Ride the Titanic! (19 page)

The sweet glow of success lasts between Ellie and me all the way on our drive back to Burbank airport, where my
Gulfstream
(I’m calling it
my
Gulfstream
,’ by now) waits to jet me back to Vegas, where Xia and I will compare progress reports; me with the ride and she with the hotel, now officially ‘under steel’ and slowly climbing into the Vegas skyline.

Ellie insists on driving me to the airport, and even tags along with me to the executive check-in counter. As we stand waiting our turn she says casually, as if asking for directions to the nearest restaurant, ‘By the way, Geena tells me you don’t have a written contract with Xia on this deal.’

I cover my shock by saying, ‘You two are old pals, now?’

She shrugs. ‘She gets lonely back in Orlando with you living on Mars. I’m good company. And you didn’t answer my question. Why no contract with Xia?’

‘We sort of have one.’

‘Either you do or don’t.’

‘We have a basic letter of understanding that. . .’

‘Not a legally binding contract?’

‘Everything’s been sort of a blur for the last year and yeah, maybe I’ll. . .’

She waves me into silence. ‘Know that scene in the movies where the guy GRABS the other guy’s suit coat lapels to make his point?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, I’m no guy, but I’m not going to let that stop me from GRABBING your Hawaiian shirt and telling you face to face that you need to get a signed, sealed and delivered contract that spells out your business relationship with that woman, or. . .or. . .’

‘Or what?’

‘I don’t know, but when I do it’ll be awful.’

‘I see.’

‘I hope to hell you do, captain.’ She turns me loose and stands there huffing and puffing. ‘Okay, now you can fire me.’

‘No time.’ I smooth my rumpled shirt. ‘Got a
Gulfstream
to catch.’

We enter the dimly lit corridor in angry silence. Ahead is the gate that opens out onto the taxi apron.

Ellie says, ‘Nice flying private. No TSA pawing at you.’

‘One of these days you’ll find out.’

‘What makes you think I haven’t played this game already?’

‘That’s right, you’ve got a rich daddy.’

‘Rich enough that once upon a time, I had a cute little Learjet 60 all my very own.’

‘’Had’?’

She shrugged. ‘Daddy took it away because I landed at an airport that wasn’t rated for jets. Short runway. Almost ran it off the numbers.’

‘Crazy pilot.’

‘It was me.’

‘Get out.’

She shows me her FAA private pilot’s license and ticks off a litany of class and type ratings, including rotary and seaplane.

‘Where’d you find time to do all this?’

‘While my friends were looking for husbands, I was looking for a way out. I wanted to fly for the airlines, but somewhere along the line the movie-making bug bit hard and I never looked back. Especially today, when I’m directing the biggest project I’ve ever done, PROVIDING.’ She grabs my shirt again, ‘You don’t fire me, and the minute you get back to crazy town, you sign a real, live, honest-to-goodness contract with Miss Saigon.’

‘She’s from China.’

‘Whatever. Get your over-paid, underworked attorneys to create an iron-clad, escape-proof agreement. You’ve signed ISM contracts with ride suppliers and subcontractors. You signed one with me. Why the hell not with her?’

I couldn’t say this to Ellie because she’d never understand, but maybe you will:

For me, a formal contract remains at its heart and soul a signed and sealed document based upon distrust and doubt of the other signatories. Because of what Xia and I are planning, it feels more like a marriage than a business venture. We could have taken verbal ‘business vows’ I suppose, but we settled for a simple, one page letter of understanding. Two paragraphs. Two signatures.

The night after the
Paradise Towers
– and my pants – both dropped, Xia and I drew up our simple agreement. After she signed it she nervously said, ‘I’ve never done anything like this in my life.’

‘Always a first time.’

‘Father will die if he finds out.’

‘None of his business.’

‘Everything’s his business.’

‘If it’s any consolation, my wife will kill me if she finds out.’

