think this fish has you all shook. He’s not playing by the rules.”

Quint looked at Hooper and said evenly, “You telling me my business, boy?”

“No. But I am telling you I think this fish is more than you can handle.”

“That right, boy? You think you can do better ’n Quint?”

“Call it that if you want. I think I can kill the fish.”

“Fine and dandy. You’re gonna get your chance.”

Brody said, “Come on. We can’t let him go in that thing.”

“What are you bitchin’ about?” said Quint. “From what I seen, you just as soon he went down there and never come up. At least that’d stop him from—”

“Shut your mouth!” Brody’s emotions were jumbled. Part of him didn’t care whether Hooper lived or died — might even relish the prospect of Hooper’s death. But such vengeance would be hollow — and quite possibly, unmerited. Could he really wish a man dead? No. Not yet.

“Go on,” Quint said to Hooper. “Get in that thing.”

“Right away.” Hooper removed his shirt, sneakers, and trousers, and began to pull the neoprene suit over his legs. “When I’m inside,” he said, forcing his arms into the rubber sleeves of the jacket, “stand up here and keep an eye. Maybe you can use the rifle if he gets close enough to the surface.” He looked at Quint. “You can be ready with the harpoon… if you want to.”

“I’ll do what I’ll do,” said Quint. “You worry about yourself.”

When he was dressed, Hooper fit the regulator onto the neck of the air tank, tightened the wing nut that held it in place, and opened the air valve. He sucked two breaths from the tank to make sure it was feeding air. “Help me put this on, will you?” he said to Brody.

Brody lifted the tank and held it while Hooper slipped his arms through the straps and fastened a third strap around his middle. He put the face mask on his head. “I should have brought weights,” said Hooper.

Quint said, “You should have brought brains.”

Hooper put his right wrist through the thong at the end of the power head, picked up the camera with his right hand, and said, “Okay.” He walked to the gunwale. “If you’ll each take a rope and pull, that’ll bring the cage to the surface. Then I’ll open the hatch and go in through the top, and you can let the ropes go. It’ll hang by the ropes. I won’t use the flotation tanks unless one of the ropes breaks.”

“Or gets chewed through,” said Quint.

Hooper looked at Quint and smiled. “Thanks for the thought.”

Quint and Brody pulled on the ropes, and the cage rose in the water. When the hatch broke the surface, Hooper said, “Okay, right there.” He spat in the face mask, rubbed the saliva around on the glass, and fit the mask over his face. He reached for the regulator tube, put the mouthpiece in his mouth, and took a breath. Then he bent over the gunwale, unlatched the top of the hatch and flipped it open. He started to put a knee on the gunwale, but stopped. He took the mouthpiece out of his mouth and said, “I forgot something.” His nose was encased in the mask, so his voice sounded thick and nasal. He walked across the deck and picked up his trousers. He rummaged through the pockets until he found what he was looking for. He unzipped his wet-suit jacket.

“What’s that?” said Brody.

Hooper held up a shark’s tooth, rimmed in silver. It was a duplicate of the one he had given Ellen. He dropped it inside his wet suit and zipped up the jacket. “Can’t be too careful,” he said, smiling. He crossed the deck again, put his mouthpiece in his mouth, and kneeled on the gunwale. He took a final breath and dove overboard through the open hatch. Brody watched him go, wondering if he really wanted to know the truth about Hooper and Ellen.

Hooper stopped himself before he hit the bottom of the cage. He curled around and stood up. He reached out the top of the hatch and pulled it closed. Then he looked up at Brody, put the thumb and index finger of his left hand together in the okay sign, and ducked down.

“I guess we can let go,” said Brody. They released the ropes and let the cage descend until the hatch was about four feet beneath the surface.

“Get the rifle,” said Quint. “It’s on the rack below. It’s all loaded.” He climbed onto the transom and lifted the harpoon to his shoulder.

Brody went below, found the rifle, and hurried back on deck. He opened the breach and slid a cartridge into the chamber. “How much air does he have?” he said.

“I don’t know,” said Quint. “However much he has, I doubt he’ll live to breathe it.”

“Maybe you’re right. But you said yourself you never know what these fish will do.”

“Yeah, but this is different. This is like putting your hand in a fire and hoping you won’t get burned. A sensible man don’t do it.”

Below, Hooper waited until the bubbly froth of his descent had dissipated. There was water in his mask, so he tilted his head backward, pressed on the top of the faceplate, and blew through his nose until the mask was clear. He felt serene. It was the pervasive sense of freedom and ease that he always felt when he dived. He was alone in blue silence speckled with shafts of sunlight that danced through the water. The only sounds were those he made breathing — a deep, hollow noise as he breathed in, a soft thudding of bubbles as he exhaled. He held his breath, and the silence was complete. Without weights, he was too buoyant, and he had to hold on to the bars to keep his tank from clanging against the hatch overhead. He turned around and looked up at the hull of the boat, a gray body that sat above him, bouncing slowly. At first, the cage annoyed him. It confined him, restricted him, prevented him from enjoying the grace of underwater movement. But then he remembered why he was there, and he was grateful.

