Five for Forever (22 page)

“Josh has dropped off the radar. And has wiped accounts.”

“Namely your boyfriend’s? Josh is not my client of course, but I could try to ask around what’s going down. Shouldn’t he be on the set of
Raise the Titanic
?”

“You tell me. If it is a money thing, tell him I can help him out if he doesn’t kill himself.”

“Money thing, Josh Hancock?”

“Something is wrong here,” Louise asserted.

“Keep you posted.”

The drought lasted for little less than a week. Then, as if nothing had happened, the money reappeared in the
Vera
account. Flint and Heller were back in business.

Rick first rang up Josh, without success, then Zuzu. “Thanks. We have appeased the mast vendor, and he is in the process of cutting our eighty-four-year-old tree as we speak. It will be with us in a month.”

“Don’t mention it. I’m sorry for the disruption. Josh remains committed to the project; he told me personally this morning,” Zuzu said.

Is there any honesty left on earth?
Rick thought and said, “Give him our regards. I updated the cost projections. And we’ll charge you the week of payroll that we lost.”

“Sure, sure, no problem.”

Rick placed the receiver back on the cradle and thought,
Someone has a bad conscience!

Hal looked up from his paperwork. “Can I stop writing job applications?”

Louise asked Izzy what he had found out about Josh’s strange behavior.

“Whatever it was, it was cosmic,” Izzy said.

“That bad?”

“Josh was gone from the
Titanic
shoot for eight scheduled days. There were neither rumors nor repercussions.”

“You are right, every channel was dead quiet about this. Usually the production team and costars start talking to themselves, others, and Facebook. Hard to keep something like that quiet.”

“That’s what I said: cosmic. Someone with power held a hand over it. A very persuasive hand. My guess would be Farber Sellman—he has a 26 percent stake in this project. Shall I dig further?”

Louise thought for a moment. She planned to talk to Josh personally. Searching for the truth through Izzy could actually hurt the cause more, as people would get suspicious from the questions alone. “No, call off the search. Let’s be happy that he’s back and working. And that Rick’s project continues.”

“As you say, dear ex-favorite client,” Izzy said.

twenty-one

Summer Ends

The wood-bending machine gave up on the four-inch plank and came to a grinding halt after four passes to fit one of the tail segments of the boat. Martin started collecting the tools to dismantle it after the hot steam had cooled off, and Hal and Rick helped Styler to remove the plank from its claws.

“Don’t tell me we have to hunt for a new bender machine,” Hal said to Martin after a first diagnosis.

“Don’t want to scare you, Boss,” Martin pointed at the big guiding wheels in the middle that were used to bend the wooden beams into the right angle or curve while the hot steam softened the wood. He finished unscrewing the top screw and took it off. It broke in two. “Was held by hope and steam condensation. Either you find exactly these parts here, or we need a new machine.”

Tools to build wooden boats were special, and each builder had a set of machines collected over time to cut, plane, and bend wood into the shape that was needed to follow the designer’s hull lines. Rick and Hall had thrown together their collection of machinery when they started the shop, most of it coming from former boatbuilders who had sold their equipment after retirement. The youngest piece of machinery in Flint and Heller was 60 years old, the oldest 104. Indestructible. Well, most of the time.

Rick cleaned the manufacturer’s sign with a piece of cloth. “Seventy-five years old this year. Good luck finding spares for a Potterham Bender.”

Hal got the specifications from Martin and went upstairs to go hunting for spares in the boating community. Many wood boatbuilders and church roofers had stores of old machinery in the backyard, in case that their own equipment or something in the community broke.

“What can we do without the bender?” Styler asked, looking sadly at the crippled machine.

“We’ll give you spinach, Styler.”

“Don’t like it.”

“That’s a pop-culture reference from before your time,” Rick said. “But you could find me a metal manufacturer who can reengineer and manufacture the spare on demand.”

“You can do that?”

“Sure. You take the measurements, estimate the fitting tolerances and material mix, and then have someone design it, write manufacturing instructions, and hand them down to your metal shop; takes a few weeks and, voilà, you have a new perfect part.”

“Cool. My cousin has one of those new 3-D printers. You can clone Lego parts with that one.”

Rick knocked a knuckle on the broken wheel. “Steel?”

“No, Lego is made of plastic. Ah, that’s what you mean. Shoot. Would have been nice.”

Rick went up to the office, leaving Styler contemplating.

Styler came into the room. “Boss, I have an idea I’d like to follow up on.”

Rick finished talking to a metal shop that had quoted him a two-month schedule and a ridiculous price to produce the spare part. “Sure.”

“I think my idea is crazy, but I’d like to try. Can I have one of the three working wheels? I promise, I’ll bring it back.”

“Styler, don’t lose it. They might be our only clue to rebuilding the machine.” As an afterthought, he added, “Take Martin with you. We’re done here anyway for today.”

“Boss, count on me.” Styler dashed out. If the assignment of a babysitter for his plan had been sort of offending, he hadn’t let it show.

Hal looked up from his work. “That was scary: Styler taking the initiative. We raised a monster.”

“War maketh men out of boys.”

“Churchill? ”

“No idea. Made that up.”

“Charles would know.”

