Ride the Titanic! (12 page)

‘You put on quite the show with the ice,’ Robbie says.

‘Desperate times call for desperate measures.’

‘Wish I could have seen her face.’

‘No you don’t.’

He laughs as he attaches the last piece of Velcro and smooths out the fabric. ‘I can’t believe she didn’t toss you overboard. I would have.’

‘Luck of the Irish, I guess.’

‘Well, chappie, all I can say is you’re going to need it. You’ve got thirty minutes to wrestle five million dollars to the ground and make it your own.’

‘Five million for starters,’ Joe cautions. That’s just the beginning of this crazy thing. And including
Virgin’s
million, we’re at six. Just a nest egg, but big enough to pay some bills for a change.’

Robbie whistles. ‘Branson’s back? You didn’t tell me that.’

I keep a straight face. ‘It’s still just funny money for ninety days and. . .well, you know Sir Richard, the cash might never show up after all.’

‘For your sake it better, or all this is smoke and mirrors.’

To avoid answering I say to Joe, ‘Bring me that hose. You didn’t put enough water in the dive basin.’

‘You sure?’ Joe wiggles his fingers in the water surrounding the
Titanic
model. ‘Don’t want to overfill this thing or you’ll have water running all over the rug.’

‘What do you think, Robbie?’

‘Cycle the ride once and see.’

‘Negative.’ She might show up just as we’re doing it. Can’t have the
Titanic
with her ass sticking up in the air.’

Robbie ripples his hand through the water. ‘Most people would have simulated this part of the ride. Easy to imagine the
Titanic
sinking.’

‘She’s got to see how it’ll work in Vegas. So do you.’

Scooter Ripley re-configured my original model in such a way that it now nestles inside a shallow ‘dive basin’ filled with two inches of real water, mimicking the scale three feet it will be in Vegas – not much more than a kiddies wading pool, completely safe for the crowds that will gather to watch her sink. But directly beneath the ship model is a two foot-deep water trough, mimicking the two hundred-fifty-foot-deep version we’ll dig in Vegas into which the ship will submerge by the bow, then keep going until the water reaches the first buff-colored funnel, then finally submerge completely as the hinged stern pivots high into the air before sliding forever into the depths.

The hose shakes slightly in my hand as I add more water to the basin.

Robbie says, ‘Nervous?’

‘Petrified.’

‘Perfect. Xia likes prey frozen on her web. Much easier to devour that way.’

‘You speak from experience?’

‘Yes, but thanks to an ample supply of charm, I lived to tell the tale. And as a friendly warning, she likes you, Mike.’

‘I like her too. She’s sharp. Doesn’t miss a trick. Scary in a way.’

‘That’s not what I mean. Xia really, REALLY likes you.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I speak from experience.’

‘To a happily married man.’

‘You want that money? You might have to do more than you bargained for to get it.’

I brush him aside. ‘Stop the water, Joe, and grab my coat. We’re ready as we’ll ever be.’

Xia walks in just as I’m wrestling with my suit jacket, half-on and half-off, and I stick out my hand and say, ‘Glad you could make it, Ms. Zhu.’

‘Skip the formalities. After last night, I’m Xia and you’re Michael. We’re old friends now.’ Her smile is as crisp as a North Korean hundred-dollar bill and just as counterfeit.

‘I guess we sort of broke the ice last night,’ I say lamely.

Her eyebrows rise in pun-suffering pain. ‘Engineers. Always clever with words.’

‘With action too, when it’s needed. You seem to be none the worse for wear, considering what I did last night.’

Her burgundy suit is a duplicate of the blue one she wore last night. A gold chain necklace instead of pearls, and her hair swept up in a swirl of sorts, held in place with a gold clip covered with a filigree of Chinese characters.

‘What’s it say? Your hair clip, I mean.’

‘Ancient Chinese expression.’ She fingers it lightly and her chin lifts proudly. ‘Even the tallest tower starts on the ground.’

‘What about hotels? Ours starts in the water. Sort of.’

She nods in the direction of our presentation model. ‘Begin from the beginning. You have twenty-three minutes remaining.’

‘What happened to my other seven?’

‘You spent them on idle chatter.’

