Jaws Read Free

bankers and brokers and lawyers who stopped in to discuss their various plans for keeping Amity a pristine and exclusive summer colony. Four to midnight was
    the trouble shift, when the young studs from the Hamptons would flock to the Randy Bear and get involved in a fight or simply get so drunk that they became a menace on the roads; when, very rarely, a couple of predators from Queens would lurk in the dark side streets and mug passersby; and when, about twice a month in the summer, enough evidence having accumulated, the police would feel obliged to stage a pot bust at one of the huge waterfront homes. There were six men on four to midnight, the six largest men on the force, all between thirty and fifty years old.
    Midnight to eight was usually quiet. For nine months of the year, peace was virtually guaranteed. The biggest event of the previous winter had been an electrical storm that had set off all the alarms linking the police station to forty-eight of Amity's
    biggest and most expensive homes. Normally during the summer, the mid-night-to-eight shift was manned by three officers. One, however, a young fellow named Dick Angelo, was now taking his two-week leave before the season began to swing. The other was a thirty-year veteran named Henry Kimble, who had chosen the midnight-to-eight shift because it permitted him to catch up on his sleep --he held a daytime job as a bartender at Saxon's. Hendricks tried to raise Kimble on the radio --to get him to take a walk along
    the beach by Old Mill Road --but he knew the attempt was hopeless. As usual, Kimble was sound asleep in a squad car parked behind the Amity Pharmacy. And so Hendricks picked up the phone and dialed Chief Brody's home number.
    Brody was asleep, in that fitful state before waking when dreams rapidly change and there are moments of bleary semiconsciousness. The first ring of the phone was assimilated into his dream --a vision that he was back in high school groping a girl on a
    stairwell. The second ring snapped the vision. He rolled over and picked up the receiver.
    "Yeah?"
    "Chief, this is Hendricks. I hate to bother you this early, but –“
    "What time is it?"
    "Five-twenty."
    "Leonard, this better be good."
    "I think we've got a floater on our hands, Chief."
    "A floater? What in Christ's name is a floater?" It was a word Hendricks had picked up from his night reading. "A drowning," he said, embarrassed. He told Brody about the phone call from Foote. "I didn't know if you'd want to check it out before people start swimming. I mean, it looks like it's going to be a
    nice day."
    Brody heaved an exaggerated sigh. "Where's Kimble?" he said and then added quickly, "Oh, never mind. It was a stupid question. One of these days I'm going to fix that
    radio of his so he can't turn it off."
    Hendricks waited a moment, then said, "Like I said, Chief, I hate to bother..."
    "Yeah, I know, Leonard. You were right to call. As long as I'm awake, I might as well get up. I'll shave and shower and grab some coffee, and on my way in I'll take a look
    along the beach in front of Old Mill and Scotch, just to make sure your 'floater' isn't cluttering up somebody's beach. Then when the day boys come on, I'll go out and talk to Foote and the girl's date. I'll see you later."
    Brody hung up the phone and stretched. He looked at his wife, lying next to him in the double bed. She had stirred when the phone rang, but as soon as she determined that there was no emergency, she lapsed back into sleep.
    Ellen Brody was thirty-six, five years younger than her husband, and the fact file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt (5 of 131) [1/18/2001 2:02:21 AM]
    file:///C|/My Documents/Mike's Shit/utilities/books/pdf format/Benchley, Peter - Jaws.txt that
    she looked barely thirty was a source of both pride and annoyance to Brody: pride because, since she looked handsome and young and was married to him, she made him seem a man of excellent taste