Jaws

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