F r i e n d l y W a g e r
by Matthew Costello
The man sitting across from Todd - Doctor
Todd, Medville's beloved pediatrician - would, he
thought, be best described as porcine. That was it
*exactly.* Porcine, as in pork, as in piggy, as in *slob.*
Great folds of skin dangled from the man's neck like the
crop of a studded-out rooster. The pupils, beady and black,
were all but lost in the near-beet red bowling ball face.
The eyes' egg whites were crisscrossed by a road map of
red lines.
The picture of good health.
Todd reached for the bottle of wine - a tasty
California Chardonnay - and he caught his wife looking
over, not missing a beat in her conversation with the
woman to her right. What is it, he wondered, that doctors'
wives always find to talk about? He and his peers, the few
he would call friends, seemed to suffer more than a few
conversational lulls. They never discussed anything
professional. Movies, yes, golf, yes, and who's currently
working magic with the depressed mutual fund market.
Very limited topics indeed.
But no shop talk.
A bit of the wine dribbled onto the white tablecloth.
Todd felt a slight breeze at his neck. The First Class dining
room featured sliding windows that could be opened to the
sea air on nice, calm evenings ... like this one.
"Oh, hit me, too," the porcine man said, his crop
jiggling. Todd looked at the man's lower lip, projecting ever-
so-slightly, ready to serve as a natural catch basin for any
fruit of the vine that might foolishly attempt to escape what
was a sizable maw.
Why does the man irritate me so much? Todd wondered.
Perhaps because he's a doctor and he looks like a walking
advertisement for a coronary? Strike me, God! Try blocking
*my* goddamn arteries! I *dare* you.
Or was it because the annoying man had completely
dominated the past two nights' conversation? Was it because
the man - Dr. Henry Newlove - had fixated on Todd, and on a
small cruise ship there wasn't any escape?
Todd poured Dr. Newlove some of the Chardonnay,
measuring out the meager amount so that there would be
some left for himself.
"Oh, come on. Kill the bottle, professor, and we'll order
another." Newlove laughed. "Live a little, Todd. You're out of
reach of the sniffily rug rats now."
That was another thing. Henry Newlove had progressed
to a first-name basis much too quickly. Now they were old
war buddies, killing bottles of wine together, ready to share
gruesome stories from the ER. But despite some leading
questions, Todd had yet to determine exactly what kind of
doctor Newlove was.
The cruise, arranged by the AMA Travel Service, was
only for doctors ... at least Todd assumed everyone here was
somehow connected to the medical profession. So what kind
of doctor was this coronary candidate?
Todd looked around for their waiter to order another
_bouteille_. His hand started to creep up to perform the frail
wave that would hopefully summon the young man who posed
as a sommelier.
But his wife - perhaps missing the crucial fact that
Todd didn't get to share in the dregs of the previous bottle -
fired him a withering stare.
Todd retreated and brought his hand down.
Dr. Newlove watched the whole thing.
While enjoying a nearly full glass of Chardonnay.
"Tell me, Todd. Do your young patients like Roald Dahl?"
Todd looked up, hoping the wine steward might catch
his raised eyebrows ... S.O.S.... send wine.
"Roald Dahl," Todd said distractedly. "I don't know ...
what's he - ?"
"A brilliant writer," Newlove said, with all the
authority of papal fiat. "Dahl did some marvelously *grisly*
children's books. He wrote one book, _George's Marvelous
Medicine_, about a little girl who tries to poison her
grandmother." Newlove laughed, and Todd swore he saw
spittle come flying out on a near-perfect trajectory toward
him.
"I haven't - "
"Oh, then there's _Charlie and the Chocolate Factory_.
All these little children and" - Newlove kicked into his
convulsive mode again - "and the most horrible things happen
to them. One little boy gets sucked into the chocolate river, a
little girl gets squashed by the berry machine, absolutely - "
A woman to Todd's right, a dowdy woman who looked
as if the cruise was actually an oceangoing church service,
nodded and spoke.
