Brody had dressed more sensibly today. He wore a white, short-sleeved shirt with a high collar, light cotton trousers, white socks, and sneakers. He had brought a book along to pass the time, a sex mystery borrowed from Hendricks, called The Deadly Virgin.

Brody did not want to have to fill time with conversation, conversation that might lead to a repeat of yesterday’s scene with Hooper. It had embarrassed him—Hooper, too, he thought. Today they seldom spoke to one another, directing most of their comments at Quint. Brody did not trust himself to feign civility with Hooper.

Brody had observed that in the mornings, Quint was quiet—tight and reserved. Words had to be wrung from him. But as the day wore on, he loosened up and became more and more loquacious. As they had left the dock that morning, for instance, Brody had asked Quint how he knew what spot to pick to wait for the fish.

“Don’t,” said Quint.

“You don’t know?”

Quint moved his head once from left to right, then back again.

“Then how do you choose a place?”

“Just choose one.”

“What do you look for?”

“Nothing.”

“You don’t go by the tide?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Does it matter whether the water’s deep or shallow?”

“Some.”

“How so?”

For a moment, Brody thought Quint would refuse to answer. He stared straight ahead, eyes fixed on the horizon. Then he said, as if it were a supreme effort, “Big fish like that probably won’t be in too shallow water. But you never know.”

Brody knew he should drop the subject and leave Quint in peace, but he was interested, so he asked another question. “If we find that fish, or if he finds us, it’ll be luck, won’t it?”

“Sort of.”

“Like a needle in a haystack.”

“Not quite.”

“Why not?”

“If the tide’s running good, we can put out a slick that’ll cover ten miles and more by the end of the day.”

“Would it be better if we stayed the night out here?”

“What for?” said Quint.

“To keep the slick going. If we can spread ten miles in a day, we could make it more than twenty miles long if we stayed out all night.”

“If a slick gets too big, it’s no good.”

“Why?”

“Gets confusing. If you stayed out here a month, you could cover the whole fuckin’ ocean. Not much sense in that.” Quint smiled, apparently at the thought of a chum slick covering the whole ocean.

Brody gave up and read The Deadly Virgin.

By noon, Quint had opened up. The lines had been in the slick for over four hours. Though no one had specifically assigned him the task, Hooper had taken up the chum ladle as soon as they began to drift, and now he sat at the stern, methodically scooping and dumping. At about ten o’clock, a fish had taken the starboard line and had caused a few seconds of excitement. But it turned out to be a five-pound bonito that could barely get its mouth around the hook. At ten-thirty, a small blue shark took the port line. Brody reeled it in, Quint brought it to gaff, slit its stomach open, and released it. The shark nibbled feebly at a few pieces of itself, then slipped into the deep. No other sharks came around to feed.