He looked for the fish. He knew it couldn’t be sitting beneath the boat, as Quint had thought. It could not “sit” anywhere, could not rest or stay still. It had to move to survive.

Even with the bright sunlight, the visibility in the murky water was poor — no more than forty feet. Hooper turned slowly around, trying to pierce the edge of gloom and grasp any sliver of color or movement. He looked beneath the boat, where the water turned from blue to gray to black. Nothing. He looked at his watch, calculating that if he controlled his breathing, he could stay down for at least half an hour more.

Carried by the tide, one of the small white squid slipped between the bars of the cage and, tethered by twine, fluttered in Hooper’s face. He pushed it out of the cage.

He glanced downward, started to look away, then snapped his eyes down again. Rising at him from the darkling blue — slowly, smoothly — was the shark. It rose with no apparent effort, an angel of death gliding toward an appointment foreordained.

Hooper stared, enthralled, impelled to flee but unable to move. As the fish drew nearer, he marveled at its colors: the flat brown-grays seen on the surface had vanished. The top of the immense body was a hard ferrous gray, bluish where dappled with streaks of sun. Beneath the lateral line, all was creamy, ghostly white.

Hooper wanted to raise his camera, but his arm would not obey. In a minute, he said to himself, in a minute.

The fish came closer, silent as a shadow, and Hooper drew back. The head was only a few feet from the cage when the fish turned and began to pass before Hooper’s eyes — casually, as if in proud display of its incalculable mass and power. The snout passed first, then the jaw, slack and smiling, armed with row upon row of serrate triangles. And then the black, fathomless eye, seemingly riveted upon him. The gills rippled — bloodless wounds in the steely skin.

Tentatively, Hooper stuck a hand through the bars and touched the flank. It felt cold and hard, not clammy but smooth as vinyl. He let his fingertips caress the flesh — past the pectoral fins, the pelvic fin, the thick, firm genital claspers — until finally (the fish seemed to have no end) they were slapped away by the sweeping tail.

The fish continued to move away from the cage. Hooper heard faint popping noises, and he saw three straight spirals of angry bubbles speed from the surface, then slow and stop, well above the fish. Bullets. Not yet, he told himself. One more pass for pictures. The fish began to turn, banking, the rubbery pectoral fins changing pitch.

The fish rammed through the space between the bars.

“What the hell is he doing down there?” said Brody. “Why didn’t he jab him with the gun?”

Quint didn’t answer. He stood on the transom, harpoon clutched in his fist, peering into the water. “Come up, fish,” he said. “Come to Quint.”

“Do you see it?” said Brody. “What’s it doing?”

“Nothing. Not yet, anyway.”

The fish had moved off to the limit of Hooper’s vision — a spectral silver-gray blur tracing a slow circle. Hooper raised his camera and pressed the trigger. He knew the film would be worthless unless the fish moved in once more, but he wanted to catch the beast as it emerged from the darkness.

Through the viewfinder he saw the fish turn toward him. It moved fast, tail thrusting vigorously, mouth opening and closing as if gasping for breath. Hooper raised his right hand to change the focus. Remember to change it again, he told himself, when it turns.

But the fish did not turn. A shiver traveled the length of its body as it closed on the cage. It struck the cage head on, the snout ramming between two bars and spreading them. The snout hit Hooper in the chest and knocked him backward. The camera flew from his hands, and the mouthpiece shot from his mouth. The fish turned on its side, and the pounding tail forced the great body farther into the cage. Hooper groped for his mouthpiece but couldn’t find it. His chest was convulsed with the need for air.

“It’s attacking!” screamed Brody. He grabbed one of the tether ropes and pulled, desperately trying to raise the cage.

“God damn your fucking soul!” Quint shouted.

“Throw it! Throw it!”

“I can’t throw it! I gotta get him on the surface! Come up, you devil! You prick!”

The fish slid backward out of the cage and turned sharply to the right in a tight circle. Hooper reached behind his head, found the regulator tube, and followed it with his hand until he located the mouthpiece. He put it in his mouth and, forgetting to exhale first, sucked for air. He got water, and he gagged and choked until at last the mouthpiece cleared and he drew an agonized breath. It was then that he saw the wide gap in the bars and saw the giant head lunging through it. He raised his hands above his head, grasping at the escape hatch.

The fish rammed through the space between the bars, spreading them still farther with each thrust of its tail. Hooper, flattened against the back of the cage, saw the mouth reaching, straining for him. He remembered the power head, and he tried to lower his right arm and grab it. The fish thrust again, and Hooper saw with the terror of doom that the mouth was going to reach him.

The jaws closed around his torso. Hooper felt a terrible pressure, as if his guts were being compacted. He jabbed his fist into the black eye. The fish bit down, and the last thing Hooper saw before he died was the eye gazing at him through a cloud of his own blood.

“He’s got him!” cried Brody. “Do something!”

“The man is dead,” Quint said.

