The sound of tires grinding over gravel in the public parking lot out front stopped Brody. A car door slammed, and Len Hendricks charged into the station house, wearing nothing but a bathing suit. His body had the mottled gray-whiteness of a Styrofoam coffee cup. He stopped in the middle of the floor. “Chief …”

Brody was startled by the unlikely sight of Hendricks in a bathing suit—thighs flecked with pimples, genitals bulging in the tight fabric. “You’ve been swimming, Leonard?”

“There’s been another attack!” said Hendricks.

The Times man quickly asked, “When was the first one?”

Before Hendricks could answer, Brody said, “We were just discussing it, Leonard. I don’t want you or anyone else jumping to conclusions until you know what you’re talking about. For God’s sake, the boy could have drowned.”

“Boy?” said Hendricks. “What boy? This was a man, an old man. Five minutes ago. He was just beyond the surf, and suddenly he screamed bloody murder and his head went under water and it came up again and he screamed something else and then he went down again. There was all this splashing around, and blood was flying all over the place. The fish kept coming back and hitting him again and again and again. That’s the biggest fuckin’ fish I ever saw in my whole life, big as a fuckin’ station wagon. I went in up to my waist and tried to get to the guy, but the fish kept hitting him.” Hendricks paused, staring at the floor. His breath squeezed out of his chest in short bursts. “Then the fish quit. Maybe he went away, I don’t know. I waded out to where the guy was floating. His face was in the water. I took hold of one of his arms and pulled.”

Brody said, “And?”

“It came off in my hand. The fish must have chewed right through it, all but a little bit of skin.” Hendricks looked up, his eyes red and filling with tears of exhaustion and fright.

“Are you going to be sick?” said Brody.

“I don’t think so.”

“Did you call the ambulance?”

Hendricks shook his head no.

“Ambulance?” said the Times reporter. “Isn’t that rather like shutting the barn door after the horse has left?”

“Shut your mouth, smart ass,” said Brody. “Bixby, call the hospital. Leonard, are you up to doing some work?” Hendricks nodded. “Then go put on some clothes and find some notices that close the beaches.”

“Do we have any?”

“I don’t know. We must. Maybe back in the stock room with those signs that say ‘This Property Protected by Police.’ If we don’t, we’ll have to make some that’ll do until we can have some made up. I don’t care. One way or another, let’s get the goddam beaches closed.”

Monday morning, Brody arrived at the office a little after seven. “Did you get it?” he said to Hendricks.

“It’s on your desk.”

“Good or bad? Never mind. I’ll go see for myself.”