Jaws Part 18

"Business bad?"

"Bad."

"Business is always bad with you."

"Not like this. If it doesn't get better soon, I'm gonna be the cause of a race riot."

"What do you mean?"

"I'm supposed to hire two delivery boys for the summer. I'm committed. But I can't afford two. Let alone I don't have enough work for two, the way things are. So I can only hire one. One's white and one's black."

"Which one are you hiring?"

"The black one. I figure he needs the money more. I just thank G.o.d the white one isn't Jewish."

Brody arrived home at 5:10. As he pulled into the driveway, the back door to the house opened, and Ellen ran toward him. She had been crying, and she was still visibly upset.

"What's the matter?" he said.

"Thank G.o.d you're home. I tried to reach you at work, but you had already left. Come here. Quick." She took him by the hand and led him past the back door to the shed where they kept the garbage cans. "In there," she said, pointing to a can. "Look." Brody removed the lid from the can. Lying in a twisted heap atop a bag of garbage was Sean's cat --a big, husky tom named Frisky. The cat's head had been twisted completely around, and the yellow eyes over-looked its back.

"How the h.e.l.l did that happen?" said Brody. "A car?"

"No, a man." Ellen's breath came in sobs. "A man did it to him. Sean was right there when it happened. The man got out of a car over by the curb. He picked up the eat and twisted its head until the neck broke. Scan said it made a horrible snap. Then he dropped the cat on the lawn and got back in his car and drove away."

"Did he say anything?"

"I don't know. Sean's inside. He's hysterical, and I don't blame him. Martin, what's happening?"

Brody slammed the top back on the can. "G.o.d d.a.m.n sonofab.i.t.c.h!" he said. His throat felt tight, and he clenched his teeth, popping the muscles on both sides of his jaw.

"Let's go inside."

Five minutes later, Brody marched out the back door. He tore the lid off the garbage can and threw it aside. He reached in and pulled out the cat's corpse. He took it to his car, pitched it through the open window, and climbed in. He backed out of the driveway and screeched away. A hundred yards down the road, in a burst of fury, he turned on his siren. It took him only a couple of minutes to reach Vaughan's house, a (80) large, Tudor-style stone mansion on Sprain Drive, just off Scotch Road. He got out of the car, dragging the dead cat by one of its hind legs, mounted the front steps, and rang the bell. He hoped Eleanor Vaughan wouldn't answer the door.

The door opened, and Vaughan said, "h.e.l.lo, Martin. I..." Brody raised the eat and pushed it toward Vaughan's face. "What about this, you c.o.c.ksucker?" Vaughan's eyes widened. "What do you mean? I don't know what you're talking about?"

"One of your friends did this. Right in my front yard, right in front of my kid. They murdered my f.u.c.king cat! Did you tell them to do that?"

"Don't be crazy, Martin." Vaughan seemed genuinely shocked. "I'd never do anything like that. Never."

Brody lowered the cat and said, "Did you call your friends after I left?"

"Well... yes. But just to say that the beaches would be open tomorrow."

"That's all you said?"

"Yes. Why?"

"You lying f.u.c.k!" Brody hit Vaughan in the chest with the cat and let it fall to the floor. "You know what the guy said after he strangled my eat? You know what he told my eight-year-old boy?"

"No. Of course I don't know. How would I know?"

"He said the same thing you did. He said: 'Tell your old man this --"Be subtle."

Brody turned and walked down the steps, leaving Vaughan standing over the gnarled bundle of bone and fur.

Chapter 10

Friday was cloudy, with scattered light showers, and the only people who swam were a young couple who took a quick dip early in the morning just as Brody's man arrived at the beach. Hooper patrolled for six hours and saw nothing. On Friday night Brody called the Coast Guard for a weather report. He wasn't sure what he hoped to hear. He knew he should wish for beautiful weather for the three-day holiday weekend. It would bring people to Amity and if nothing happened, if nothing was sighted, by Tuesday he might begin to believe the shark had gone. If nothing happened. Privately, he would have welcomed a three-day blow that would keep the beaches clear over the weekend. Either way, he begged his personal deities not to let anything happen. He wanted Hooper to go back to Woods Hole. It was not just that Hooper was always there, the expert voice to contradict his caution. Brody sensed that somehow Hooper had come into his home. He knew Ellen had talked to Hooper since the party: young Martin had mentioned something about the possibility of Hooper taking them on a beach picnic to look for sh.e.l.ls. Then there was that business on Wednesday. Ellen had said she was sick, and she certainly had looked worn out when he came home. But where had Hooper been that day? Why had he been so evasive when Brody had asked him about it? For the first time in his married life, Brody was wondering, and the wondering filled him with an uncomfortable ambivalence --self-reproach for questioning Ellen, and fear that there might actually be something to wonder about.

