They looked all right. They looked friendly enough, undismayed, not deeply interrupted.
"A writer," the woman said to the others.
There was a heavy man with a beard who looked closely at Bill while the other two were looking at each other to decide whether this was going to be funny or bothersome.
"Would we have heard of you?" the bearded vet said with a trace of skepticism in his voice.
"No, no. I'm not that kind of writer."
No one seemed perturbed by this remark even though Bill wasn't sure what he meant. The remark satisfied them if anything, set the terms for a quiet and relaxed exchange among anonymous travelers.
Bill looked at his empty glass, then tried to find a waiter somewhere, his glance extending to other restaurants down along the promenade.
"But mightn't we have read something you've written?" the woman said. "Possibly at an airport, where the names don't always register sharply."
The other two looked at her approvingly.
"No, I don't think so. Probably not."
She was small and broad-faced, pleasantly so, he thought, with brown bangs and a mouth that pushed forward when she spoke.
"What sort of thing is it you write?" the second vet said.
"Fiction."
The one with the beard nodded carefully.
"I'm doing a passage, see, where no amount of digging through books can substitute for half a minute's chat with an expert."
"Did they ever make a movie?" the woman said.
"Right. Are any of your books also movies?" the second vet said.
"They're just books, I'm afraid."
The other man smiled faintly, looking at Bill out of the full beard.
"But presumably as an author you make appearances," the woman said.
"You mean on television?" the second vet said.
"I often think, you know, there's another one."
Bill gestured to a passing waiter, raising his glass, but it wasn't clear if the waiter saw him or knew what he was drinking. The colored lights were on and a few people stood on a top-floor balcony of the white building just beyond the far row of palms.
Bill squatted by the table and shifted his gaze among the vets as he spoke.
"All right. My character is hit by a car on a city street. He is able to walk away unassisted. Bruises on his body. Feels twinges and aches. But he's generally okay."
"You do understand," the woman said, "that we diagnose and treat diseases and injuries suffered by animals and animals only."
"I know this."
"Not people," the second vet said.
"And I'll happily take my chances."
Bill jumped up and went after a waiter, draining the already empty glass and handing it to the man and slowly pronouncing the name of the brandy. Then he came back and squatted by the table.
"So then over a period of days my character begins to experience deeper symptoms, mainly an intense and steady pain at the side of his abdomen."
Another waiter arrived with more wine for the vets.
"And he wonders whether he has an internal injury and which organ and how serious and how disabling and so forth. Because he wants to make a journey."
"Is he pissing blood then?" the bearded man said.
"No blood in his urine."
"If you make him piss blood you can do a nice little bit with a kidney. We might help you there."
"I don't want blood in his urine."
"Readers all that squeamish?" the woman said.
"No, you see the pain is frontal."
"What about the spleen?" the second fellow said.
Bill thought a moment and couldn't help asking, "Does a dog have a spleen?"
This was very funny to the others.
"If they don't," the bearded vet said, "I've made a nice career doing splenectomies on furry midgets."
He had a big chesty laugh that Bill liked. Bill's first wife despised him for liking doctors because she thought he was contriving to outlive her.
"Let me add one thing," Bill said. "My character has a tendency to drink."
"Then his spleen might indeed be enlarged," the second vet said. "And a large spleen is easier to damage and might bleed and bleed and cause quite considerable pain."
"But the spleen is on the left side," Bill said. "My character feels pain on the right side."
"Did you tell us this?" the woman said.
"Maybe I forgot."
"Why not change it to the left side and do the spleen?" the bearded vet said. "It would actually bleed nonstop, I expect. Might be a nice little bit you could do with that."
The waiter came with the brandy and Bill held up a hand to request a formal pause while he drank the thing down.
"But, see, I need the right side. It's essential to my theme."
He sensed they were pausing to take this in.
"Can it be upper right side?" the second man said.
"I think we can do that."
"Can we give him some pain when he takes a deep breath?"
"Pain on breathing. Don't see why not."
"Can we make his right shoulder hurt?"
"Yes, I think we can."
"Then it's absolutely solved," the woman said.
The bearded vet poured the wine.
"Lacerated liver."
"Hematoma."
"Local swelling filled with blood."
"Doesn't show externally."
A waiter came with Bill's dinner and put it on the other table. They all watched it for a moment. Then Bill went to the table and got the plate and utensils and squatted at the vets' table, cutting up his meat.
"So it's the liver that's dealing out this misery. As he sort of suspected. What do I do with him next? What does he think and feel?"
The woman looked at the second vet.
"Feel faint?"
"I should think."
"No blood to head," she said to Bill.
"What else?"
"His blood pressure's falling and his abdominal cavity may be on the verge of acute infection."
"But he wants to take a trip," Bill said.
"Completely out of the question," the second vet said.
"What sort of trip?" the woman said.
"An ocean voyage. A cruise or passage. Not very long or trying."
Bill poured some wine into his glass and looked from face to face.
"Completely and totally implausible," the bearded vet said.
"No, we can't have it," the woman said. "Can't let him do it. Stretches the limits. Absolutely no."
Bill drank his wine, caught up in the fun.
"But if he only feels faint? No blood to head? This is why people go on cruises."
"Sorry, no," the woman said.
The bearded vet said, "If you give him the symptoms we've agreed upon, the only plausible recourse is a doctor."
"Or you'll simply have to send him into a coma."
Bill finished cutting his meat before taking the first bite. He stood up and looked for a waiter.
The air had a clear and happy tang.
"No offense, people, but we're not talking about a parakeet. This is an otherwise healthy human being."
"Otherwise healthy. That's a cute touch."
"The trouble with healthy humans, otherwise or not, is that they don't let their doctors do the jobs they're trained to do."
"Animals first, last and always," the woman said, gripping the edge of the table and pushing forward in her chair.
Bill caught a waiter's attention and waved his empty glass, pointing into it with the other hand. The bearded vet poured the wine.
"All right," Bill said, "I'm ready to make my character yield to professional advice and wisdom. What exactly would a doctor do if someone in this condition showed up in his office?"
"He'd call a bloody ambulance, wouldn't he?" the bearded vet said.