“He’ll come up,” said Quint. “Mark my words.”
“You’ll be dead of old age before he comes up, Quint. I think this fish has you all shook. He’s not playing by the rules.”
Quint looked at Hooper and said evenly, “You telling me my business, boy?”
“No. But I am telling you I think this fish is more than you can handle.”
“That right, boy? You think you can do better ’n Quint?”
“Call it that if you want. I think I can kill the fish.”
“Fine and dandy. You’re gonna get your chance.”
Brody said, “Come on. We can’t let him go in that thing.”
“What are you bitchin’ about?” said Quint. “From what I seen, you just as soon he went down there and never come up. At least that’d stop him from—”
“Shut your mouth!” Brody’s emotions were jumbled. Part of him didn’t care whether Hooper lived or died — might even relish the prospect of Hooper’s death. But such vengeance would be hollow — and quite possibly, unmerited. Could he really wish a man dead? No. Not yet.
“Go on,” Quint said to Hooper. “Get in that thing.”
“Right away.” Hooper removed his shirt, sneakers, and trousers, and began to pull the neoprene suit over his legs. “When I’m inside,” he said, forcing his arms into the rubber sleeves of the jacket, “stand up here and keep an eye. Maybe you can use the rifle if he gets close enough to the surface.” He looked at Quint. “You can be ready with the harpoon… if you want to.”
“I’ll do what I’ll do,” said Quint. “You worry about yourself.”
When he was dressed, Hooper fit the regulator onto the neck of the air tank, tightened the wing nut that held it in place, and opened the air valve. He sucked two breaths from the tank to make sure it was feeding air. “Help me put this on, will you?” he said to Brody.
Brody lifted the tank and held it while Hooper slipped his arms through the straps and fastened a third strap around his middle. He put the face mask on his head. “I should have brought weights,” said Hooper.
Quint said, “You should have brought brains.”
Hooper put his right wrist through the thong at the end of the power head, picked up the camera with his right hand, and said, “Okay.” He walked to the gunwale. “If you’ll each take a rope and pull, that’ll bring the cage to the surface. Then I’ll open the hatch and go in through the top, and you can let the ropes go. It’ll hang by the ropes. I won’t use the flotation tanks unless one of the ropes breaks.”
“Or gets chewed through,” said Quint.
Hooper looked at Quint and smiled. “Thanks for the thought.”
Quint and Brody pulled on the ropes, and the cage rose in the water. When the hatch broke the surface, Hooper said, “Okay, right there.” He spat in the face mask, rubbed the saliva around on the glass, and fit the mask over his face. He reached for the regulator tube, put the mouthpiece in his mouth, and took a breath. Then he bent over the gunwale, unlatched the top of the hatch and flipped it open. He started to put a knee on the gunwale, but stopped. He took the mouthpiece out of his mouth and said, “I forgot something.” His nose was encased in the mask, so his voice sounded thick and nasal. He walked across the deck and picked up his trousers. He rummaged through the pockets until he found what he was looking for. He unzipped his wet-suit jacket.
“What’s that?” said Brody.
Hooper held up a shark’s tooth, rimmed in silver. It was a duplicate of the one he had given Ellen. He dropped it inside his wet suit and zipped up the jacket. “Can’t be too careful,” he said, smiling. He crossed the deck again, put his mouthpiece in his mouth, and kneeled on the gunwale. He took a final breath and dove overboard through the open hatch. Brody watched him go, wondering if he really wanted to know the truth about Hooper and Ellen.
Hooper stopped himself before he hit the bottom of the cage. He curled around and stood up. He reached out the top of the hatch and pulled it closed. Then he looked up at Brody, put the thumb and index finger of his left hand together in the okay sign, and ducked down.
“I guess we can let go,” said Brody. They released the ropes and let the cage descend until the hatch was about four feet beneath the surface.
“Get the rifle,” said Quint. “It’s on the rack below. It’s all loaded.” He climbed onto the transom and lifted the harpoon to his shoulder.
Brody went below, found the rifle, and hurried back on deck. He opened the breach and slid a cartridge into the chamber. “How much air does he have?” he said.
“I don’t know,” said Quint. “However much he has, I doubt he’ll live to breathe it.”
“Maybe you’re right. But you said yourself you never know what these fish will do.”
“Yeah, but this is different. This is like putting your hand in a fire and hoping you won’t get burned. A sensible man don’t do it.”
Below, Hooper waited until the bubbly froth of his descent had dissipated. There was water in his mask, so he tilted his head backward, pressed on the top of the faceplate, and blew through his nose until the mask was clear. He felt serene. It was the pervasive sense of freedom and ease that he always felt when he dived. He was alone in blue silence speckled with shafts of sunlight that danced through the water. The only sounds were those he made breathing — a deep, hollow noise as he breathed in, a soft thudding of bubbles as he exhaled. He held his breath, and the silence was complete. Without weights, he was too buoyant, and he had to hold on to the bars to keep his tank from clanging against the hatch overhead. He turned around and looked up at the hull of the boat, a gray body that sat above him, bouncing slowly. At first, the cage annoyed him. It confined him, restricted him, prevented him from enjoying the grace of underwater movement. But then he remembered why he was there, and he was grateful.
He looked for the fish. He knew it couldn’t be sitting beneath the boat, as Quint had thought. It could not “sit” anywhere, could not rest or stay still. It had to move to survive.
Even with the bright sunlight, the visibility in the murky water was poor — no more than forty feet. Hooper turned slowly around, trying to pierce the edge of gloom and grasp any sliver of color or movement. He looked beneath the boat, where the water turned from blue to gray to black. Nothing. He looked at his watch, calculating that if he controlled his breathing, he could stay down for at least half an hour more.
Carried by the tide, one of the small white squid slipped between the bars of the cage and, tethered by twine, fluttered in Hooper’s face. He pushed it out of the cage.
He glanced downward, started to look away, then snapped his eyes down again. Rising at him from the darkling blue — slowly, smoothly — was the shark. It rose with no apparent effort, an angel of death gliding toward an appointment foreordained.
Hooper stared, enthralled, impelled to flee but unable to move. As the fish drew nearer, he marveled at its colors: the flat brown-grays seen on the surface had vanished. The top of the immense body was a hard ferrous gray, bluish where dappled with streaks of sun. Beneath the lateral line, all was creamy, ghostly white.
Hooper wanted to raise his camera, but his arm would not obey. In a minute, he said to himself, in a minute.
The fish came closer, silent as a shadow, and Hooper drew back. The head was only a few feet from the cage when the fish turned and began to pass before Hooper’s eyes — casually, as if in proud display of its incalculable mass and power. The snout passed first, then the jaw, slack and smiling, armed with row upon row of serrate triangles. And then the black, fathomless eye, seemingly riveted upon him. The gills rippled — bloodless wounds in the steely skin.