Enzo Redline

Item one, cabin panel

When Enzo Redline was learning to restore maritime models, he was allowed to touch everything in the lower drawer except the panel from a steam ferry. His mentor kept a loose porthole inside that panel wrapped in plain paper and put it back in whenever somebody came in to look at the model. Enzo had made three portholes of his own for it. One sat off center. The second went so far in that the only thing anybody could see from the outside was the shadow of the wall. The third lasted until the mentor asked him to test it with the cabin roof resting in place.

Tessa, Enzo's sister, helps him clean exhibits on Mondays. She pulled a panel he'd made last autumn with a thin piece of cane after she spent ten minutes trying to get hold of it with her fingers. Enzo was delighted by how well he had hid the seam. Tessa asked how much she'd get for opening it with no cane in her pocket. James Bond, who was fitting the museum's display at the time, recommended that Enzo leave a lip she could reach. Enzo sanded out a very small one and went home unhappy with how easily he could see it.

Item two, a seam that moves

One of the Ferrari 365 GTB4 Competizione's early jobs at DGM was a closed practice run in which Enzo felt a tiny brush just before the front unloaded. On the bench the gap looked good. The garage was full of people fitter than Enzo to tell him what was wrong, which made him less willing to call somebody over. Eventually he found a flat span where the car could sit as it actually did when weighted. The gap he'd measured simply vanished. He made a cardboard record of where the car had sat, then checked the gap with his new position every time he thought it had changed.

He is concentrating now on keeping the Ferrari pointed through a whole bend with a small motion in his wrist. Once it feels good he tends to spend an extra hour looking for a fraction he has most likely already found. Tessa has started telephoning him when supper is ready instead of giving him a time in advance. He tends to answer from under the car.

Item three, the radio

Music should either carry a person through a careful job or get out of the way, according to Enzo. Vinny Valve would give it a third purpose. Enzo has heard his argument because Vinny likes to make it at the exact moment Enzo's hands are full. The two have an arrangement giving them a side at a time. The last time the Mustang produced a new noise, Enzo turned the entire radio off before Vinny could decide who had used more minutes.

The opening in the back

The museum wants a model of the ferry ticket office with a removable wall. Enzo would like to make the counter low enough for visitors who saw it from a child's height. He has been drafting the front at the kitchen table. Tessa keeps coming past and pointing at the space where a hand needs to reach in to put the whole thing right. She found the lip in the trial door on the first pass. He intends to make it a little smaller if he can get her to try it again first.