Ride the Titanic! (42 page)

Two wiggles of titanium white became moonlight shimmering on the still waters of the dive basin.

‘Nobody’s business but mine.’

‘Not anymore.’

Joe paints in silence. Beyond the windows Las Vegas looks like the Milky Way crashed and burned with no survivors – until you notice traces of shadowy motion along the strip, phantom-like shapes of people just like those Joe reproduced so perfectly in his painting.

I say, ‘You believe in heaven?’

‘Gonna’ find out soon enough.’

‘What if it’s not there?’

He shrugs but says nothing.

‘What if this is all there is, right here, right now, you and me, and Marianna, and Geena and the kids and that painting and Las Vegas and all that’s happening right now? That’s all there is. Just this. No heaven, no nothing. Then what?’

A small grin. ‘I’ll let you know.’

‘Can’t you do anything? Surgery? Radiation? Chemo?’

‘The docs got all sorts of bright ideas, but listen,
paisan.
It’s cancer. And no matter what they say, I’m still at stage four, I got no parachute, I’m falling fast, and either you can worry about what it’s going to be like when you hit the ground or you can enjoy the ride.’

‘But what if they can slow it down? Your ride I mean. Would you want that?’

He taps his brush tip against the painting and another person magically appears.

‘It’s funny. After all these years it turns out what we’re doing right here and now is what I always wanted: to make a dream come true from start to finish. Not Walt’s, not mine, not some cockamamie money-making notion, but a dream coming true straight out of the heart of somebody I. . . Somebody who. . . .’

He falters, and then says in a broken voice; ‘Damn it, somebody I love, even though he’s a Mick
paisan,
who stole my little girl and they made beautiful
bambini
. And you know something else?’

He puts down the brush, goes over the window and looks down.

‘We damn well did THIS.’

Down below, stage lights illuminate the
Titanic’s
four buff-colored funnels raked slightly astern, her bow wave curls back just so, as she ‘sails’ straight down Las Vegas Boulevard. For an instant I can’t tell the difference between reality and Joe’s concept painting. I turn around and look at it again. His abstract swirls and hints of lights and blobs of color made me feel like I’m flying over Las Vegas, looking down at the
Titanic
about to strike the iceberg. Both the real and imagined give me the same mixture of apprehension, fear, excitement, and dread. 

‘Joseph Corelli, you may be a dying man, but you are one hell of an artist.’

‘They always love the dead ones. Van Gogh, Matisse, Sargent.’

‘Corelli.’

He pokes me with the brush like it’s a dagger. ‘You tell anybody – Geena, Marianna, ANYBODY, I swear you’ll die before I do.’

‘I won’t. It’s your life. I just wanted to make it last longer.’

He smiles but says nothing.

My walk through the crowded hotel feels more like a dream than reality, not only because of what I now know about Joe, but also because I feel like I’m trapped in a time warp on an ocean liner far out at sea. The illusion is working to perfection throughout the hotel, from the smiling stewards and porters at every turn on the
Promenade Deck
leading to the casinos, to the Wilton-carpeted hallways, including the one that leads me to the
Reading and Writing Room
, where Xia texted me she wants to talk.

We’ve not seen each other face to face in the past two weeks. Like two different planets in the same solar system orbiting the same star, she’s attended the myriad last minute details of ‘launching’ over four thousand staterooms inside a hotel that looks like a ship, while I cycled the ride over and over again, polishing out the rough spots, tracking down and solving stubborn software glitches, firing ride attendants who refused to ‘get it’ and hiring last minute replacements after a frantic sweep of college drama departments to press-gang student actors into joining our team.

I’m still mentally ‘at sea’ in my mind about Joe when I enter the elegant, near sacred hush of the
Reading and Writing Room,
originally designed as a prim and proper haven of rest and relaxation for the female first class passengers on the
Titanic
, while their gentlemen enjoyed their cigars and whiskey in the
Men’s Smoking Room.
Technically
ours is open to all our hotel guests, but one look at the rose-colored carpet, white paneled walls and delicate satin-upholstered chairs and settees, and our male guests head for the hills.

As proof, I’m the only male in a happy sea of female guests luxuriating in the historically accurate surroundings. True, they’re not dressed in the elegant, opulent, layered-look fashions of the time, but somehow the room conveys a sense of privilege that infuses its occupants with a sense of entitlement not normally experienced in their day-to-day lives. As I thread my way past the various tables, their muted conversations grow even more muted, sensing my alien, male presence.

A familiar female boom of laughter causes a shock wave to ripple across the peaceful setting. Xia’s staying hand on Ulyanya’s wrist tempers her next laugh, which is far more reserved. But when the Russian oligarchess spots me, her volume increases.

‘Counting hours!’ she booms as I sit down. ‘How many left? Not look at watch.’

I says. ‘Twenty-one hours and six minutes.’

Like a chorus girl, she pulls out an envelope from her voluminous bosom and waves it lazily. ‘Front-row seat, orchestra, Mischa.’

‘Actually, you’ll be riding in a lifeboat.’

‘Alone?’

Xia says calmly. ‘You’ll be riding with Kate Winslet and Sting – among others.’

‘Sting?’

‘The rock star.’

‘Oh, that Sting. And who this Winslet woman?’

‘Starred in the famous
Titanic
movie they made a few years back.’

Ulyana shrugs dismissively. ‘Never saw.’

‘Then you’re the only woman in the world who didn’t.’

‘Was in hospital, losing penis, getting breasts.’

Xia gasps but quickly recovers. ‘A much more significant time in your life than watching an adolescent movie about a sinking ship.’