Don’t ask me how, but somehow, according to Ellie, she has. I talk in my sleep. Maybe that’s how. In any event, they both think it’s ‘magical thinking’ for me not to go the formal contract route. Geena being a binary-black-and-white NASA scientist is a fierce opponent of my philosophy that nothing happens unless it already has – in my mind that is.

I fully believe that once you accept its reality in your gray cells and feel what it would be like, really
feel
it, then it’s only a matter of time before it manifests itself in the real world. For me, having a hundred-page, legally binding, signed contract is an admission of mistrust of the anticipated outcome. And in my world if you anticipate failure, you’ll damn well
will
experience it. Crazy I know. But remember, I’m the crazy guy who dreamed up this ride in the first place.

Ellie follows me out to the
Gulfstream
like a border collie, nipping at my heels with questions I don’t want to answer. I turn to her. ‘Look, if Steven Spielberg and George Lucas could hang out at a beach shooting the breeze about
Indiana Jones
, and then write a single sentence on a slip of paper that split profits and aftermarket earnings fifty-fifty, then so can Xia and me.’

‘You really believe that can work?’

‘
Ride the Titanic
will become a reality. Am I afraid it won’t? Yes. Scared? You bet. Last time I shaved I saw a wide eyed, panicky guy staring back at me in the mirror. But so far, with that letter of understanding, Xia and I are almost halfway there. And when the Vegas ride is done, we’re building more of them all over the world. And you’re going to help us do it.’

‘You actually believe all this will come true?’

‘It already has.’ I tap my head. ‘Up here.’

‘Allow me,’ Ellie taps my head. ‘That’s what I figured.’

‘What?’

‘Hollow.’

I keep these confident, trusting thoughts in mind as Xia hands me her progress report when we meet later that evening in the
White Star Grand Hotel’s
production offices, temporarily located in a three thousand-plus, square foot penthouse condo on the 47
^th
floor of the
Oriental Mandarin
. She converted three of its bedrooms into administrative offices and made the wood-paneled den her private domain. My crummy ‘office’ remains an overheated, double-wide construction trailer on site that tilts to the right, making it hard to keep anything on your desk except dirt-covered boots.

Since it it’s evening, her staff has gone home, leaving just the two of us, face to face for the first time since our romantic encounter a year ago. Since then we’ve teleconferenced almost daily to keep in touch, but give me the real thing every time, at least until they design a camera that allows direct eye contact. Otherwise it’s like talking to a shifty character who can’t look you straight in the eye.

Not the case now, though as Xia’s beautiful hazel eyes calmly regard me, while she drums her fingers on the dark mahogany, six foot-long desk with ornately carved wooden legs, each beginning as a sinuously twisting dragon tail at the bottom and ending with ominous-looking heads and open jaws at the top.

‘Some desk,’ I say.

‘Thank you.’

‘Looks smaller on camera.’

‘A gift from father. Wishing me good fortune in my new venture.’

‘Don’t you mean ‘our’ new venture?’

‘English is not my native language.’

‘Pronouns can be tricky things – looks like an expensive antique.’

She smiles. ‘Everything in China is an antique, including father.’

‘Problems back home?’

She looks startled for a moment. ‘Nothing that can’t be solved. Still. . .’ She sighs. ‘Actually, he’s here.’

‘In Vegas? Where’s he staying?’

She turns and calls out softly, ‘
Fù Gīn.
’

I expect a wizened old man to come shuffling out wearing silk robes and a Mandarin hat. Such are our unconscious racial prejudices. They sit forgotten on the shelf until you have the occasion to pull one down. Mine shatters at the sight of a tall, well-groomed, barrel-chested, hair-slicked-back, broad-featured, smiling gentleman who booms into Xia’s den and grabs my outstretched hand.

‘So this is the Disney genius who talked my daughter out of fifty-million dollars. I am Dingxang Zhu, here to talk her into taking it back.’

I say, ‘Including the desk?’

