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Harry and his two big sons set to work again, hand-over-hand, pulling in net and feeding it back. There was almost nowhere for the fish to be. Paradoxically, the surface of the sea became mirror-like.

And then the fin of a tuna slit the mirror, was gone again.

In the fish trap moments later there was joyful, bloody hell. Eight big tuna were making the water heave, boil, split and roll. They shot past the Mary, were turned by the net, shot past again.

Harry's boys grabbed their gaffs. The younger boy thrust his hook underwater, jerked the hook into the belly of a fish, stopped the fish, turned it on a point of pure agony.

The fish came drifting alongside, languid with shock, avoiding any motion that might make the agony worse.

Harry's younger boy gave the hook a wrenching yank. The new, deeper agony made the fish walk on his tail, topple into the Mary with a rubbery crash.

Harry slammed the head of the fish with his mighty mall. The fish lay still.

And another fish came crashing in. Harry slammed it on the head, too—and slammed another and another, until eight great fish lay dead.

Harry laughed, wiped his nose on his sleeve. "Son of a bitch, boys! Son of a bitch!"

The boys laughed back. All three were as satisfied with life as men can ever be.

The youngest boy thumbed his nose at the fairy's restaurant.

"Fuck'em all, boys. Right?" said Harry.

Bunny came to Amanita's and Caroline's table, jingled his slave bracelet, put his hand on Amanita's shoulder, remained standing. Caroline took the opera glasses from her eyes, said a depressing thing. "It's so much like life. Harry Pena is so much like God."

"Like God?" Bunny was amused.

"You don't see what I mean?"

"I'm sure the fish do. I don't happen to be a fish. I'll tell you what I am, though."

"Please—not while we're eating," said Amanita.

Bunny gave a crippled little chuckle, went on with his thought. "I am a director of a bank."

"What's that got to do with anything?" Amanita inquired.

"You find out who's broke and who isn't. And, if that's God out there, I hate to tell you, but God is bankrupt."

Amanita and Caroline expressed, each in her own way, disbelief that a man that virile could ever have a business failure. While they were twittering in this wise, Bunny's hand tightened on Amanita's shoulder to the point where she complained. "You're hurting me."

"Sorry. Didn't know it was possible."

"Bastard."

"Might as well be." And the hand bit hard again. "That's all over," he said, meaning Harry and his sons. The pulsing pressure of his hand let Amanita know that he wanted very much for her to keep her mouth shut for a change, that he was being serious for a change. "Real people don't make their livings that way any more. Those three romantics out there make as much sense as Marie Antoinette and her milkmaids. When the bankruptcy proceedings begin—in a week, a month, a year—they'll find out that their only economic value was as animated wallpaper for my restaurant here." Bunny, to his credit, was not happy about this. "That's all over, men working with their hands and backs. They are not needed."

"Men like Harry will always win, won't they?" said Caroline.

"They're losing everywhere." Bunny let go of Amanita. He looked around his restaurant, invited Amanita to do so, too, to help him count the house. He invited them, moreover, to despise his customers as much as he did. Almost all were inheritors. Almost all were beneficiaries of boodles and laws that had nothing to do with wisdom or work.

Four stupid, silly, fat widows in furs laughed over a bathroom joke on a paper cocktail napkin.

"And look who's winning. And look who's won."

11

NORMAN MUSHARI rented a red convertible at the Providence Airport, drove eighteen miles to Pisquontuit to find Fred Rosewater. As far as Mushari's employers knew, he was in his apartment in Washington, sick in bed. On the contrary, he felt very good.

He didn't find Fred all afternoon, for the not very simple reason that Fred was asleep on