“Shit,” said Brody. “All right, Harry, I’ll think about it. But if I open them, I’m gonna do it my way. Thanks for the call.” He hung up and went into Vaughan’s office.
Vaughan was standing at the southerly window, his back to the door. When he heard Brody walk in, he said, “The meeting’s over.”
“What do you mean, over?” said Catsoulis. “We ain’t decided a fuckin’ thing.”
Vaughan spun around and said, “It’s over, Tony! Don’t give me any trouble. It’ll work out the way we want. Just give me a chance to have a little chat with the chief. Okay? Now everybody out.”
Hooper and the four selectmen left the office. Brody watched Vaughan as he ushered them out. He knew he should feel pity for Vaughan, but he couldn’t suppress the contempt that flowed over him. Vaughan shut the door, walked over to the couch, and sat down heavily.
He rested his elbows on his knees and rubbed his temples with his fingertips. “We were friends, Martin,” he said. “I hope we can be again,”
“How much of what Meadows said is true?”
“I won’t tell you. I can’t. Suffice it to say that a man once did a favor for me and now he wants me to repay the favor.”
“In other words, all of it.”
Vaughan looked up, and Brody saw that his eyes were red and wet. “I swear to you, Martin, if I had any idea how far this would go, I’d never have gotten into it.”
“How much are you into him for?”
“The original amount was ten thousand. I tried to pay it back twice, a long time ago, but I could never get them to cash my checks. They kept saying it was a gift, not to worry about it. But they never gave me back my marker. When they came to me a couple of months ago, I offered them a hundred thousand dollars — cash. They said it wasn’t enough. They didn’t want the money. They wanted me to make a few investments. Everybody’d be a winner, they said.”
“And how much are you out now?”
“God knows. Every cent I have. More than every cent. Probably close to a million dollars.” Vaughan took a deep breath. “Can you help me, Martin?”
“The only thing I can do for you is put you in touch with the D. A. If you’d testify, you might be able to slap a loan-sharking rap on these guys.”
“I’d be dead before I got home from the D. A.’s office, and Eleanor would be left without anything. That’s not the kind of help I meant.”
“I know.” Brody looked down at Vaughan, a huddled, wounded animal, and he did feel compassion for him. He began to doubt his own opposition to opening the beaches. How much of it was the residue of prior guilt, how much fear of another attack? How much was he indulging himself, playing it safe, and how much was prudent concern for the town? “I’ll tell you what, Larry, I’ll open the beaches. Not to help you, because I’m sure if I didn’t open them you’d find a way to get rid of me and open them yourself. I’ll open the beaches because I’m not sure I’m right any more.”
“Thanks, Martin. I appreciate that.”
“I’m not finished. Like I said, I’ll open them. But I’m going to post men on the beaches. And I’m going to have Hooper patrol in the boat. And I’m going to make sure every person who comes down there knows the danger.”
“You can’t do that!” Vaughan said. “You might as well leave the damn things closed.”
“I can do it, Larry, and I will.”
“What are you going to do? Post signs warning of a killer shark? Put an ad in the newspaper saying ‘Beaches Open — Stay Away’? Nobody’s going to go to the beach if it’s crawling with cops.”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do. But something. I’m not going to make believe nothing ever happened.”
“All right, Martin.” Vaughan rose. “You don’t leave me much choice. If I got rid of you, you’d probably go down to the beach as a private citizen and run up and down yelling ‘Shark!’ So all right. But be subtle — if not for my sake, for the town’s.”
Brody left the office. As he walked down the stairs, he looked at his watch. It was past one o’clock, and he was hungry. He went down Water Street to Loeffler’s, Amity’s only delicatessen. It was owned by Paul Loeffler, a classmate of Brody’s in high school.
As Brody pulled open the glass door, he heard Loeffler say, “…like a goddam dictator, if you ask me. I don’t know what’s his problem.” When he saw Brody, Loeffler blushed. He had been a skinny kid in high school, but as soon as he had taken over his father’s business, he had succumbed to the terrible temptations that surrounded him for twelve hours of every day of every week, and nowadays he looked like a pear.
Brody smiled. “You weren’t talking about me, were you, Paulie?”
“What makes you think that?” said Loeffler, his blush deepening.
“Nothing. Never mind. If you’ll make me a ham and Swiss on rye with mustard, I’ll tell you something that will make you happy.”
“That I have to hear.” Loeffler began to assemble Brody’s sandwich.
“I’m going to open the beaches for the Fourth.”
“That makes me happy.”
“Business bad?”
“Bad.”
“Business is always bad with you.”
“Not like this. If it doesn’t get better soon, I’m gonna be the cause of a race riot.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m supposed to hire two delivery boys for the summer. I’m committed. But I can’t afford two. Let alone I don’t have enough work for two, the way things are. So I can only hire one. One’s white and one’s black.”
“Which one are you hiring?”
“The black one. I figure he needs the money more. I just thank God the white one isn’t Jewish.”
Brody arrived home at 5.10. As he pulled into the driveway, the back door to the house opened, and Ellen ran toward him. She had been crying, and she was still visibly upset.
“What’s the matter?” he said.
“Thank God you’re home. I tried to reach you at work, but you had already left. Come here. Quick.” She took him by the hand and led him past the back door to the shed where they kept the garbage cans. “In there,” she said, pointing to a can. “Look.”
Brody removed the lid from the can. Lying in a twisted heap atop a bag of garbage was Sean’s cat — a big, husky tom named Frisky. The cat’s head had been twisted completely around, and the yellow eyes overlooked its back.
“How the hell did that happen?” said Brody. “A car?”
“No, a man.” Ellen’s breath came in sobs. “A man did it to him. Sean was right there when it happened. The man got out of a car over by the curb. He picked up the cat and twisted its head until the neck broke. Sean said it made a horrible snap. Then he dropped the cat on the lawn and got back in his car and drove away.”
“Did he say anything?”
“I don’t know. Sean’s inside. He’s hysterical, and I don’t blame him. Martin, what’s happening?”
Brody slammed the top back on the can. “God damn sonofabitch!” he said. His throat felt tight, and he clenched his teeth, popping the muscles on both sides of his jaw. “Let’s go inside.”
Five minutes later, Brody marched out the back door. He tore the lid off the garbage can and threw it aside. He reached in and pulled out the cat’s corpse. He took it to his car, pitched it through the open window, and climbed in. He backed out of the driveway and screeched away. A hundred yards down the road, in a burst of fury, he turned on his siren.
It took him only a couple of minutes to reach Vaughan’s house, a large, Tudor-style stone mansion on Sprain Drive, just off Scotch Road. He got out of the car, dragging the dead cat by one of its hind legs, mounted the front steps, and rang the bell. He hoped Eleanor Vaughan wouldn’t answer the door.