‘Better ending too,’ she says, and promptly guffaws, causing a sea of female heads to swivel her way. She glares at them until they swivel back to their own genteel, ladylike affairs.

I nod to Xia, who says, ‘Michael and I want to trade you envelopes.’

She extracts a cream-colored envelope from her zip-around purse.

Ulyanya says, ‘Where you get such lovely bag?’

‘
Michael Kors
. On sale.’

‘How much?’

‘Couple hundred dollars – speaking of money, please open that.’

Ulyanya slides a dark purple, nail-polished fingernail along the envelope, like slitting someone’s unwilling throat, and pulls out a check.

‘We spell your name right?’ Xia says.

Her frown deepens. ‘You not need money?’

‘Not all of it. We’re returning the balance of what’s left. But without it and without you, none of this could have happened. Right, Michael?’

‘We had the car, the engine, the gas, the ignition, but no key. Your five million – actually four million two-hundred fifty-six thousand, nine hundred-seven dollars started our engine.’

Ulyana waves the check in the air. ‘What I do with this?’

‘Whatever you want. As of tonight, we’re in good with the banks, and I hope in good hands with you.’

She pouts. ‘I still get ride, yes?’

‘Of course, without you there would be no such thing.’

She looks back and forth at Xia and me as if trying to decide something, and then taps Xia’s purse. ‘How much you want for beautiful bag?’

‘Not for sale. Sorry.’

‘Everything has price.’

Xia holds the purse close to her. ‘Everything but this.’

‘Sentimental, yes? A friend give you? Lover maybe?’

‘I told you I just bought it.’

From some mysterious place in her bosom Ulyana pulls out a small gold pen, and with great deliberation, like a third-grader writing cursive for the first time, signs her name on the back of the check and slides it over to Xia.

‘Seven hundred, forty-three-thousand, ninety-three dollars I pay you for tiny little purse I love and must have. You take money, buy something nice for yourself. Like lover maybe. Like
Mischa
, here.’

Xia flushes.

‘I’m married,’ I say.

‘Love not care about details.’

Xia examines the check, and then with slow deliberation dumps the contents of her purse on the table: smart phone, notepad, lipstick, eyeliner, a small package of breath mints, which Ulyanya examines and says, ‘Any good?’

‘They do the job.’

‘I need. What kind eyeliner? Mine terrible. Look here, and here. Disaster.’ She widens her eyes and Xia leans forward to examine. As they vanish into the impenetrable world of female beauty, I endure a tortuous male minute before excusing myself and standing.

‘Where going?’ Ulyana says.

‘To see my wife. She and my daughter flew in today. I’ve barely said hello.’

Ulyanya scowls. ‘What she think all this?’

‘As a matter of fact, she’s the one who first says we needed a hotel to make the ride work.’

‘Smart woman. Pretty like Xia?’

‘Absolutely. I’m one lucky guy.’

Ulyanya sizes me up a bit, her ice-blue eyes like twin freezer beams. ‘She the one lucky.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Good thing you not my type. If so, this wife of yours, she out of luck.’ She snaps her fingers. ‘Like that.’

The thought of sleeping with a Russian oligarch built like the Kremlin makes me shiver but I manage to convert my fear into a happy smile.

‘Thank you for everything. I’ll never forget what you did for us.’

‘Go,
Mischa
.’ She waves her bracelet-jangling hand. ‘Before I change mind.’

How do I break the news to Geena about her father?? We’ve always told each other the truth, no matter how much it hurts in the telling or the hearing. But when I see her standing alone by the ‘porthole’ of our suite, looking out at the ‘ocean’ rising and falling on the LCD screen, I want to kiss her instead. And so I do. And she kisses me back, and this time I feel her soul, instead of just her body.

We pause momentarily for breath and I whisper, ‘Kids?’

‘Watching
Netflix
.’

Our First Class suite has an adjoining parlor, from where sounds of shouting come unabated.

‘Guess what they’re watching.’ she says.

‘
Titanic?’

‘But of course – how’d it go with Cameron?’

‘You won’t believe what he wants to do.’

‘This is Vegas. Anything can happen.’

I nibble her ear. ‘How about a little cannibalism?’

She stiffens and turns away. ‘We need to talk.’

‘Sure.’

‘Not here.’

She goes into the parlor. A few seconds later returns. ‘They’re fine. The iceberg just hit.’ She grabs my hand, pulls me out of the suite and down the hallway to the elevator, where we ride to the top floor and get out into the hallway.

She says, ‘Which way to the roof?’

I point, and she pulls me along like a reluctant puppy.

‘Much rather be alone with you.’

‘You will soon enough – what’s the code?’

I enter it into the security keypad and swipe my card. The door lock hums, clicks and opens.

The transition from Wilton carpeting and paneled walls and sconces gives way to industrial gray walls and metal stairs leading past a forest of massive HVAC units, water processing systems and a snake’s nest of wiring conduit as thick as your arm. The hotel’s complex support systems grow more dense and compressed as we climb higher and higher, because from the outside, the ‘iceberg’ gradually gets smaller and smaller the higher it goes, similar to the rounded peak of Mt. Everest that has a small, but defined point at its very top.

The access staircase ends on a small landing just below the ‘peak,’ with an exit door leading outside onto a utility deck, where maintenance workers can access various systems like the aircraft warning beacon and HF antennas.

Once outside, the cool April night air rises to greet us, along with the upward rush of noise coming from a city that – like New York – never sleeps, but unlike New York, has insomnia because of it.