Menhaus kept looking at his feet. He didn’t want to see, didn’t want to know. Cook studied it all with almost clinical detachment. He looked, if anything, like a Nazi sub commander watching a torpedo speed toward its target with cruel indifference. The effect was heightened by his sparse blond hair and sharp, predatory features.
The boat suddenly reeled as if struck by something big. Menhaus let out an involuntary scream. He hung onto his seat like a man on a roller coaster. The boat shuddered again, rocked with motion, then settled down.
“It’s that big one,” Saks said grimly. “He knows there’s something to eat in this boat and he wants it.”
“Break out them fucking oars,” Fabrini said. “Let’s try and pull away from these goddamn things.”
“You don’t give orders here, Fabrini,” Saks said.
“Oh, fuck you.”
“Fuck me? Fuck me?” He had the gun on Fabrini. “You wanna rephrase that you little cockmite?”
Fabrini just glared. Oh, it was coming. One way or the other, it was coming.
Saks clenched his teeth, shook his head. “You see, Fabrini,” he said patiently, “what you don’t understand is that I am in charge here. Get it? And if I tell you to jump in and swim with the fishies, you better by Christ do it. Even if it’s that big one. And you don’t touch them fucking oars until I give the word.”
Fabrini gave him the finger. “You ain’t shit to me, Saks. You ain’t nothing or nobody. You ain’t a damn thing.”
Saks sighed dramatically. “Who brought you dipdunks together? Who hired you? Who was in charge?” Saks asked of him. He waited a moment for an answer. Two. Three. Then he shook his head and jabbed a thumb at his chest. “I was. Me. I organized all this and got the show on the road.”
“And it’s been some show,” Menhaus said in a rare moment of defiance.
“Yeah, it’s been a party right from the beginning,” Fabrini said with contempt. “Merry Fucking Christmas.”
Crycek was giggling, but nobody seemed to notice.
“What I’m saying, you goddamn shitrats,” Saks grumbled, “is that I’m in charge. Gun or no gun, I’m the one who should be in charge. I’m the only one here with enough goddamn smarts to run the show.”
Fabrini scowled and watched the fish. “Yeah, you’re a real fucking Mensa genius, Saks.”
“Keep it up, shit-for-brains. See what happens.”
Cook cleared his throat. “We don’t need a foreman out here, Saks. There’s no need.”
“You see, you’re wrong about that. You need one and I’m it. Who else is up to it? You? You can’t keep your hands out of your shorts long enough to crack the whip. And Fabrini? Shit. Fabrini can’t find his own asshole without Menhaus’ crank in his hand. And Crycek? Shit.”
Saks waited for more argument, but got none. And he knew why. Oh yes, he knew very well why. Because they were just putting up with him until he closed his eyes. Then they were going to kill him. Or so they thought.
But they were in for a big surprise.
A very big one.
Menhaus said, “Looks like the big one swam off.”
“But his friends haven’t,” Fabrini said.
Saks, unlike the others, was hoping it hadn’t gone too far. Come tonight or what passed for night, he might just need all the man-eating fish he could lay his hands on. Because tonight was going to be trouble. Tonight the shit was going to fly. And when the shit came down, there was no one better at dodging it than old Saks. Saks was just about to tell them he was onto their little bullshit plot and if they wanted a piece of him now was the time, baby, when something-something goddamned huge-bumped into the bottom of the boat. The boat seemed to be actually lifted out of the water. To heave up from the sea and crash back down again with an explosion of foam and sediment, tossing the men from their seats.
Somebody screamed.
Maybe Menhaus, maybe Fabrini, maybe even Saks himself for all he knew.
But not Crycek. His eyes were hazy-looking like steamed-up windows. He was just gone. Nothing was touching him.
Well, well, Saks thought, guess old Jaws didn’t abandon us after all.
“What the hell was that?” Fabrini stammered.
“I’ll give you one guess,” Cook said.
Saks pulled himself to his feet and leaned out over the gunwale, the Browning in hand. He saw something pass beneath the boat. A huge amorphous blur. Whatever it was, it was much bigger than the boat. Yeah, it was old Jaws again. Back for more and getting randy by the looks of things… except, no, it wasn’t Jaws, it was his bigger brother this time.
“The big one again? That monster?” Menhaus asked carefully.
But Saks shook his head and kept watching. Fabrini and Cook did the same. Menhaus stayed on the bottom of the boat where the impact had thrown him. He’d gone a nasty shade of pale. His face was pinched, withdrawn. He was, in effect, a man who did not want to know.
“It looked bigger this time,” Saks said.
Nobody said anything to that.
“It couldn’t have been bigger,” Cook said. “No way.”
“Yeah, and what the fuck do you know?” Fabrini snapped. “You think there couldn’t be one bigger than that other one?”
“It just seems unlikely.”