“How do you know? We may be able to save him.”

“He is dead.”

Holding Hooper in its mouth, the fish backed out of the cage. It sank a few feet, chewing, swallowing the viscera that were squeezed into its gullet. Then it shuddered and thrust forward with its tail, driving itself and prey upward in the water.

“He’s coming up!” said Brody.

“Grab the rifle!” Quint cocked his hand for the throw.

The fish broke water fifteen feet from the boat, surging upward in a shower of spray. Hooper’s body protruded from each side of the mouth, head and arms hanging limply down one side, knees, calves, and feet from the other.

In the few seconds while the fish was clear of the water, Brody thought he saw Hooper’s glazed, dead eyes staring open through his face mask. As if in contempt and triumph, the fish hung suspended for an instant, challenging mortal vengeance.

Simultaneously, Brody reached for the rifle and Quint cast the harpoon. The target was huge, a field of white belly, and the distance was not too great for a successful throw above water. But as Quint threw, the fish began to slide down in the water, and the iron went high.

For another instant, the fish remained on the surface, its head out of water, Hooper hanging from its mouth.

“Shoot!” Quint yelled. “For Christ sake, shoot!”

Brody shot without aiming. The first two shots hit the water in front of the fish. The third, to Brody’s horror, struck Hooper in the neck.

“Here, give me the goddam thing!” said Quint, grabbing the rifle from Brody. In a single, quick motion he raised the rifle to his shoulder and squeezed off two shots. But the fish, with a last, vacant gaze, had already begun to slip beneath the surface. The bullets plopped harmlessly into the swirl where the head had been.

The fish might never have been there. There was no noise, save the whisper of a breeze. From the surface the cage seemed undamaged. The water was calm. The only difference was that Hooper was gone.

“What do we do now?” said Brody. “What in the name of God can we do now? There’s nothing left. We might as well go back.”

“We’ll go back,” said Quint. “For now.”

“For now? What do you mean? There’s nothing we can do. The fish is too much for us. It’s not real, not natural.”

“Are you beaten, man?”

“I’m beaten. All we can do is wait until God or nature or whatever the hell is doing this to us decides we’ve had enough. It’s out of man’s hands.”

“Not mine,” said Quint. “I am going to kill that thing.”

“I’m not sure I can get any more money after what happened today.”

“Keep your money. This is no longer a matter of money.”

“What do you mean?” Brody looked at Quint, who was standing at the stern, looking at the spot where the fish’s head had been, as if he expected it to reappear at any moment clutching the shredded corpse in its mouth. He searched the sea, craving another confrontation.

Quint said to Brody, “I am going to kill that fish. Come if you want. Stay home if you want. But I am going to kill that fish.”

As Quint spoke, Brody looked into his eyes. They seemed as dark and bottomless as the eye of the fish. “I’ll come,” said Brody. “I don’t guess I have any choice.”

“No,” said Quint. “We have no choice.” He took his knife from its sheath and handed it to Brody. “Here. Cut that cage loose and let’s get out of here.”

When the boat was tied up at the dock, Brody walked toward his car. At the end of the dock there was a phone booth, and he stopped beside it, prompted by his earlier resolve to call Daisy Wicker. But he suppressed the impulse and moved on to his car. What’s the point? he thought. If there was anything, it’s over now.

Still, as he drove toward Amity, Brody wondered what Ellen’s reaction had been when the Coast Guard had called her with the news of Hooper’s death. Quint had radioed the Coast Guard before they started in, and Brody had asked the duty officer to phone Ellen and tell her that he, at least, was all right.

By the time Brody arrived home, Ellen had long since finished crying. She had wept mechanically, angrily, grieving not so much for Hooper as in hopelessness and bitterness at yet another death. She had been sadder at the disintegration of Larry Vaughan than she was now, for Vaughan had been a dear and close friend. Hooper had been a “lover” in only the most shallow sense of the word. She had not loved him. She had used him, and though she was grateful for what he had given her, she felt no obligation to him. She was sorry he was dead, of course, just as she would have been sorry to hear that his brother, David, had died. In her mind they were both now relics of her distant past.

She heard Brody’s car pull into the driveway, and she opened the back door. Lord, he looks whipped, she thought as she watched him walk toward the house. His eyes were red and sunken, and he seemed slightly hunched as he walked. She kissed him at the door and said, “You look like you could use a drink.”

“That I could.” He went into the living room and flopped into a chair.

“What would you like?”

“Anything. Just so long as it’s strong.”

She went into the kitchen, filled a glass with equal portions of vodka and orange juice, and brought it to him. She sat on the arm of his chair and ran her hand over his head. She smiled and said, “There’s your bald spot. It’s been so long since I touched your bald spot that I’d forgotten it was there.”

“I’m surprised there’s any hair left at all. Christ, I’ll never be as old as I feel today.”

“I’ll bet. Well, it’s over now.”

“I wish it was,” said Brody. “I truly do wish it was.”

“What do you mean? It is over, isn’t it? There’s nothing more you can do.”

