Saturday 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 assignment. He was chagrined at his white legs, nearly hairless after years of chafing 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. Offshore, 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 onshore 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 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 grass 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 Queens Borough New Yorker. “We turned off Twenty-seven 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.”