Ride the Titanic! (32 page)

Robin Wright’s clever design allows for the buoyancy forces to balance each other so that the combined mass of the ship and pressure hull performs like a piece of waterlogged wood, floating
just
above the surface. All you need do to make it submerge is give a gentle shove – or in our case a ‘gentle’ tug down the geared track.

Phase three comes when the pivot mechanism reaches its bottommost travel point, with the
Titanic
completely submerged except for her stern. There it will hover just long enough to reveal the ship’s massive propellers and rudder, and then slide down to its final resting place on the ocean floor – in our case the bottom of the dive trench, two hundred fifty feet below where I’m standing. Even though the sprayed concrete mixture has cured rock-hard around thousands of rods of Teflon-coated rebar, the smell is overpoweringly dank, earthy, almost crypt-like, which makes me shiver.

Lewis, who misses nothing, looks up from his notebook. ‘Someone just walk over your mother’s grave?’

‘This one.’ I point to the sleek black hull stretching out into the distance. ‘All those lives.’

‘Do not dwell on the tragic, focus on the mythic.’ Isn’t that what you always say?’

‘Saying it is easy. But looking at this ship and what it meant to those people, it gets hard at times.’

‘That was then, this is now.’ Lewis snaps his notepad shut. ‘I’m off to right the wrongs. Where you bound?’

In the distance a cluster of white bobbing construction hats gather like a flock of birds around a fluorescent green one. ‘To join our esteemed friend who’s hosting a City of Las Vegas inspection team.’

‘To shut us down again?’

‘What else is new?’

‘And your action, Captain, to prevent such a tragedy?’

‘I shall mind your advice and dwell on the mythic.’

‘Don’t forget your checkbook, too.’

Xia and I lead the team of city inspectors in a tiptoe dance across a tangle of air compressor hoses, through a canyon of scaffolding and then stairs that lead up to the ship’s Promenade Deck. From there we climb six sets of ladders until we reach the access walkway inside the dive trench. Our conga line moves in and out of pools of work lights until we finally arrive at the massive pivot system upon which the entire ride depends.

While I move to the rear to keep the herd together, Xia points to something in the shadowy distance. One of the inspectors says something, and her childlike laughter cuts through the construction clangor like a soprano’s high C. I’m not close enough to hear the joke, but the effect is instantaneous as the five inspectors exchange smiles and one of them good-naturedly nudges his partner.

Xia calls out, ‘Michael, Mr. Reynolds suggests we change the abandon ship announcement to read Women, Children and High Rollers, first.’

Another round of laughter but more subdued. I single out the florid-faced, beady-eyed jokester. ‘Will you be joining us on our maiden voyage, sir?’

‘Well, that depends.’ He exchanges a quick glance with the lead inspector, a man named Krofchik. ‘Whatcha’ thinkin’ Joey?’

The tall, gloomy man looks right at home in the damp, dripping darkness, better off tending vampire bats than assaying building codes. His expressionless shrug is more eloquent than words.

Xia hones in on him. ‘I’m not a mind-reader, Mr. Krofchik. Can you be specific?’

‘Which code violations you want first? Ones you can fix or ones you can’t?’

She flashes her silver dollar smile. ‘Last time it was the ones we could fix, so let’s start with those first.’

His expression shifts from near-death to barely alive as he methodically ticks off a list of violations ranging from electrical to mechanical, and then to HVAC and fire codes of such magnitude it appears that a group of bored teenagers planned this 3.1 billion dollar project on lazy afternoon instead of almost four hundred round-the-clock, devoted employees who’ve spent the last two years crossing every ‘i’ and dotting every ‘t,’ only to have their efforts dismissed by this Bela Lugosi stand-in, who makes a comfortable living pulling the wings off other people’s dreams.

Xia waits until he finishes and deadpans, ‘Is that it? I thought you said these were the ones I
couldn’t
fix.’

Mixed, nervous laughter from the others, but Krofchik silences them with the self-righteous glare of a preacher grappling with the devil and winning. ‘This so-called ship of yours is never going to set sail until these violations are properly addressed. The absolute safety of our citizens is paramount. In fact. . .’

Xia lifts her hands in supplication, ‘Ours, too. So much so that we’ve recently created a new performance-based, doubly redundant, cross-check computerized program that I guarantee will meet every possible building code and safety criteria established by the city of Las Vegas governing the safe operation of our revolutionary new ride.’

She glances at me. ‘Right, Michael?’

My turn at bat, so I swing for the fence. ‘Mr. Krofchik, your team has other building sites to inspect this morning, am I right?’

He looks to the heavens for understanding, ‘You have no idea.’

‘That’s what I figured. So why not send them on ahead and spare us ten minutes of your valuable time to review our new system?’

He frowns on cue.

I say equally on cue, ‘Ten minutes at the most, I promise. You’ll see how every citation can not only be corrected, but done so in time for our maiden voyage on April fifteenth.’

To Krofchik’s credit, skepticism chokes his voice as if he’s downed a shot of straight vinegar. ‘I doubt that’s going to happen, considering the present situation.’

‘Let us prove it to you.’ Xia slips her arm into his and deftly steers him away from the group and toward the distant exit.

‘Why such a specific date?’ Krofchik says.

