Read Jaws for Free Online Page B

cause perspiration to dot his forehead. He was in his late forties, ate too much, chain-smoked cheap cigars, drank bonded Bourbon, and was, in the words of his doctor, the Western world’s leading candidate for a huge coronary infarction.
    When Brody arrived, Meadows was standing beside his desk, waving a towel at the open window. “In deference to what your lunch order tells me is a tender stomach,” he said, “I am trying to clear the air of essence of White Owl.”
    “I appreciate that,” said Brody. He glanced around the small, cluttered room, searching for a place to sit.
    “Just throw that crap off the chair there,” Meadows said. “They’re just government reports. Reports from the county, reports from the state, reports from the highway commission and the water commission. They probably cost about a million dollars, and from an informational point of view they don’t amount to a cup of spit.”
    Brody picked up the heap of papers and piled them atop a radiator. He pulled the chair next to Meadows’ desk and sat down.
    Meadows rooted around in a large brown paper bag, pulled out a plastic cup and a cellophane-wrapped sandwich, and slid them across the desk to Brody. Then he began to unwrap his own lunch, four separate packages which he opened and spread before himself with the loving care of a jeweler showing off rare gems: a meatball hero, oozing tomato sauce; a plastic carton filled with oily fried potatoes; a dill pickle the size of a small squash; and a quarter of a lemon meringue pie. He reached behind his chair and from a small refrigerator withdrew a sixteen-ounce can of beer. “Delightful,” he said with a smile as he surveyed the feast before him.
    “Amazing,” said Brody, stifling an acid belch. “Absofuckinlutely amazing. I must have had about a thousand meals with you, Harry, but I still can’t get used to it.”
    “Everyone has his little quirks, my friend,” Meadows said as he lifted his sandwich. “Some people chase other people’s wives. Some lose themselves in whiskey. I find my solace in nature’s own nourishment.”
    “That’ll be some solace to Dorothy when your heart says, ‘That’s enough, buster, adiós.’ ”
    “We’ve discussed that, Dorothy and I,” said Meadows, filtering the words through a mouthful of bread and meat, “and we agree that one of the few advantages man has over other animals is the ability to choose the way to bring on his own death. Food may well kill me, but it’s also what has made life such a pleasure. Besides, I’d rather go my way thanend up in the belly of a shark. After this morning, I’m sure you’ll agree.”
    Brody was in the midst of swallowing a bite of egg salad sandwich, and he had to force it past a rising gag. “Don’t do that to me,” he said.
    They ate in silence for a few moments. Brody finished his sandwich and milk, wadded the sandwich wrapper and stuffed it into the plastic cup. He leaned back and lit a cigarette. Meadows was still eating, but Brody knew his appetite wouldn’t be diminished by any discussion. He recalled a time when Meadows had visited the scene of a bloody automobile accident and proceeded to interview police and survivors while sucking on a coconut Popsicle.
    “About the Watkins thing,” Brody said. “I have a couple of thoughts, if you want to hear them.” Meadows nodded. “First, it seems to me that the cause of death is cut-and-dried. I’ve already talked to Santos, and—”
    “I did, too.”
    “So you know what he thinks. It was a shark attack, clear and simple. And if you’d seen the body, you’d agree. There’s just no—”
    “I did see it.”
    Brody was astonished, mostly because he couldn’t imagine how anyone who had seen that mess could be sitting there now, licking lemon-pie filling off his fingers. “So you agree?”
    “Yes. I agree that’s what killed her. But there are a few things I’m not so sure of.”
    “Like what?”
    “Like why she was swimming at that