Dreams are always more beautiful than reality. And because Joe’s dreamy interpretation of
Ride the Titanic
is fuzzy and glorious, we begin with his paintings. He dims the lights, leaving only quartz spotlights beaming down on his first concept painting of Las Vegas at night, looking north along the dazzling strip of lights and hustle and bustle, as seen through the eyes of someone who’s been up for twenty-four hours and loving every minute of it. Vertical slashes of gold shoot up from the street into the sky, while stylized streaks of brown, blue and green, symbolizing the crowds, crash like ocean waves upon the casinos and hotels.

Xia leans forward, eyes squinting at the explosion of colors Joe used to capture what can’t be captured about this crazy place: the dizzying sense of vertigo. No matter where you look, you’re surrounded by dream after dream of happiness JUST on the verge of coming true. . .but not quite. . .maybe a few more steps and then it will happen. . .no. . .a few more? Okay. . . .no. . . .not yet.

I start softly. ‘It’s just another perfect night on another planet we earthlings call ‘Las Vegas.’ Almost midnight, so let’s take a walk along the boulevard and then lose our money before we fall asleep.’

I fake a yawn. ‘But at this hour everything’s starting to look the same:
Bellagio, Bally’s, Caesar’s Palace, MGM Grand, Mirage
, somebody get me another drink, I need to sit down. . . Huh? What do you mean a ship? Where?’

‘The
Titanic
. Look!’

I peel back the sheet of Mylar plastic upon which Joe cleverly painted a part of the Vegas strip the way it is today, to reveal what the future will bring: a ship’s dark black bow appears, trimmed in white, looming high in the sky, pointing directly at
Bellagio
as if ready to set sail among its dancing water fountains. I lift another Mylar mask to reveal the tantalizing iceberg shape of the
White Star Grand Hotel and Casino,
glowing blue-white in the Technicolor night.

‘Hurry up, man, it’s sinking. Don’t want to miss it! Let’s run!’

I nod to Joe, who turns off the lights. In the velvet black darkness I whisper, ‘During the day, this beautiful ship stays put and passengers ride the ride inside her hull. But twice a night, true disaster arrives. The most beautiful ship in the world, with the most beautiful people in the world, disappears into the depths.’

Joe fades up the spotlights on his next painting. A month ago I witnessed him mutter and curse and grit his teeth while trying to achieve on canvas what burned in his soul, and I thought I’d seen it all. But in this moment of dramatic revelation, and hearing Xia’s surprised intake of breath, I’m seeing it for the first time.

Joe’s genius is that he can make you straddle history. I’m standing on the docks in Southampton, England, looking up at the towering shape of the
Titanic
as she appeared that day in 1912 when she warped away from the pier and set sail for history. But at the same time, behind her lurks the ominous shape of a towering iceberg about to rip out her heart and send her to the bottom. Then, finally, with the mastery of a few strokes of crimson, a dash of cerulean blue, and dabs of orange, silver, and violet, Joe captures the faint skyline of Las Vegas surrounding the scene like a neon halo of who-gives-a-damn madness.

‘C’mon, man hurry up!’ I shout. ‘She’s going down.’

The lights flick off, total darkness for a beat, then the ship model’s porthole lights slowly come alive with an eerie glow, like fireflies in formation flight.

‘But lucky them,’ I continue. ‘They’re too drunk to realize that they’re early. In fact, they’re early enough to ride the
Titanic
themselves before she goes down for real. Which they do.’

I say a silent prayer and key the “Program Start” sequence into Lewis’s wireless remote controller. The music begins, thanks to Scooter, who, while loving opera, also has a taste for the modern stuff, and found a surreal composition by a Polish artist with an unpronounceable name, whose blend of strings, solo voices and ethereal electronic chords creates a soundscape that fills the room like water does the sea.

Beneath the whispery, slightly menacing music, the low hum of micro-servo motors add their melody as their screw drives operate the ship’s hinge mechanisms that slowly lifts the port side of the
Titanic’s
hull
to reveal my dream ride inside – thanks to Scooter – modeled in miniature perfection.
He made every “Ride Scene’ visible with cleverly hidden grain-of-wheat bulbs and LED’s. Countless scale model human figures are everywhere, especially clustered along a sloping ramp that resembles the
Titanic
’s Grand Staircase.

‘This is our pre-show entrance with a ten-degree down slope to encourage movement toward the EMV lifeboats.’

Done in richly carved mahogany to resemble the famous entryway for an evening’s entertainment on board the original ship, Scooter lined ours with miniature display cases filled with artifacts and small paintings designed to distract riders from a long wait as they descend deeper and deeper to the load station.