‘Don’t you know?’ I say. ‘That’s the date the original
Titanic
sank.’

‘I had no idea.’

‘Come April fifteenth, all of Las Vegas will.’

As usual, Xia is matter-of-fact in her payoff to Krofchik. Like the captain of an Alaskan fishing trawler, he gets the biggest cut, with the rest divided up among his building inspector cronies.

The ringleader doesn’t even bother taking a seat in Xia’s newly-furnished office on the top floor of the hotel. None of the other rooms on this uppermost floor are complete except for basic walls and wiring. But every day more and more drywall plasterers, electricians and plumbers go to work inside our ever-growing ‘iceberg’ to create the time capsule we hope will seduce both the adventure seeker and the historian alike.

With good reason: Xia’s 1911-era office could pass for
White Star Line
Chairman J. Bruce Ismay’s, with its buttery-smooth mahogany paneling, overstuffed chairs, green velvet drapes blocking out the Vegas sun, and muted lighting that transports you back in time to a world more simple and direct, when dealing with people like Krofchik. But not any less ruthless. That’s been in our DNA ever since our ancestors clubbed mastodons to death for dinner.

Xia flips open her ledger. ‘Payee the same?’

Krofchik nods and can’t resist licking his dry lips.

‘Some water?’ I offer. ‘Sparkling or still?’

He waves me off.

Xia says without looking up, ‘Round it to the nearest thousand?’

A slight smile. ‘Even numbers preferred. Luckier that way.’

‘When did you ever care about luck?’

He takes the check, examines it, and blows the ink dry. ‘Ever since you sailed into town, Ms. Zhu.’

He levers his lank frame out of the chair and makes for the door.

I say, ‘Quick question for you.’

‘Shoot.’

‘Why us?’

He tilts his head like a dog puzzling his master’s voice. ‘Because you’re the biggest game in town.’

‘Who’s your boss?’

‘The city of Las Vegas, of course.’

‘I mean your
real
boss, not the whore you fuck for free every day while your wife’s not looking.’

A dry chuckle. ‘That’s a good one. Gotta’ remember it.’

Xia says, ‘Not when ladies are present.’ She goes over and opens the door. The smell of damp plaster and fresh-cut lumber seeps in, along with the sound of distant jack hammering.

‘The eyes have it, right?’ she says.

‘Beg pardon?’’

She presses her forefingers against the edges of her eyelids and pulls them until they squint shut. ‘Boss-man no likee hungry Chinee fingers poking in big fat American pie.’

Krofchik draws himself up, his self-righteous expression like a Halloween mask. ‘If your inferring that race has anything. . .’

‘To do with what’s going on? You absolutely bet your under-the-table, money-grabbing ass I do, and so does Mr. Sullivan, am I right?’

I nod, and then take my cue as best I can, because what she says comes out of nowhere and I have to improvise fast. ‘Lest we forget, Mr. Krofchik, without the Chinese there would be no compass, no paper, no printing, and most of all, no transcontinental railroad that connected New York to San Francisco, all made possible because of their many unsung labors.’

‘Thanks for the history lesson. Now if you’ll excuse me. . .’

Xia says, ‘Oh, and one more thing, Mr. Krofchik. Or may I call you Joey? That what the gang calls you, right?’

He nods in automatic reflex.

‘Joey, I forgot to mention the most important thing we people with the funny-looking eyes invented. Can you guess?’

His mouth tightens.

‘The stuff that explodes and shoves bullets through gun barrels so fast they can punch through steel, not to mention people too. Goes by the name of gunpowder. Ever heard of it?’

‘What’s that got to do with me?’

I say, ‘Nothing, if you’re smart and keep out of the way of our security team arriving tomorrow. Don’t worry, you’ll be able to spot them real easy. They’ve all got eyes like Xia’s.’

‘Not as pretty, though’ she says.

‘Goes without saying.’

Krofchik eyes us both. ‘Armed guards? On site?’

I say, ‘We call them ‘asset protection specialists.’ And you can tell that person – or persons – whose ass you kiss on a regular basis, that this hotel and this ride are here to stay. And no matter how many bogus code violations you dream up, no matter how many city ordinances obstruct our progress, money will fix it, every. . . single. . . fucking. . . time.’

‘You sound pretty confident.’

‘That fat check in your pocket proves my point, unless you want to give it back.’

I reach out my hand, but he lifts both of his in protest. ‘Look, I’m a lightweight compared to what they can throw at you.’

‘Just tell them: muscle and money. We’ve got both, and we aren’t afraid to use both in equal amounts.’

Xia says, ‘Don’t forget guns.’

‘Those too.’

Xia gestures politely to the half-built hallway, ‘Enjoy the rest of your day, Mr. Krofchik. Don’t spend all your money in one place. Your boys wouldn’t like it.’

After he leaves, Xia collapses onto a chair and holds her head. ‘Where in God’s name are we going to get muscle?’

‘Chinese muscle.’

She moans. ‘Why did you go that route?’

‘I was taking your lead – about your eyes, I mean.’

‘Racist bastards.’

‘Who isn’t, one way or another? Japanese call Westerners ‘round eyes’ You call us ‘foreign devils.’ Everybody’s ugly and nobody fits in – except to our moms, of course.’

‘Please, just be quiet and let me think.’