“We’re going out tomorrow. Six o’clock.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I wish I was.”

“Why?” Ellen was stunned. “What do you think you can do?”

“Catch the fish. And kill it.”

“Do you believe that?”

“I’m not sure. But Quint believes it. God, how he believes it.”

“Then let him go. Let him get killed.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“It’s my job.”

“It is not your job!” She was furious, and scared, and tears began to well behind her eyes.

Brody thought for a moment and said, “No, you’re right.”

“Then why?”

“I don’t think I can tell you. I don’t think I know.”

“Are you trying to prove something?”

“Maybe. I don’t know. I didn’t feel this way before. After Hooper was killed, I was ready to give it up.”

“What changed your mind?”

“Quint, I guess.”

“You mean you’re letting him tell you what to do?”

“No. He didn’t tell me anything. It’s a feeling. I can’t explain it. But giving up isn’t an answer. It doesn’t put an end to anything.”

“Why is an end so important?”

“Different reasons, I think. Quint feels that if he doesn’t kill the fish, everything he believes in is wrong.”

“And you?”

Brody tried to smile. “Me, I guess I’m just a screwed-up cop.”

“Don’t joke with me!” Ellen cried, and tears spilled out of her eyes. “What about me and the children? Do you want to get killed?”

“No, God no. It’s just…”

“You think it’s all your fault. You think you’re responsible.”

“Responsible for what?”

“For that little boy and the old man. You think killing the shark will make everything all right again. You want revenge.”

Brody sighed. “Maybe I do. I don’t know. I feel… I believe that the only way this town can be alive again is if we kill that thing.”

“And you’re willing to get killed trying to—”

“Don’t be stupid! I’m not willing to get killed. I’m not even willing — if that’s the word you want to use — to go out in that goddam boat. You think I like it out there? I’m so scared every minute I’m out there I want to puke.”

“Then why go?” She was pleading with him, begging. “Can’t you ever think of anybody but yourself?”

Brody was shocked at the suggestion of selfishness. It had never occurred to him that he was being selfish, indulging a personal need for expiation. “I love you,” he said. “You know that… no matter what.”

“Sure you do,” she said bitterly. “Oh, sure you do.”

They ate dinner in silence. When they were finished, Ellen picked up the dishes, washed them, and went upstairs. Brody walked around the living room, turning out lights. Just as he reached for the switch to turn off the hall light, he heard a tap on the front door. He opened it and saw Meadows.

“Hey, Harry,” he said. “Come on in.”

“No,” said Meadows. “It’s too late. I just wanted to drop this by.” He handed Brody a manila envelope.

“What is it?”

“Open it and see. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” Meadows turned and walked down the path to the curb, where his car was parked, lights on and motor running.

Brody shut the door and opened the envelope. Inside was a proof of the editorial page of the next day’s Leader. The first two editorials had been circled in red grease pencil. Brody read: A NOTE OF SORROW… In the past three weeks, Amity has suffered through one horrible tragedy after another. Its citizens, and its friends, have been struck down by a savage menace that no one can deter, no one can explain.

Yesterday another human life was cut short by the Great White Shark. Matt Hooper, the young oceanographer from Woods Hole, was killed as he tried to kill the beast single-handedly.

People may debate the wisdom of Mr. Hooper’s daring attempt. But call it brave or foolhardy, there can be no debate about the motive that sent him on his fatal mission. He was trying to help Amity, spending his own time and money in an effort to restore peace to this despairing community.

He was a friend, and he gave his life so that we, his friends, might live.

…AND A VOTE OF THANKS Ever since the marauding shark first came to Amity, one man has spent his every waking minute trying to protect his fellow citizens. That man is Police Chief Martin Brody.

After the first attack, Chief Brody wanted to inform the public of the danger and close the beaches. But a chorus of less prudent voices, including that of the editor of this newspaper, told him he was wrong. Play down the risk, we said, and it will disappear. It was we who were wrong.

Some in Amity were slow to learn the lesson. When, after repeated attacks, Chief Brody insisted on keeping the beaches closed, he was vilified and threatened. A few of his most vocal critics were men motivated not by public-spiritedness but personal greed. Chief Brody persisted, and, once again, he was proven right.

Now Chief Brody is risking his life on the same expedition that took the life of Matt Hooper. We must all offer our prayers for his safe return… and our thanks for his extraordinary fortitude and integrity.

Brody said aloud, “Thank you, Harry.”

Around midnight, the wind began to blow hard from the northeast, whistling through the screens and soon bringing a driving rain that splashed on the bedroom floor. Brody got out of bed and shut the window. He tried to go back to sleep, but his mind refused to rest. He got up again, put on his bathrobe, went downstairs to the living room, and turned on the television. He switched channels until he found a movie — Weekend at the Waldorf, with Ginger Rogers. Then he sat down in a chair and promptly slipped into a fitful doze.