His bark of laughter is oddly like Xia’s; sharp, flat and brief. ‘It’s worth a fortune. She’d better save it while she can, before they take that too.’

Without being asked, I sit down on the leather couch. ‘Do you mind telling me who the hell is ‘they?’’

He starts to speak but Xia cuts him off. ‘We had a run in with the licensing board the other day. It seems that Counselor Duvall was right. They. . .’

‘Daughter!’ Dingxang raises his hand like a traffic cop and his imperious look silences her. ‘You are about to tell a story that has a happy ending. Instead I will tell the truth. . . to both of you.’

He goes to the window and silently regards the rising steel framework of the
White Star Grand Hotel
directly across the boulevard. Five stories so far and climbing fast. It’s still just a skeleton missing the muscle and sinew of plumbing, drywall and electric, but rising just the same. A blue-white constellation of acetylene torch flames flicker in the bowels of the structure as welders on the night shift continue their labors.

At last he speaks, his voice soft but powerful. ‘They don’t want you here.’

‘Who?’ I say.

‘The people who originally said they would be happy to have your bold, new concept grace their famous boulevard.’

‘You mean the licensing board?’

He turns around, smiling, but only his mouth is doing the work; his eyes are flat calm.

‘Mr. Sullivan, while you have been pursuing the ride component of this project, my daughter has been pursuing the hotel. As head of the family I have stayed out of her dealings, as this is. . .’ He pauses and bows slightly to Xia. ‘Or should I say WAS – a bold new direction for our company.’

‘Using my bold OLD money,’ Xia adds. ‘Fifty million dollars American.’

‘Spoken like the true warrior that I raised you to become. Your money became the spear that conquered an army of foreign bankers, forcing them to surrender to your bold demands for massive loans. For that I congratulate you.’

She bows slightly. ‘So why must we do the opposite?’

‘Because I have learned that despite my offer to continue smoothing the way for your success here with certain individuals, those offers have been politely rebuffed.’

‘Bribes you mean,’ I say.

‘Among other things, yes, of course.’

Xia says, ‘Without telling me? How dare you interfere?’

‘Because you have become so Western in your thinking that you never considered the possibility of this happening. And since you did not, resentment followed. And there is no smoldering coal like resentment that when turned slightly becomes the flame of anger.’

I say, ‘Who’s after at us? Give me some names.’

He turns back to the window. ‘Names don’t matter. They never do. Men like this have their brief time on earth, then others replace them, and the power remains. Over the past decade, the power base in Las Vegas has steadily declined. Some of these men, the wiser ones, naturally understand the value of diversity, and this fact of life caused them no concern whatsoever. Nature works this way, why not gambling?’

He makes a waving gesture with his two hands.

‘The wise ones simply spread their wings of chance and flew to Macau, the Philippines, South Africa, and Singapore to build new casinos with familiar old names. But the ones whose vision goes no further than the next spin of the roulette wheel or cast of the dice. . . .’ He turns to face us. ‘They are the ones determined to make certain your grand project becomes a grand disaster.’

‘They want to sink us?’ I say, trying to be clever.

‘No, they WILL sink you. That is why I am here to convince you to cut your losses and pull out now.’

‘Baloney,’ I say.

‘Excuse me?’

‘I mean no way, forget about it.’

He closes his eyes, touches his fingertips together and I get angry, thinking he’s about to preach to me. ‘I’m not in the mood for one of your ancient Chinese proverbs.’

‘On the contrary, Mr. Sullivan, I am merely praying for you to see the light.’

Xia and I look at each other, saying nothing but saying everything. Then her face tightens, as if slapped. ‘We’re already in steel, fifth floor, a little behind schedule, but, threat or no threat, we will finish our work.’

‘Is that your answer?’ her father says.

‘To who? You or ‘them?’’

‘Both, actually. As I am meeting tomorrow evening with their representative and will convey your response.’

Xia takes a step forward. ‘And then?’

‘They will commence their efforts to bring this project to its proper conclusion.’