Ride the Titanic! (24 page)

I plead, ‘We can’t turn this thing around.’

‘Back it up, then.’

‘Jesus, do you know what this’ll cost me?’

‘Not a clue.’ He hands back the permit. ‘Move it. I got rush hour breathing down my neck.’

‘Is there any chance. . .?’

‘I’m done listening, sir. We both got jobs to do.’

‘Okay, okay,’ I raise my hands in surrender. ‘I’m going.’

By now, Lewis has joined me, along with Max who bounces up and down on the balls of his feet, venting off excess energy. I give them a meaningful look before saying, ‘Let’s do what the good officer says.’

We turn as one and I march them back to the van. On the way, I call Robert Grayson’s number. To my relief the enemy attorney picks up on the second ring.

‘Another one of your handy little fuck-ups?’ I say.

‘Excuse me?’

‘The permit switch. Cops tell me the road’s torn up. You and the old boys having a celebration party?’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m in bed – alone, alas.’

‘Don’t give me that.’

‘FaceTime me, I’ll prove it.’

‘We can’t deliver the hull section.’

‘Go another time.’

‘This is the only time. We did the final pour last night on the dive trench. This section has to go in before it cures. ‘

‘I feel your pain. But remember I warned you and Ms. Zhu that what you’re trying to do in Vegas is not going to stay in Vegas.’

‘It’ll cost us a fortune to reschedule. Not to mention tearing up the concrete, contract penalties, overtime charges.’

‘Pennies add up don’t they?’

‘That’s what you want.’

‘That’s what my clients want. Me? I’m all for progress. For instance, have you ever caught David Copperfield’s act?’

‘What’s that got to do with. . .?’

The cop starts marching toward me and I wave at him. ‘We’re going, we’re going!’

Back to the phone. ‘So, what’s the deal with Copperfield?’

‘Listen carefully; all magic is illusion. What you see is never what’s really there.’

A chuckle and the phone connection ends with a tiny ‘click.’

Once back inside the van I ask the transport operator. ‘How fast can this thing go?’

‘Empty, ten miles an hour, maybe twelve.’

‘Loaded? Like now?’

‘Half that.’

‘Any faster?’

He shrugs. ‘Inertia is inertia. After a while, we could be moving relatively fast.’

‘Full speed ahead,’ I say, and sit down.

Lewis says, ‘Didn’t the cop say back up?’

I hand him the permit. ‘Somebody switched the date on us. And we both know who.’

‘The stealth bombers.’

‘We’re not going back. We’re going forward.’ I lean over the operator. ‘Fast as you can, without damaging the load.’

‘Need that in writing, or I’ll get fired,’ he says.

‘I’ll give it to you in blood if you want.’ I turn to Lewis. ‘You’re a social media expert, aren’t you?’

‘I coordinate many communication avenues.’

‘Then get your teams to twitter, tweet, post, e-mail, Skype – whatever it takes to get the news out that – Max, how much does this load weigh?

‘Kilotons or tons?’

‘Pounds sounds better.’

His face twists in mental calculation, then his smile turns demonic. ‘Four hundred sixty-two thousand, five hundred twenty pounds.’

‘Lewis, say that half a million pounds of
Ride the Titanic
is racing out of control like a runaway iceberg straight for downtown Las Vegas.’

‘Racing?’

‘You know what I mean.’

Lewis nods as he continues thumb-texting so fast that it looks like he has only one digit. By now the cop is almost to our transporter, shouting, ‘I told you to haul this sorry piece of shit back to where it came from!’

‘We’re on our way, officer.’

As he turns away I hiss, ‘Go!’

A hurried glance between Max and the operator. A stream of Italian, two quick nods, and the whine of electric motors sing out in the morning air as the operator activates the multi-wheel transporter.

The cop, mission accomplished, matter-of-factly looks over his shoulder and does a double-take as the transporter looms over him like a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day balloon, crawling forward not back. He double-times to our van, where I sit in the driver’s seat.

Before he can say anything I shout dramatically, ‘Controls won’t respond.’

‘Fix them!’

‘We’re trying!’

He yanks open the side door of the slowly-moving van to behold a tableau of madness: the operator alternately banging and fiddling with his control unit, Max screaming commands in Italian, and Lewis jabbering on his phone to a news reporter. Some of which I can hear, most of which I can’t.