He awoke at five, to the whine of the television test pattern, turned off the set, and listened for the wind. It had moderated and seemed to be coming from a different quarter, but it still carried rain. He debated calling Quint, but thought, no, no use: we’ll be going even if this blows up into a gale. He went upstairs and quietly dressed. Before he left the bedroom, he looked at Ellen, who had a frown on her sleeping face. “I do love you, you know,” he whispered, and he kissed her brow. He started down the stairs and then, impulsively, went and looked in the boys’ bedrooms. They were all asleep.

FOURTEEN

When he drove up to the dock, Quint was waiting for him — a tall, impassive figure whose yellow oilskins shone under the dark sky. He was sharpening a harpoon dart on a carborundum stone.

“I almost called you,” Brody said as he pulled on his slicker. “What does this weather mean?”

“Nothing,” said Quint. “It’ll let up after a while. Or even if it doesn’t, it don’t matter. He’ll be there.”

Brody looked up at the scudding clouds. “Gloomy enough.”

“Fitting,” said Quint, and he hopped aboard the boat.

“Is it just us?”

“Just us. You expecting somebody else?”

“No. But I thought you liked an extra pair of hands.”

“You know this fish as well as any man, and more hands won’t make no difference now. Besides, it’s nobody else’s business.”

Brody stepped from the dock onto the transom, and was about to jump down to the deck when he noticed a canvas tarpaulin covering something in a corner. “What’s that?” he said, pointing.

“Sheep.” Quint turned the ignition key. The engine coughed once, caught, and began to chug evenly.

“What for?” Brody stepped down onto the deck. “You going to sacrifice it?”

Quint barked a brief, grim laugh. “Might at that,” he said. “No, it’s bait. Give him a little breakfast before we have at him. Undo my stern line.” He walked forward and cast off the bow and spring lines.

As Brody reached for the stern line, he heard a car engine. A pair of headlights sped along the road, and there was a squeal of rubber as the car stopped at the end of the pier. A man jumped out of the car and ran toward the Orca. It was the Times reporter, Bill Whitman.

“I almost missed yon,” he said, panting.

“What do you want?” said Brody.

“I want to come along. Or, rather, I’ve been ordered to come along.”

“Tough shit,” said Quint. “I don’t know who you are, but nobody’s coming along. Brody, cast off the stern line.”

“Why not?” said Whitman. “I won’t get in the way. Maybe I can help. Look, man, this is news. If you’re going to catch that fish, I want to be there.”

“Fuck yourself,” said Quint.

“I’ll charter a boat and follow you.”

Quint laughed. “Go ahead. See if you can find someone foolish enough to take you out. Then try to find us. It’s a big ocean. Throw the line, Brody!”

Brody tossed the stern line onto the dock. Quint pushed the throttle forward, and the boat eased out of the slip. Brody looked back and saw Whitman walking down the pier toward his car.

The water off Montank was rough, for the wind — from the southeast now — was at odds with the tide. The boat lurched through the waves, its bow pounding down and casting a mantle of spray. The dead sheep bounced in the stern.

When they reached the open sea, heading southwest, their motion was eased. The rain had slacked to a drizzle, and with each moment there were fewer whitecaps tumbling from the top of waves.

They had been around the point only fifteen minutes when Quint pulled back on the throttle and slowed the engine.

Brody looked toward shore. In the growing light he could see the water tower clearly — a black point rising from the gray strip of land. The lighthouse beacon still shone. “We’re not out as far as we usually go,” he said.

“No.”

“We can’t be more than a couple of miles offshore.”

“Just about.”

“So why are you stopping?”

“I got a feeling.” Quint pointed to the left, to a cluster of lights farther down the shore. “That’s Amity there.”

“So?”

“I don’t think he’ll be so far out today. I think he’ll be somewhere between here and Amity.”

“Why?”

“Like I said, it’s a feeling. There’s not always a why to these things.”

“Two days in a row we found him farther out.”

“Or he found us.”

“I don’t get it, Quint. For a man who says there’s no such thing as a smart fish, you’re making this one out to be a genius.”

“I wouldn’t go that far.”

Brody bristled at Quint’s sly, enigmatic tone. “What kind of game are you playing?”

“No game. If I’m wrong, I’m wrong.”

“And we try somewhere else tomorrow.” Brody half hoped Quint would be wrong, that there would be a day’s reprieve.

“Or later today. But I don’t think we’ll have to wait that long.” Quint cut the engine, went to the stern, and lifted a bucket of chum onto the transom. “Start chummin’,” he said, handing Brody the ladle. He uncovered the sheep, tied a rope around its neck, and lay it on the gunwale. He slashed its stomach and flung the animal overboard, letting it drift twenty feet from the boat before securing the rope to an after cleat. Then he went forward, unlashed two barrels, and carried them, and their coils of ropes and harpoon darts, back to the stern. He set the barrels on each side of the transom, each next to its own rope, and slipped one dart onto the wooden throwing shaft. “Okay,” he said. “Now let’s see how long it takes.”

The sky had lightened to full, gray daylight, and in ones and twos the lights on the shore flicked off.

The stench of the mess Brody was ladling overboard made his stomach turn, and he wished he had eaten something — anything — before he left home.