"Yes, Ralph and my children saw that movie. And it was - "
Newlove remained true to his target. His beady black
eyes remained locked on Todd.
"Brilliant writer. A real nasty imagination, too. But
the thing about Dahl - "
But then the bus girl showed up, a cute Latina who
was unabashed about leaning close to Todd, gathering the
plates, nudging him with her sizable breasts, well packed
under the tight, starched dress. Todd caught the faint aroma
of some cheap perfume, pungent and tempting.
The dinner was over. Todd stood up. He glanced at
his new best friend, whose face had fallen, frozen in
mid-thought. Todd turned to his wife.
"Think I'll take a stroll around the deck."
His wife nodded.
And before any offers of company could arise, Todd
turned and walked past the sea of tables to the door leading
to the main deck.
The night was clear. They were two days away from
the first port o' call, the small Caribbean island of Santa
Theresa, or "Saint Tessy" as a few of Todd's more well
traveled friends referred to it. Very small, very chic, where
there were too few islanders to become hostile to the
tourists ... at least in any organized way.
It's not Jamaica, Todd was told.
Todd walked over to the rail, and breathed deep. The
salt air was bracing, the ocean lake-smooth, and Todd
enjoyed being alone.
When he felt a heavy hand land with a thump on his
shoulder.
"Oh, *there* you are."
Like a truffle hound, Henry Newlove had sniffed Todd
out. Todd looked back at him and smiled, figuring it best to
show a modicum of civility. Todd was basically nonavoidance
anyway, and he certainly didn't want any bad feelings when he
sat down to dinner with the man.
"Well then, it's nice and clear tonight."
Newlove came beside Todd, a full foot shorter, and
adopted the same contemplative stance.
"You know, we were talking about Roald Dahl - "
*We* were? Todd nodded politely.
"But the really interesting thing about Dahl are his
adult stories." Newlove turned to Todd. "Ever read a collection
called _Someone Like You_?"
"Er, no. Don't have much time for reading."
"Oh, the book's very old, decades really. Before Dahl
became a writer for the kiddies. And he wrote the most
wonderful grisly stories."
There was that word again, as if it was Newlove's
favored adjective. *Grisly.* As if this porcine, truffle-hunter
of a man absolutely lived for life's *grisly* moments.
Something rumbled disconcertedly in Todd's stomach.
"Dahl's stories were macabre gems. And there was
this one story about a shipboard wager. A pool, a lottery to
see who could guess the ship's arrival time."
Todd returned to looking at the water. He glanced
straight down, and saw the phosphorescent spray as the
ship cut through the water. It was at once rhythmic and
random.
"I've heard of those lotteries. This ship doesn't - "
"And well, in this story - 'A Dip in the Pool,' it's
called - this fellow picks a docking time that looks good,
then better, it looks like a *great* time as the ship hits some
bad weather. But then the ship makes up that lost time. And
when it looks like the poor fellow's going to lose the lottery,
he does something rather extraordinary."
Todd looked at the ship's wake, and waited.
Now - all of a sudden - Newlove grew coy. Todd turned
to him.
"What does he do?"
Newlove smacked his hands together and made a
thunderclap.
"The fellow stands on the railing and, after making
sure that this woman was watching him, he jumps overboard!"
Newlove was positively bursting with glee.
"I get it," Todd said. "Then the woman has to go and
tell someone from the ship, and they have to stop and pick
him up, and - "
"No. That's just it, that's why it's so nasty. The
woman is completely insane, she has a nurse watching her.
The nurse escorts the dotty woman away while she's muttering
about some nice man who waved to her as he flew off the
railing."
Newlove was laughing, coughing. It was the
spaghetti scene from _Alien_. Todd thought the fat man might
invert his stomach, his hilarious hacks were so strong.
"She said, 'the nice man flew off the railing' and no
one believed her. Oh, it's such a wonderful story."
Todd turned back to the water. He didn't want to
return to his stateroom. Nothing to do there, the ennui of
cruise life was getting to him.