‘. . . .so far, yes. . .about five miles an hour, but we’re increasing speed. . . .some steering control to the left and right. . . .but not much. . . .no. . . .yes. . . .yes. . .maybe a half-hour I think, if we maintain this speed. . . . What can stop it? You got me, pal. . . maybe praying.’

The cop jumps back, apoplectic. ‘Stop it. Pull out the wires or something.’

‘Not that easy. All kinds of safety overrides.’

He pulls out his pistol. ‘I’ll blow out the tires.’

‘Solid neoprene. Like shooting frozen butter.’

‘A road block then.’

‘What can stop a half-million pounds?’

He regards the arrow-straight highway leading into the heart of downtown Las Vegas. ‘When you hit that road repair, this whole damn thing will roll over.’

‘I know.’

He walks faster to keep up with our ever-increasing speed, speaking between puffs of breath, ‘You don’t. . . sound . . .too worried . . .about it.’

‘I never argue with fate, officer. It’s a Chinese sort of thing. Keeps my blood pressure down. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got to steer this van straight ahead. Maybe they’ll pull off a miracle back there. Italians are good at that sort of thing. Otherwise. . . .’ I smile weakly and drum my fingers on the wheel and try to whistle nonchalantly, but my mouth is desert-dry.

The cop starts running, his utility belt of Mace, nightstick, ticket book, pistol, and whistle cord, bouncing in time with his galumphing pace. He hops into his patrol car, hits the siren, and like a startled flock of blue-strobe-lighted hawks, the other police cars take up the wail, which only increases the drama.

‘News chopper inbound,’ Lewis shouts happily.

Sure enough, not one, but two news helicopters soon hover over our deadly-slow procession to Armageddon. More accustomed to tracking high-speed car chases and feeding rock-steady images to their bored audiences, today the choppers have a bird’s eye view of a bright yellow, multi-wheeled transporter with a gigantic cylindrical cargo that appears to be going nowhere fast, but make no mistake, it’s headed straight for downtown Vegas.

Lewis holds out his phone, which by now should have melted from over-use. ‘They want to talk to you.’

‘Who’s’ they’?’

‘FOX 5, then TNV Action News. Just hit flash when you’re done, they’re all waiting.’

It’s not hard to sound excited and emotional when the reporter asks me her questions. After I get through the who-what-where-and-how, she says, ‘How will this affect your opening?’

‘It’s not an opening. We’re calling it the
Maiden Voyage
and absolutely no affect at all.
Ride the Titanic
sets sail April 15th, just like it did back in 1912.’

A long pause. ‘Didn’t that one sink?’

‘Ours comes back, night after night. Will you and your news crews be there?’

‘Right now they’re busy covering a runaway transporter. Yours.’

‘We’re doing our best to stop it. A software glitch. Everything will be okay, you’ll see. Nothing to worry about.’

‘And if you don’t fix it?’

‘Well, then we’ll -’

I hit ‘FLASH’ on my phone and take the next call, letting her fill in the disaster blanks the way good reporters know how.

We’re now less than a mile from the road repair site, the
Luxor
pyramid slowly glides past to our left. Max and the operator continue monitoring the transporter to make sure it doesn’t drift left or right. By my rough estimate, the street crowds have tripled since the word spread about the runaway.

The police cars cruise in slow attendance like a school of pilot fish escorting a slowly moving shark, or in our case a humpback whale. The lead cop pulls over, hops out, runs back to the van and keeps up with us, Secret Service style

‘Talk to me.’

‘Still stuck in forward.’

‘You’re going faster.’

‘Got a mind of its own.’

He thuds along in silence for a few steps, then says, ‘It’s gonna’ happen isn’t it? You’re gonna’ wreck this damn thing.’

‘You’d better clear out those construction folks and the bystanders. No telling what’s going to happen when all these wheels hit the ditch.’

‘Son. . . . of. . . a. . . BITCH.’

‘Sorry.’

‘You and your damned ride.’

‘Free tickets for you for all your trouble, officer. Family included.’

He grunts, but doesn’t say no, and instead runs faster to get back to his patrol car.

In the distance, two gigantic, yellow Caterpillar excavators ponderously clank away from the concrete ‘Jersey Barrier’ wall surrounding the road construction. One of the news helicopters hovers directly overhead, waiting for us to arrive, which by my calculations is about three minutes. People pack the sidewalks, pointing, waving, holding up their drinks to us in a Vegas toast.