Quint sat on the flying bridge, watching the rhythms of the sea.

Brody’s butt was sore from sitting on the hard transom, and his arm was growing weary from the dipping and emptying of the ladle. So he stood up, stretched, and facing off the stern, tried a new scooping motion with the ladle.

Suddenly he saw the monstrous head of the fish — not five feet away, so close he could reach over and touch it with the ladle — black eyes staring at him, silver-gray snout pointing at him, gaping jaw grinning at him. “Oh, God!” Brody said, wondering in his shock how long the fish had been there before he had stood up and turned around. “There he is!”

Quint was down the ladder and at the stern in an instant. As he jumped onto the transom, the fish’s head slipped back into the water and, a second later, slammed into the transom. The jaws closed on the wood, and the head shook violently from side to side. Brody grabbed a cleat and held on, unable to look away from the eyes. The boat shuddered and jerked each time the fish moved its head. Quint slipped and fell to his knees on the transom. The fish let go and dropped beneath the surface, and the boat lay still again.

“He was waiting for us!” yelled Brody.

“I know,” said Quint.

“How did he—”

“It don’t matter,” said Quint. “We’ve got him now.”

“We’ve got him? Did you see what he did to the boat?”

“Give it a mighty good shake, didn’t he?”

The rope holding the sheep tightened, shook for a moment, then went slack.

Quint stood and picked up the harpoon. “He’s took the sheep. It’ll be a minute before he comes back.”

“How come he didn’t take the sheep first?”

“He got no manners,” Quint cackled. “Come on, you motherfucker. Come and get your due.”

Brody saw fever in Quint’s face — a heat that lit up his dark eyes, an intensity that drew his lips back from his teeth in a crooked smile, an anticipation that strummed the sinews in his neck and whitened his knuckles.

The boat shuddered again, and there was a dull, hollow thump.

“What’s he doing?” said Brody.

Quint leaned over the side and shouted, “Come out from under there, you cocksucker! Where are your guts? You’ll not sink me before I get to you!”

“What do you mean, sink us?” said Brody. “What’s he doing?”

“He’s trying to chew a hole in the bottom of the fucking boat, that’s what! Look in the bilge. Come out, you Godforsaken sonofabitch!” Quint raised high his harpoon.

Brody knelt and raised the hatch cover over the engine room. He peered into the dark, oily hole. There was water in the bilges, but there always was, and he saw no new hole through which water could pour. “Looks okay to me,” he said. “Thank God.”

The dorsal fin and tail surfaced ten yards to the right of the stern and began to move again toward the boat.

“There you come,” said Quint, cooing. “There you come.” He stood, legs spread, left hand on his hip, right hand extended to the sky, grasping the harpoon. When the fish was a few feet from the boat and heading straight on, Quint cast his iron.

The harpoon struck the fish in front of the dorsal fin. And then the fish hit the boat, knocking the stern sideways and sending Quint tumbling backward. His head struck the footrest of the fighting chair, and a trickle of blood ran down his neck. He jumped to his feet and cried, “I got you! I got you, you miserable prick!”

The rope attached to the iron dart snaked overboard as the fish sounded, and when it reached the end, the barrel popped off the transom, fell into the water, and vanished.

“He took it down with him!” said Brody.

“Not for long,” said Quint. “He’ll be back, and we’ll throw another into him, and another, and another, until he quits. And then he’s ours!” Quint leaned on the transom, watching the water.

Quint’s confidence was contagious, and Brody now felt ebullient, gleeful, relieved. It was a kind of freedom, a freedom from the mist of death. He yelled, “Hot shit!” Then he noticed the blood running down Quint’s neck, and he said, “Your head’s bleeding.”

“Get another barrel,” said Quint. “Bring it back here. And don’t fuck up the coil. I want it to go over smooth as cream.”

Brody ran forward, unlashed a barrel, slipped the coiled rope over his arm, and carried the gear to Quint.

“There he comes,” said Quint, pointing to the left. The barrel came to the surface and bobbed in the water. Quint pulled the string attached to the wooden shaft and brought it aboard. He fixed the shaft to the new dart and raised the harpoon above his head. “He’s coming up!”

The fish broke water a few yards from the boat. Like a rocket lifting off, snout, jaw, and pectoral fins rose straight from the water. Then the smoke-white belly, pelvic fin, and huge, salami-like claspers.

“I see your cock, you bastard!” cried Quint, and he threw a second iron, leaning his shoulder and back into the throw. The iron hit the fish in the belly, just as the great body began to fall forward. The belly smacked the water with a thunderous boom, sending a blinding fall of spray over the boat. “He’s done!” said Quint as the second rope uncoiled and tumbled overboard.

The boat lurched once, and again, and there was the distant sound of crunching.

“Attack me, will you?” said Quint. “You’ll take no man with you, uppity fuck!” Quint ran forward and started the engine. He pushed the throttle forward, and the boat moved away from the bobbing barrels.

“Has he done any damage?” said Brody.