Newlove's hand found its mark on his shoulder again.
"I have an idea ... something from a story that Dahl didn't
write."
Todd said nothing.
"A wager, between two professional men." Newlove's
voice lowered. He sidled a bit closer, his oval body touching Todd's.
Todd looked away. "I should turn in. Sea air is making
me - "
But Newlove's hand was strong on his arm.
"Listen to this. Here's the idea for the story, for
the wager. That someone on a ship, this ship for example,
could be poisoned, and it would be *completely* undetectable."
A final squeeze on the arm signaled that Todd was to respond.
"How could that be?"
"Well, surely you do know that certain foods can
mask toxic agents? Take shiitake mushrooms, something
which I myself have trouble digesting. Eaten in substantial
numbers they produce a colloidal acid, harmless really, but it's
a near-perfect cover-up for strychnine."
"That's good to know."
"Fungi are funny things anyway; a good number can
cause distress if not downright kill you. I could kill someone
on this ship with poison - and it would go completely undetected."
Todd had enough of the man. He had long passed
insufferable. "I doubt it. I think you've been reading too
many Ronald Dahl stories."
Newlove stepped back, acting hurt now. "*Roald* Dahl. Roald."
"Whatever."
Todd stretched, and nodded to Newlove. He's my
albatross, Todd thought. He'll probably pop up in my medicine
cabinet. I'll probably have nightmares about this bloated whale.
"Nighty-night," Todd said.
"Wh-what about our wager?" Newlove said as Todd
walked down the deck to the entrance to his first-class
stateroom.
Todd laughed. Without turning around, he said, "What wager?"
Thinking: *what a nutcase.*
When Todd woke up next morning, Todd's wife had already
gone ahead to breakfast and returned. Now she stood over him
in the cramped stateroom and was shaking him.
His disorientation produced a variety of weird
thoughts ... the house was on fire, one of his patients
needed his attention, the basement had flooded - again.
Until there was that realization: *I'm on a ship.*
What could possibly go wrong?
"Todd," she said, her face all pinched with worry.
"Somebody died."
Todd rubbed the sleep from his eyes. Right, someone's
dead. It happens. Even - he guessed - at sea.
Todd nodded, encouraging his wife to let the other shoe
drop.
"Food poisoning. The purser didn't say anything, but
one of the doctors examined the man. They said he had a violent
reaction to the food."
Todd blinked awake. For a moment, he imagined being
at the rail, watching the sea at night, listening to Dr. Henry
Newlove. "What did it?"
His wife seemed confused by the simple question.
Perhaps communication *is* the first thing to go in a marriage.
"What did what?"
"You said he had a violent reaction to some food. What
kind of food?"
His wife hesitated, perhaps - Todd thought -
remembering their own meal from the previous night.
"Mushrooms, those special mushrooms. What do they call
them?"
"Shiitake," Todd said, as if it was - in fact - a curse.
Impossible, he thought. There's no way the crazy man
could have actually done something. Todd slid off the narrow
bed, putting his feet down on the cold floor.
"Todd, maybe this is like that other cruise ship,
where people got sick."
He nodded. "I'll go check."
Hoping that he'd bump into Newlove.
There was a crowd in the dining room, though no one
was eating. The purser, a bald man, very bronze and fit,
with a cockney accent, sat in a chair and fielded questions
from an angry gathering of doctors.
Todd saw the purser shake his head.
"No, there is absolutely no plan on turning back. We are
having the ship's nutritionist inspect all the food."
"How did the mushrooms go bad?"
The purser was exasperated. "We don't know they were
*bad.* Mr. Jameson - "
Jameson ... the deceased, Todd guessed.
" - had a violent reaction to the mushrooms. It is, I've
been told, not altogether uncommon."
"Did - "
Todd was surprised to hear his own voice asking a question.
"Er, did anyone look into the possibility that the man had
been poisoned?"
He felt everyone's eyes on him. The crowd reacted as
if Todd had just asked the most ludicrous question. Poisoned?