‘No steps?’ Xia says.

‘Not a one. Title Two, ADA; everybody rides, wheelchairs, blind, deaf or otherwise.’

‘Americans,’ Xia sniffs. ‘You wouldn’t last an hour in Beijing.’

‘Land of the free, home of the ramps.’

‘What’s your wait time average?’

Her question stops me. Not because I don’t have an answer, but because she has the savvy to ask such a thing. ‘Peak twenty minutes, average twelve.’

‘That’s fast, isn’t it?’

‘We’ll have lots of EMV’s, good handlers, and plenty of pictures, artifacts and music and smells to keep them busy until they load.’

‘Smells?’

I track my laser pointer on the ceiling area above the boarding ramp. ‘Scent generators here, here and here. Whatever they’re smelling out on the strip in Vegas - most likely vomit and failure – we’ll replace with ocean smells, polished oak, a hint of women’s perfume and a touch of cigar smoke, each so subtle that you won’t be able to separate them into their discrete essences. Instead, all you’ll smell is what it’s like to be rich.’

Xia’s laughter is like a peal of bells. ‘You’re serious?’

‘We’re working with two companies on this, but I’m inclined to go with SGA. They’re smelling up all the
Ritz-Carltons
, Milan’s
Malpensa
, and
Celebrity Cruise
ships. They’ve got the experience, and they’re just crazy enough to give me what I want – without laughing at me like you are.’

She shoots me a sharp look and I vow once again not to be a wise guy with a person sitting on millions of potential investment dollars.

Xia continues. ‘They use chemicals, right?’

‘The nose is easily fooled.’

She looks up. ‘But not the heart.’

I have no idea what she means, because her face shifts in a fraction of a second from being animated to being stone. I try to change it by sweeping my laser pointer dot toward the boarding area, where Scooter has animated a string of small, white EMV lifeboats on a constant loop that creep out of the darkness into the light, and then through a tunnel that opens up onto a replica of the
Boat Deck
scene complete with railings, ventilators, and blue sky arching overhead, created by a cyclorama that includes a portside view of Southampton, England as it appeared on sailing day, April 11th, 1912.

‘We board thirty riders at a time into what looks like lifeboats from here up.’ I indicate the waterline on one of the tiny four-inch long models. ‘But underneath are the guts of an Enhanced Motion Vehicle capable of three hundred-sixty-degree full rotation, with pitch and roll. Robbie? If you please?’

‘Aye, aye, sir.’ He’s standing in the darkness near the ship model and turns on spotlight over a much larger, perfectly crafted, one-sixteenth scale model of an EMV resting on a billowy cushion of dark blue silk that mimics the ocean waves.

‘Motion performance vehicles are nothing new to the business,’ I continue. ‘Disney invented them almost twenty years ago. But never before has an MPV done what ours will do.’

I whisk away the blue silk cloth to reveal the bright metal and carbon fiber complexity of levers, hydraulic hoses, scissor-lifts and rotation rings. I move the EMV through its range of motions to demonstrate how it will create the motion needed not only to carry the riders from vignette to vignette in a spiraling, ever-faster and faster, swooping, roller coaster-like dance, but also perform like a lifeboat adrift on the open sea.

‘What makes yours so different?’ Xia says.

I return to the ship model and laser-tag a section of the ride amidships, which resembles the deck of an ocean liner. A string of tiny MPV’s emerge from a tunnel to the right, which led back to the
Open Ocean
scene, where riders are ‘bobbing’ in imaginary water while watching a hi-rez projected, CGI version of the
Titanic’s
final moments
.

‘The daytime ride ends when the EMV’s arrive on the
Carpathia’s
deck and the riders disembark and exit through retail. The
Carpathia
, by the way, is the ship that picked up the
Titanic’s
survivors.’

‘I know.’

‘Wasn’t sure.’

‘Contrary to what you might think about Chinese schools, they do teach history.’

‘Happy to hear that, because two years from now they’ll be teaching how a bunch of crazy Americans and a farsighted Chinese billionaire made history come alive with
Ride the Titanic.’

‘Two years sounds unrealistic for what you’re proposing.’

I tried my biggest smile. ‘Not with the right kind of financing.’

Xia says nothing, but the body-language way she crosses her legs and folds her arms doesn’t look encouraging.