Chapter 6
The shrill screech of the printing machine hurt Oliver’s ears and made conversation in a normal tone of voice impossible.
He looked at his uncle, who was watching the stylus move slowly back and forth across the paper with the air of an alchemist observing the results of his latest attempt to transmute lead into gold.
“Can you shut that damned thing down?” Oliver said, projecting his voice the way he had once done onstage.
“Almost finished with the test run,” Chester yelled back. “I’m telling you, Oliver, this machine is the future of newspapers. All you need is a radio equipped with a printing device like this one.”
With his wild mane of gray hair, round gold-rimmed spectacles, and faded coveralls, Chester Ward looked like a cross between an absentminded professor and an eccentric mechanic. The reality was that he was a combination of both. He was an inventor.
Chester loved to take machines apart to see how they worked. When he was satisfied that he understood the design of a particular instrument or device, he invariably made some modifications and reassembled it in a way that made it function faster or more efficiently or even perform an entirely different task. He currently held a number of patents on everything from slot machines to hydrofoil engines. Unfortunately, the hydrofoil design had failed to catch the attention of the military, so there was no income from that source.
The slot machine patent was a very different story. Chester had licensed his design to a man with extensive interests in the gaming industry. Luther Pell had recently installed the Ches. J. Ward Gaming Machines in his Reno casino and his offshore gambling ship anchored in Santa Monica Bay. It was hard to go broke in the gaming business, Oliver reflected. Chester might never have another moneymaking patent, but he wouldn’t need one. The steady income from the slot machines guaranteed him the cash he needed to finance his endless projects.
It was Chester’s innovative machines and devices that had elevated the Amazing Oliver Ward Show to a level never before seen in the world of magic. Until disaster had struck, Oliver had been well on his way to joining the ranks of Houdini and Blackstone, and Chester had been his secret weapon.
Chester could design and build anything that Oliver had been able to imagine. Audiences had left the theater thrilled by a flawless performance of magic and convinced that they had witnessed working prototypes of exotic, highly advanced technology.
Self-driving speedsters, one-man submarines, robots, ovens that cooked entire meals at the touch of a button—the Amazing Oliver Ward Show invited people to “See the Future.” It had been a great publicity hook. The advance press releases had played up the educational aspect of the performances, which inspired parents to take their children to the show. Science teachers across the country had encouraged their students to attend. Afterward, there were invariably front-page stories in the local papers rhapsodizing about the futuristic engineering marvels witnessed onstage.
Of course, after the disaster, the press had taken a different tack. The mystery of what went wrong with Oliver Ward’s final performance had made headlines for weeks. Eventually the reporters moved on to other sensational stories, but the questions surrounding the bloody end of one of the world’s most famous magic acts had achieved something close to legendary status. It was his own fault, Oliver thought. Speculation had run wild primarily because he flatly refused to discuss the subject. In addition, he forbade his employees to talk about the disaster.
“You know, in the length of time it will take you to print out just the front page of one of those radio newspapers, you can read the Burning Cove Herald and several L.A. papers as well,” Oliver said. He held up the copy of Hollywood Whispers that he had picked up at the front desk. “This was delivered to the hotel fifteen minutes ago, for example.”
“Old technology,” Chester shouted. He patted the massive, waist-high radio with its screeching printer. “In the future you won’t have to wait for the news to be printed and distributed. It will be delivered directly into every home and office by one of these babies.”
The shill screech ended abruptly. Oliver exhaled in relief. He watched Chester remove the freshly printed page.
“Here you go.” Beaming like a proud father showing off his firstborn, Chester held out the printed page. “This just in from a small radio station a few miles up the coast. They’ve agreed to work with me on the testing phase.”
Oliver looked at the page. The headline read Test. The story was short. Weather sunny and warm.
“There’s no news,” Oliver said.
“Course not. Still running tests.”