My man, you must be crazy.
But the beleaguered purser just shook his head. "The
man's stomach was pumped, and according to the ship's doctor,
Jameson had a reaction to the fungi." The purser stood up.
"Now, if you'll excuse me. There's a lot that I have to attend to."
Todd turned around, his head swirling, feeling hungry -
but not really able to eat.
When he walked into Newlove.
"Good morning, Todd." Newlove was grinning while
eating a fat donut drenched in white powder. Like an early
snow, Newlove's bites sent a gentle spray of the powder flying
into the air.
"Horrible news, eh?" Newlove said, but of course it
sounded more like "marble ooze" through the gummy fried
dough pastry. "They think," Newlove went on - and Todd swore
that the man's eyes were twinkling - "that it was the mushrooms.
Imagine - "
Another big chomp, another snowy spray.
" - that."
Todd walked away. He heard Newlove call something
to him, but it was lost in the donut.
Todd returned to his cabin, where he proceeded to
tell his wife everything. And she, of course, tried her best
to convince Todd that his imagination was running away, at
full gallop.
At lunch - a poached swordfish with pureed carrots
and julienne potatoes - a woman stood up, coughed, and
then fell face forward - *thwack* - onto her party's table.
Everyone stopped eating. Todd actually had a tasty
and succulent-looking forkful of the fish poised at his
mouth when the woman nose-dived onto the table.
Newlove - still sitting right across from Todd -
continued to finish his meal, even to the point of eyeing
other people's uneaten plates.
With a ship nearly full of doctors, it didn't take
long to pronounce her dead.
"I hear," Newlove said, cracking open a roll as if
it hid a diamond, "that some people can have extraordinary
reactions to the mercury content in fish." He looked right
at Todd. "Maybe that's what did in the poor soul."
Todd's wife pulled her husband up and away from
the table, off to the side where no one could hear them.
"You must tell the captain," she hissed. "Tell him
what that man said. Tell him about the crazy wager."
"There was *no* wager ..." Todd nodded. "Okay.
Sure, I tell the captain. But what if it's just a coincidence?"
His wife had her hand locked on his sleeve, a habit
of hers that made him feel as if he was still eight years
old and being navigated to the boy's department at Macy's.
"You *must* tell them."
Todd nodded. He turned to his wife. "I want to see
something first. I don't want to smear the man if they're
all just accidents. Maybe I can learn who he is ... what kind
of doctor he is."
"How?"
Todd looked at his wife. Newlove sat alone at the
table, dutifully cleaning up anything left over. He saw Todd,
and made a small conspiratorial wave. And then - in a move
that made Todd's hair stand on end - Newlove made his eyes
bulge out and then grabbed his throat, before rolling back in
his seat, laughing.
"There are records," Todd muttered. "All the
passengers had to list our professional background to
qualify for this special charter. I - I want to see who this guy
is, then I'll go to the captain." He took a breath. "Go back to
the cabin."
His wife nodded, and then Todd turned and walked away.
He caught the purser as he was leaving his office.
"Ye, sir. Can I - ?"
Todd nodded. "I was hoping ..." He looked around,
wondering if this was the place they would have the
forms they filled out for the trip. "I needed to update some
information on my registration for the cruise. Got a new home
number," Todd lied thinly.
"Why certainly, sir. The records are in that carton
right there. Perhaps you can help yourself." The purser
scrunched up his face. "Things are getting a little dicey aboard."
Todd smiled. "Sure, no problem. I'll find it."
The purser left and - after taking a breath - Todd
walked over to the carton. There were all the registrations
on file, home addresses, professional connection, and physical
vitae.
He found his own. A pointless gesture, but he scanned
his sheet in case the purser made a quick reentry for something.
Then Todd put it back. He looked over his shoulder. The door was
open, there were voices in the hall.
He was so hungry. He saw an open bag of pretzels
sitting on the purser's desk. Todd snaked a hand into the
bag and stole one pretzel, then another.