The weather report was for clear and sunny, southwest winds five to ten knots. Well, Brody thought, maybe that's for the best. If we have a good weekend and n.o.body gets hurt, maybe I can believe. And Hooper's sure to leave. Brody had said he would call Hooper as soon as he talked to the Coast Guard. He was standing at the kitchen phone. Ellen was washing the supper dishes. Brody knew Hooper was staying at the Abelard Arms. He saw the phone book buried beneath a pile of bills, note pads, and comic books on the kitchen counter. He started to reach for it, then stopped. "I have to call Hooper," he said. "You know where the phone book is?"

"It's six-five-four-three," said Ellen.

"What is?"

"The Abelard. That's the number: six-five-four-three." (81)

"How do you know?"

"I have a memory for phone numbers. You know that. I always have." He did know it, and he cursed himself for playing stupid tricks. He dialed the number.

"Abelard Arms." It was a male voice, young. The night clerk.

"Matt Hooper's room, please."

"You don't happen to know the room number, sir?"

"No." Brody cupped his hand over the mouthpiece and said to Ellen, "You don't happen to know the room number, do you?"

She looked at him, and for a second she didn't answer. Then she shook her head. The clerk said, "Here it is. Four-oh-five."

The phone rang twice before Hooper answered.

"This is Brody."

"Yeah. Hi."

Brody faced the wall, trying to imagine what the room looked like. He conjured visions of a small dark garret, a rumpled bed, stains on the sheets, the smells of rut. He felt, briefly, that he was going out of his mind. "I guess we're on for tomorrow," he said.

"The weather report is good."

"Yeah, I know."

"Then I'll see you down at the dock."

"What time?"

"Nine-thirty, I guess. n.o.body's going to go swim-ruing before then."

"Okay. Nine-thirty."

"Fine. Oh hey, by the way," Brody said, "how did things work out with Daisy Wicker?"

"What?"

Brody wished he hadn't asked the question. "Nothing. I was just curious. You know, about whether you two hit it off."

"Well... yeah, now that you mention it. Is that part of your job, to check up on people's s.e.x life?"

"Forget it. Forget I ever mentioned it." He hung up the phone. Liar, he thought. What the h.e.l.l is going on here? He turned to Ellen. "I meant to ask you, Martin said something about a beach picnic. When's that?"

"No special time," she said. "It was just a thought."

"Oh." He looked at her, but she didn't return the glance. "I think it's time you got some sleep."

"Why do you say that?"

"You haven't been feeling well. And that's the second time you've washed that gla.s.s." He took a beer from the refrigerator. He yanked the metal tab and it broke off in his hand. "f.u.c.k!" he said, and he threw the full can into the wastebasket and marched out of the room.

Sat.u.r.day noon, Brody stood on a dune overlooking the Scotch Road beach, feeling half secret agent, half fool. He was wearing a polo shirt and a bathing suit: he had had to buy one specially for this a.s.signment. He was chagrined at his white legs, nearly hairless after years of chaffing in long pants. He wished Ellen had come with him, to make him feel less conspicuous, but she had begged off, claiming that since he wasn't going to be home over the weekend, this would be a good time to catch up on her housework. In a beach bag by Brody's side were a pair of binoculars, a walkie-talkie, two beers, and a cellophane-wrapped sandwich. Offsh.o.r.e, between a quarter and half a mile, the Flicka moved slowly eastward. Brody watched the boat and said to himself: At least I know where he is today.

The Coast Guard had been right: the day was splendid --cloudless and warm, with a light onsh.o.r.e breeze. The beach was not crowded. A dozen teen-agers were scattered about in their ritual rows. A few couples lay dozing --motionless as corpses, as if to move would disrupt the cosmic rhythms that generated a tan. A family was gathered (82) around a charcoal fire in the sand, and the scent of grilling hamburger drifted into Brody's nose.

