Surfers traded stories about waves all the time, and yet Sharkey had never heard anything of this one at Nazaré. Even surfers who’d ridden the waves at San Sebastián and the Spanish coast—Sharkey himself at San Lorenzo and Vigo, not far from the place João had described at Nazaré—even those watermen had never mentioned the wave.

Maybe they’d never heard of it. Or maybe it was that other factor in surf culture—the secret place, the special break, never to be shared. When Sharkey was interviewed and asked to name his favorite surf spot, he always said with a smile, “I’ll give you my third favorite.”

“I don’t get it,” the interviewer would say.

“Telling you my favorite will turn it into a gangbang.”

Surfers were evasive when it came to talking about the great places they knew. They might swap the names of breaks, but the rare ones, the undiscovered waves, they kept to themselves.

So the fact that Nazaré wasn’t mentioned did not mean it was unknown; it might be one of those secret waves in the world, known to a few, not to be revealed to the many, who would crowd the lineup.

“João, why are you telling me this?”

“Because you’re Joe Sharkey.”

Back in Hawaii he had a second operation on his knee and spent his days in physical therapy and cross-training. He said nothing of the monster wave, nor did he mention Portugal to any other surfers. He avoided telling Kailani, his girlfriend, suspecting that she might mention it to one of her friends at the health food store in town where she worked. All the women there knew surfers, and the wave would be revealed to the North Shore, and to Honolulu and the world.

What he said was, “I’ve decided to go with Prime Fuel.”

“That cheesy energy drink,” Kailani said. “It’s junk. Just juice and chemicals and sugar.”

“I need a sponsor.”

“For what? You’ve got money, you got this great house in Pupukea now. You’ve got me.”

She was pleading, indignant, and looked wronged. And she was outraged in the way only the young can be outraged, he thought—their innocence violated, with the knowledge of the jangle of money in the world, money as influence, a glimpse of business, seeing it—rightly—as the source of wickedness.

Sharkey said, “I have to do some traveling.”

“If you take that deal, I’m not going with you.” Her hair was black and lustrous; she tossed it as she threatened, and looked beautiful. “In fact, I won’t want to know you.”

“What’s your problem?”

“You’re selling out,” she said. “You’re not one of these stupid surfers who do anything for money. You’re Joe Sharkey. You’re akamai. You know more better than these guys.” She began to cry, snatching helplessly at her eyes and her smeared cheeks.