He flipped through the sheets, past the Js - poor
dead Mr. Jameson's form was still there - onto K, L, M and
finally, the Ns.
For a moment he thought he wouldn't find a form
for Dr. Newlove, that the man was a stowaway.
But there it was, Dr. Henry Newlove.
So, he is a doctor. Todd scanned the vitae, the address
in Grosse Pointe, and then his field. Psychiatry. And current
offices held ... Director of the Wisconsin Society for the Study
of Criminal Behavior.
*He was a criminal psychiatrist.*
Todd kept reading. He got to the physical data.
Newlove was six feet, one inch tall, 180 pounds with dark
hair.
The paper slipped from Todd's hand.
Newlove ... wasn't Newlove. Then where was the
real doctor, and who was - ?
The purser's cabin door squeaked open, and then
quickly, quietly, it was shut.
Todd still held the incriminating paper in his hand.
He turned around and saw the smiling face of Dr.
Newlove - or whoever he was.
"You're not Dr. Newlove."
"Surprise, surprise, Todd. No, Dr. Newlove was
unavoidably detained from the sailing. In fact, I unavoidably
detained him."
Todd nodded. This man was obviously a full-blown
psychotic, probably one of Newlove's patients. God knew
where the real Newlove was, but chances were that he ate
something that didn't agree with him.
"I'm going to turn you in," Todd said, hoping that
his words sounded brave. Then, pointing out the obvious,
"You're sick."
Newlove shook his head. There were some screams
outside. Had someone else fallen victim to the madman?
"You forget," the fat maniac said, "about our friendly
wager?"
"What are you talking about?"
Now the once-Dr. Newlove looked disappointed.
"We made a wager, that someone could be poisoned and it
could go undetected. Come, come - you must remember that.
The mushrooms work wonderfully, but fish with a reasonably
high mercury content also works fine."
Todd took a step to move past the man, but his
blimplike shape effectively blocked any egress.
"Our wager, Todd. I think I've won. I've proved my
point." The man looked deadly serious.
"Wager? What the hell did we wager?"
Now the fat man smiled again. "Oh, that is right. We
didn't talk about that, did we? Well, I guess I thought that
the stakes were understood. As Groucho used to say, you bet
your life. And - I'm afraid you lost."
Todd wondered if the nut carried a weapon of some
kind. Was this a gun-toting nut? The man was obviously horribly
out of shape. No danger there. And a gun is a gun.
"Out of my way," Todd said.
"You made a wager, and I'm afraid you lost."
Now the man started laughing and coughing, joyous
apoplexy completely taking over.
He actually moved aside to let Todd get to the door.
"You're crazy," Todd said, again aware that he was
pointing out the obvious. "You're completely - "
The meaty hand fell on Todd's shoulder.
"Oh, before you leave ... I was wondering..."
Todd saw the man's eyes drift over to the purser's
desk. "Could you - " a tiny smile played on the man's rubbery
lips. Todd felt a sick fear growing inside him ... without knowing
exactly what he was afraid of ...
And with a big smile, the man said, "Could you tell
me, exactly how many pretzels did you eat, Todd? One? Two?"
Todd looked from the man to the bag. He heard yelling
outside. Were other people falling sick? What was going on?
He looked at the open pretzel bag that had been
sitting there, open ... the safe food so inviting.
Todd groaned.
"Two," he said.
The fat man made a small disappointed moue
with his lips. But the grin quickly returned when Todd
felt a sharp pain in his gut, then another, as if he was being
kicked. He fell back, toward the cabin's bunk.
"Isn't this wonderful?" the man said. Todd felt
another sharp kick. Internal bleeding? he wondered. He felt
as if his insides were on fire.
He barely heard the psychotic man say, "Isn't this
so wonderfully grisly?"
Then the fat man turned and opened the cabin door,
and Todd, writhing in the bunk, became only one more groaning
voice amidst the chorus on the luxury ship.
"Friendly Wager" copyright © 1996 by Matthew Costello.
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