Rick arrived at the shop the next morning early and found Martin and Styler sleeping on the two benches on the long side of the building that overlooked the yacht harbor. A note was pinned to the workshop door. “Check the boat!” Rick went around the boat and inspected it but couldn’t find anything remarkable. Then he noticed what he had not noticed in passing. He went back to the
Vera
and inspected the tail section, whose missing puzzle piece was the reason for yesterday’s machine breakdown. The planned piece was fitted in the place where it should be. Not nailed yet, fastened with little wedges. Rick decided it was the real deal, so he left the two men sleeping and went into the wood shop to check the bending machine. The machine was still warm to the touch, so they had indeed used it. He looked at the area where the broken guide wheel had been located. It was assembled perfectly. The only difference was that the former steel guide wheel was now made of screaming pink plastic.

“What do you think, dude?” Styler came up behind him, stretching and yawning.

Rick was genuinely happy. “It’s amazing. Especially the color.”

“We shouldn’t advertise that in
Wooden Boats Monthly
, I agree, dude. But red and white granulate was all that we could gather during the night. We have already ordered about a hundred pounds of printer granulate on Amazon. Will be here tomorrow. Black.”

“Your cousin’s 3-D printer?”

“Yup. We scanned it with this rotating 3-D scanner; Ray corrected some small stuff in his CAD program—like you said, determining the tolerances. Took four hours to print and another hour to harden. Martin has some ideas for modification so that we can make it more durable. Right now it is massive, but we think with the right internal matrix it should be able to handle the changing forces and heat much better. This one will probably hold four to five operations. With improvements, it should hold for five to ten bending operations. We need to find 3-D printing stores in LA that have the capacity for us. We print one set a day and should be good until the real metal guide-wheels come along.”

Rick slapped Styler on the back. “Well done, dude! War
does
maketh men out of boys!”

“Goebbels?”

“Probably.”

“How is the upper deck and interior coming along?” Louise asked as she drove Rick to work in her Lexus, Floris’s Tahoe right behind them. The family van was at the garage for the yearly checkup. The school year was about to start in a few days, and everyone was slowly getting ready again.

“Not good. I’ve made various proposals, but Josh is dragging his feet. He is not the Josh I got to know earlier this year.”

“If you say so—you see him more often than I do,” Louise said. “He has withdrawn himself a bit from the spotlight. Something is cooking.”

“It would be so easy if I had the plans or at least some photos of the original boat deck. But Josh won’t have it; we have asked him repeatedly.”

“Why don’t you fly to . . . where was it? Nantucket?”

“He wouldn’t pay for it. And I respect that.”

“But you yourself admit that he is not his usual self. Take the initiative, make the journey.”

“And pay for it out of my own pocket?”

“Would you accept the plane tickets if I paid for them?”

“We have discussed this, right?” Rick was defensive. “No mix of riches until we are sure about our relationship.”

Louise tapped the wheel. “Your steadfastness is on the verge of being stubborn.” After a mile, she said, “Would you accept it as your birthday gift?”

Rick had to laugh at Louise’s insistence. “If I said no now, would it put a serious dent in our relationship?”

“It would.” Louise gave him her brightest smile, which she knew caused a flock of butterflies to stir in Rick’s belly.

“So it is settled. Tonight we book the flight, and I will whip out my platinum Amex card.”

No arguing against that.

Back-to-school day. It was up to Rick to pick up the gang from the various sites. Dana came first, a quick day-care dash, then it over to the other schools. Rick got a good parking space, right beside the high school main gate, and waited the few minutes, entertaining Dana by putting her on his lap and having her pretend to drive the car. Agnes came out first, accompanied by a man in his forties, longish blond hair, like an aged surfer, but he was dressed in chinos, a polo, and a college jacket. They talked a minute more, and then they shook hands. Agnes came toward the car, giving a wave to Dana, who pressed the horn, fortunately without result. Aged Surfer walked over to the parking lot, a slight limp in his gait.

“Aga!!! I drive us to Louise today,” Dana said in greeting as her big sister got into the car and sat in the passenger seat.

“Hi, honey,” Rick greeted her with a kiss. “Who was that well-dressed, bad-hair gentleman?”

There was only the slightest hesitation in Agnes’s voice as she replied, “Mr. Compston is one of our college counselors.”

“And did he counsel you so that you can make up your mind?” Rick felt that their trip to the East Coast had been a nice outing with his daughter, but overall Agnes still hadn’t come to any conclusion.

“Dad, we’ve been over this. We evaluate, and I decide. But don’t push me,” Agnes said with a stern voice, which reminded Rick of Bella.

“Yes, sir, madam!” Rick smiled, and Agnes seemed to exhale considerably.

The school bell could be heard, and the first students trickled out, turning into a rush and then a torrent. Britta emerged and also got into the car. “Dana, look out!” she shouted playfully from the backseat, and Dana expertly moved the steering wheel, avoiding deadly crashes with the flood of students who walked toward the bicycle stands, before Rick strapped her into her seat again.

After the short drive to middle school, Charles came last out of the door, five minutes after everyone else had gone, and Agnes had been about to hunt him down.

“Where have you been, Charlie?” she asked.

“You can’t perform a manager shutdown on lab equipment! Takes time to put it on standby.” Charles shrugged and belted himself. “You guys buy me a mass spectrometer, and I can play with it in the kitchen while Dad cooks.”

Everyone accepted that excuse.