No one had yet gone swimming. Twice, different sets of parents had led their children to the water's edge and allowed them to wade in the wavewash, but after a few minutes--bored or fearful --the parents had ordered the children back up the beach. Brody heard footsteps crackling in the beach gra.s.s behind him, and he turned around. A man and a woman in their late forties, probably, and both grossly overweight --were struggling up the dune, dragging two complaining children behind them. The man wore khakis, a T-shirt, and basketball sneakers. The woman wore a print dress that rode up her wrinkled thighs. In her hand she carried a pair of sandals. Behind them Brody saw a Winnebago camper parked on Scotch Road.

"Can I help you?" Brody said when the couple had reached the top of the dune.

"Is this the beach?" said the woman.

"What beach are you looking for? The public beach is --"

"This is it, awright," said the man, pulling a map out of his pocket. He spoke with the unmistakable accent of the Queensborough New Yorker. "We turned off Twentyseven and followed this road here. This is it, awright."

"So where's the shark?" said one of the children, a fat boy of about thirteen. "I thought you said we were gonna see a shark."

"Shut up," said his father. He said to Brody, "Where's this hotshot shark?"

"What shark?"

"The shark that's killed all them people. I seen it on TV --on three different channels. There's a shark that kills people. Right here."

"There was a shark here," said Brody. "But it isn't here now. And with any luck, it won't come back."

The man stared at Brody for a second and then snarled, "You mean we drove all the way out here to see this shark and he's gone? That's not what the TV said."

"I can't help that," said Brody. "I don't know who told you you were going to see that shark. They don't just come up on the beach and shake hands, you know."

"Don't smart-mouth me, buddy."

Brody stood up. "Listen, mister," he said, pulling his wallet from the belt of his bathing suit and opening it so the man could see his badge. "I'm the chief of police in this town. I don't know who you are, or who you think you are, but you don't march onto a private beach in Amity and start behaving like a b.u.m. Now state your business or beat it."

The man stopped posturing. "Sorry," he said. "It's just after all that G.o.ddam traffic and the kids screaming in my ear, I thought at least we'd get a look at the shark. That's what we come all the way out here for."

"You drove two and a half hours to see a shark? Why?"

"Something to do. Last weekend we went to Jungle Habitat. We thought maybe this weekend we'd go to the Jersey Sh.o.r.e. But then we heard about the shark out here. The kids never seen a shark before."

"Well, I hope they don't see one today, either."

"s.h.i.t," said the man.

"You said we'd see a shark!" whined one of the boys.

"Shut your mouth, Benny!" The man turned back to Brody. "Is it okay if we have lunch here?"

Brody knew he could order the people down to the public beach, but without a resident's parking sticker they would have to park their camper more than a mile from the beach, so he said, "I guess so. If somebody complains, you'll have to move, but I doubt anyone will complain today. Go ahead. But don't leave anything --not a gum wrapper or a matchstick --on the beach, or I'll slap a ticket on you for littering."

"Okay." The man said to his wife, "You got the cooler?"

"I left it in the camper," she said. "I didn't know we'd be staying."

"s.h.i.t." The man trudged down the dune, panting. The woman and her two (83) children walked twenty or thirty yards away and sat on the sand. Brody looked at his watch: 12:15. He reached into the beach bag and took out the walkie-talkie. He pushed a b.u.t.ton and said, "You there, Leonard?" Then he released the b.u.t.ton.

In a moment the reply came back, rasping through the speaker. "I read you, Chief. Over." Hendricks had volunteered to spend the weekend on the public beach, as the third point in the triangle of watch. ("You're getting to be a regular beach b.u.m," Brody had said when Hendricks volunteered. Hendricks had laughed and said, "Sure, Chief. If you're going to live in a place like this, you might as well become a beautiful people.") "What's up?" said Brody. "Anything going on?"

"Nothing we can't handle, but there is a little problem. People keep coming up to me and trying to give me tickets. Over."

"Tickets for what?"

"To get onto the beach. They say they bought special tickets in town that allow them to come onto the Amity beach. You should see the d.a.m.n things. I got one right here. It says 'Shark Beach. Admit One. Two-fifty.' All I can figure is some sharpie is making a pretty fine killing selling people tickets they don't need. Over."

"What's their reaction when you turn down their tickets?"

"First, they're mad as h.e.l.l when I tell them they've been taken, that there's no charge for coming to the beach. Then they get even madder when I tell them that, ticket or no ticket, they can't leave their cars in the parking lot without a parking permit. Over."