“Some. We’re riding a little heavy aft. He probably poked a hole in us. It’s nothing to worry about. We’ll pump her out.”

“That’s it, then,” Brody said happily.

“What’s what?”

“The fish is as good as dead.”

“Not quite. Look.”

Following the boat, keeping pace, were the two red wooden barrels. They did not bob. Dragged by the great force of the fish, each cut through the water, pushing a wave before it and leaving a wake behind.

“He’s chasing us?” said Brody.

Quint nodded.

“Why? He can’t still think we’re food.”

“No. He means to make a fight of it.”

For the first time, Brody saw a frown of disquiet on Quint’s face. It was not fear, nor true alarm, but rather a look of uneasy concern — as if, in a game, the rules had been changed without warning, or the stakes raised. Seeing the change in Quint’s mood, Brody was afraid.

“Have you ever had a fish do this before?” he asked.

“Not like this, no. I’ve had ’em attack the boat, like I told you. But most times, once you get an iron in ’em, they stop fighting you and fight against that thing stickin’ in ’em.”

Brody looked astern. The boat was moving at moderate speed, turning this way and that in response to Quint’s random turning of the wheel. Always the barrels kept up with them.

“Fuck it,” said Quint. “If it’s a fight he wants, it’s a fight he’ll get.” He throttled down to idling speed, jumped down from the flying bridge and up onto the transom. He picked up the harpoon. Excitement had returned to his face. “Okay, shit-eater!” he called. “Come and get it!”

The barrels kept coming, plowing through the water — thirty yards away, then twenty-five, then twenty. Brody saw the flat plain of gray pass along the star-board side of the boat, six feet beneath the surface. “He’s here!” he cried. “Heading forward.”

“Shit!” said Quint, cursing his misjudgment of the length of the ropes. He detached the harpoon dart from the shaft, snapped the twine that held the shaft to a cleat, hopped down from the transom, and ran forward. When he reached the bow, he bent down and tied the twine to a forward cleat, unlashed a barrel, and slipped its dart onto the shaft. He stood at the end of the pulpit, harpoon raised.

The fish had already passed out of range. The tail surfaced twenty feet in front of the boat. The two barrels bumped into the stern almost simultaneously. They bounced once, then rolled off the stern, one on each side, and slid down the sides of the boat.

Thirty yards in front of the boat, the fish turned. The head raised out of the water, then dipped back in. The tail, standing like a sail, began to thrash back and forth. “Here he comes!” said Quint.

Brody raced up the ladder to the flying bridge. Just as he got there, he saw Quint draw his right arm back and rise up on tiptoes.

The fish hit the bow head on, with a noise like a muffled explosion. Quint cast his iron. It struck the fish atop the head, over the right eye, and it held fast. The rope fed slowly overboard as the fish backed off.

“Perfect!” said Quint. “Got him in the head that time.”

There were three barrels in the water now, and they skated across the surface. Then they disappeared.

“God damn!” said Quint. “That’s no normal fish that can sound with three irons in him and three barrels to hold him up.”

The boat trembled, seeming to rise up, then dropped back. The barrels popped up, two on one side of the boat, one on the other. Then they submerged again. A few seconds later, they reappeared twenty yards from the boat.

“Go below,” said Quint, as he readied another harpoon. “See if that prick done us any dirt up forward.”

Brody swung down into the cabin. It was dry. He pulled back the threadbare carpet, saw a hatch, and opened it. A stream of water was flowing aft beneath the floor of the cabin. We’re sinking, he told himself, and the memories of his childhood nightmares leaped into his mind. He went topside and said to Quint, “It doesn’t look good. There’s a lot of water under the cabin floor.”

“I better go take a look. Here.” Quint handed Brody the harpoon. “If he comes back while I’m below, stick this in him for good measure.” He walked aft and went below.

Brody stood on the pulpit, holding the harpoon, and he looked at the floating barrels. They lay practically still in the water, twitching now and then as the fish moved about below. How do you die? Brody said silently to the fish. He heard an electric motor start.

“No sweat,” said Quint, walking forward. He took the harpoon from Brody. “He’s banged us up, all right, but the pumps should take care of it. We’ll be able to tow him in.”

Brody dried his palms on the seat of his pants. “Are you really going to tow him in?”

“I am. When he dies.”

“And when will that be?”

“When he’s ready.”

“And until then?”

“We wait.”

Brody looked at his watch. It was eight-thirty.

For three hours they waited, tracking the barrels as they moved, ever more slowly, on a random path across the surface of the sea. At first they would disappear every ten or fifteen minutes, resurfacing a few dozen yards away. Then their submergences grew rarer until, by eleven, they had not gone under for nearly an hour. By eleven-thirty, the barrels were wallowing in the water.

The rain had stopped, and the wind had subsided to a comfortable breeze. The sky was an unbroken sheet of gray.

“What do you think?” said Brody. “Is he dead?”

“I doubt it. But he may be close enough to it for us to throw a rope ‘round his tail and drag him till he drowns.”