The
Cometto
operator shouts, ‘Lot of inertia going here, sir. Need at least thirty seconds to stop.’

‘We’re not stopping.’

Max pales and jumps as if shot. ‘But the construction. We will roll into the hole and tip over, and this beautiful pressure hull section will come loose and crush people and cars and. . .and. . .’

‘Max, what do people do the most in Las Vegas?’

‘Sex?’

‘Gamble. And I’m gambling that this so-called road construction is a bluff to harass us like they’ve been doing all along with permit screw-ups, inspection failures, you name it, they’ve done it, and they’ll keep on doing it until something terrible happens to shut us down for good before we even get started.’

‘But if it IS real, then this will be that ‘terrible thing.’’

‘I’m betting it’s not.’

‘If you lose?’

I don’t answer because the thought won’t come.

‘It’s Xia,’ Lewis thrusts his phone at me. ‘Can you FaceTime?’

‘Later.’

‘Now!’ her tinny voice shouts from the speaker phone. ‘Show me what’s going on.’

I grab the phone, hit forward camera and aim it out the window, while I fill her in on what Grayson told me, and my hunch that it’s all a bluff.

‘Stop that thing! You’re crazy.’

‘If I stop they win. Want that?’

A long silence.

‘Still in Singapore?’ I prompt.

‘Left this morning. Somewhere over the Pacific. Be there in ten hours.’

‘We’ll have our answer long before you get here. In the meantime, keep watching. You’ve got a ringside seat.’

I prop the phone on the dashboard. We’re less than fifty yards from impact.

Max shouts, ‘
Madonna mia
, slow down!’

Instead, I swerve the van to the left, and draw parallel with the crawler as it zeroes in on the steel-reinforced concrete barriers put there to block traffic from the road work. The police cars slow to a halt as we come closer and closer. Foot patrolmen push the crowd back to a safe distance. Thirty feet, twenty. . . .

‘Faster if you can!’ I shout.

An explosion of Italian curses and the whine of electric motors revving up as the transporter wheels nudge up against the concrete barriers and shove them forward like cardboard boxes, shrieking against the pavement, sending up a cloud of sandy dust, and then bump into heavy steel plates supposedly covering the dug-up road beneath and slide them forward too.

I take a deep breath as the dealer turns over my final card: Either our wheels will fall into a real abyss, or they’ll continue rolling on solid ground.

More dust, and shouting, a small piece of scaffolding falls to the ground as the massive transporter keeps rolling. . . rolling. . . shoving the mass of barriers, wheelbarrows, pickaxes, barrels and orange traffic cones ahead of it like a determined school janitor cleaning up after the prom.

I shout, ‘Stop!’

The transporter groans to a halt fifty yards beyond the worksite. I jump out of the van and run back to the scene of the crime – or I should say the ‘non-crime’ of a perfectly intact piece of roadway, scratched and scraped from the barriers, true, but in one, beautiful, never-was-dug-up-in-the-first-place piece..

The crowd parts like the Red Sea but the police don’t, nor does the squadron of news videographers, who, pissed off at the disaster of the century NOT happening on the Boulevard, swing their lenses around to feed on whatever scraps are left.

The cop who led the convoy says to me, ‘How’d you stop it?’

‘Don’t know. Suddenly everything just started working again. Steering, brakes, everything. Some kind of software glitch. It’s like nothing ever happened.’

‘Like hell it was nothing. Look!’

The news cameras swing around to the road.

‘I am looking, officer, and all I see is a scratched-up street. You told me this thing was dug up. Show me exactly where.’

He twists around and shouts, ‘Who’s in charge here?’

A long minute. No one emerges from the crowd. Hope for something more exciting is fading fast, soon to be replaced by restlessness and boredom. The exotic spell of the Vegas strip will lure them away unless I act fast.

‘Ladies and gentleman!’ I shout. ‘May I have your attention?’

They turn to face me, puzzled, curious.

‘Won’t take long. Just a few words about some bad guys who just tried to keep
Ride the Titanic
from sailing into Vegas this April. Yes, I said bad guys and you know what I mean, right? Right?’

Surprised smiles, nods, nudges. Now THIS is excitement. Some demented guy raving away. Worth staying to see what happens next.

‘Do you see this? Do you?’

The news cameras zero in on me as I walk to the middle of the highway and stamp on the pavement.