Quint took a coil of rope from one of the barrels in the bow. He tied one end to an after cleat. The other end he tied into a noose.

At the foot of the gin pole was an electric winch. Quint switched it on to make sure it was working, then turned it off again. He gunned the engine and moved the boat toward the barrels. He drove slowly, cautiously, prepared to veer away if the fish attacked. But the barrels lay still.

Quint idled the engine when he came alongside the barrels. He reached overboard with a gaff, snagged a rope, and pulled a barrel aboard. He tried to untie the rope from the barrel, but the knot had been soaked and strained. So he took his knife from the sheath at his belt and cut the rope. He stabbed the knife into the gunwale, freeing his left hand to hold the rope, his right to shove the barrel to the deck.

He climbed onto the gunwale, ran the rope through a pulley at the top of the gin pole and down the pole to the winch. He took a few turns around the winch, then flipped the starter switch. As soon as the slack in the rope was taken up, the boat heeled hard to starboard, dragged down by the weight of the fish.

“Can that winch handle him?” said Brody.

“Seems to be. It’d never haul him out of the water, but I bet it’ll bring him up to us.” The winch was turning slowly, humming, taking a full turn every three or four seconds. The rope quivered under the strain, scattering drops of water on Quint’s shirt.

Suddenly the rope started coming too fast. It fouled on the winch, coiling in snarls. The boat snapped upright.

“Rope break?” said Brody.

“Shit no!” said Quint, and now Brody saw fear in his face. “The sonofabitch is coming up!” He dashed to the controls and threw the engine into forward. But it was too late.

The fish broke water right beside the boat, with a great rushing whoosh of noise. It rose vertically, and in an instant of horror Brody gasped at the size of the body. Towering overhead, it blocked out the light. The pectoral fins hovered like wings, stiff and straight, and as the fish fell forward, they seemed to be reaching out to Brody.

The fish landed on the stern of the boat with a shattering crash, driving the boat beneath the waves. Water poured in over the transom. In seconds, Quint and Brody were standing in water up to their hips.

The fish lay there, its jaw not three feet from Brody’s chest. The body twitched, and in the black eye, as big as a baseball, Brody thought he saw his own image reflected.

“God damn your black soul!” screamed Quint. “You sunk my boat!” A barrel floated into the cockpit, the rope writhing like a gathering of worms. Quint grabbed the harpoon dart at the end of the rope and, with his hand, plunged it into the soft white belly of the fish. Blood poured from the wound and bathed Quint’s hands.

The boat was sinking. The stern was completely sub-merged, and the bow was rising.

The fish rolled off the stern and slid beneath the waves. The rope, attached to the dart Quint had stuck into the fish, followed.

Suddenly, Quint lost his footing and fell backward into the water. “The knife!” he cried, lifting his left leg above the surface, and Brody saw the rope coiled around Quint’s foot.

Brody looked to the starboard gunwale. The knife was there, embedded in the wood. He lunged for it, wrenched it free, and turned back, struggling to run in the deepening water. He could not move fast enough. He watched in helpless terror as Quint, reaching toward him with grasping fingers, eyes wide and pleading, was pulled slowly down into the dark water.

For a moment there was silence, except for the sucking sound of the boat slipping gradually down; The water was up to Brody’s shoulders, and he clung desperately to the gin pole. A seat cushion popped to the surface next to him, and Brody grabbed it. ("They’d hold you up all right,” Brody remembered Hendricks saying, “if you were an eight-year-old boy.")

Brody saw the tail and dorsal fin break the surface twenty yards away. The tail waved once left, once right, and the dorsal fin moved closer. “Get away, damn you!” Brody yelled.

The fish kept coming, barely moving, closing in. The barrels and skeins of rope trailed behind.

The gin pole went under, and Brody let go of it. He tried to kick over to the bow of the boat, which was almost vertical now. Before he could reach it, the bow raised even higher, then quickly and soundlessly slid beneath the surface.

Brody clutched the cushion, and he found that by holding it in front of him, his forearms across it, and by kicking constantly, he could stay afloat without exhausting himself.

The fish came closer. It was only a few feet away, and Brody could see the conical snout. He screamed, an ejaculation of hopelessness, and closed his eyes, waiting for an agony he could not imagine.

Nothing happened. He opened his eyes. The fish was nearly touching him, only a foot or two away, but it had stopped. And then, as Brody watched, the steel-gray body began to recede downward into the gloom. It seemed to fall away, an apparition evanescing into darkness.

Brody put his face into the water and opened his eyes. Through the stinging saltwater mist he saw the fish sink in a slow and graceful spiral, trailing behind it the body of Quint — arms out to the sides, head thrown back, mouth open in mute protest.

The fish faded from view. But, kept from sinking into the deep by the bobbing barrels, it stopped somewhere beyond the reach of light, and Quint’s body hung suspended; a shadow twirling slowly in the twilight. Brody watched until his lungs ached for air. He raised his head, cleared his eyes, and sighted in the distance the black point of the water tower. Then he began to kick toward shore.