The Last Days of Night(24)

“It still says ‘Westinghouse’ on the front door,” Paul reassured him. “You’re in charge. If he wants to work, he’ll have to work for you. Unless Mr. Tesla is as handy with a chisel as he is with a rotor, you haven’t much to worry about.”

Paul couldn’t tell if Westinghouse had even heard him. Speaking louder, he decided to broach a delicate topic.

“Why did you hire me?”

Westinghouse was as surprised by the question as Paul was by his own nerve in asking it. Each man looked away from the other.

“Serrell said you offered him the job first. Before me.”

Westinghouse took a moment to answer. “That’s true.”

“So why me? Not just my own partners, but fifty attorneys I could name have more experience than I do.”

“Would you like me to see if any of them are available to take your place?”

“No. I want you to tell me why you chose me.”

Westinghouse looked Paul in the eyes. He was gauging something.

“You are correct that I did not hire you for your experience. In fact, I hired you for your lack of it. Between EGE and the dozen financiers on Wall Street who have an interest in its success, there isn’t a law firm in New York that’s not in one way or another bound up in Edison’s web. I looked, believe me. Every one of them had financial arrangements with either Edison or one of Edison’s supporters. J. P. Morgan owns sixty percent of EGE personally. Can you imagine the difficulty—the impossibility—of finding a firm that isn’t in business with Morgan?”

“While I hadn’t a client to my name.”

“No clients. No conflicts. No ambiguous allegiances.”

Westinghouse’s logic was very good. Funny, to think that all this time he thought he’d been valued for what he had accomplished—instead, it turned out that his value lay in his very lack of accomplishments.

“Don’t make a sour face,” suggested Westinghouse. “With a little luck we just might make something out of you yet.”

Paul felt that this was as close to a fatherly pat on the back as he was going to get from his client. It was certainly more than he’d gotten from his actual father.

“Your friend Tesla,” said Westinghouse, “may have provided just that good fortune. My men have much refining to do, but we’re changing almost everything about our electrical system: generators, dynamos, even the width of the wires. By the time we’re done, our A/C system will not only be the best method for producing and delivering electrical light in the world, but it will be so different from Edison’s D/C system as to render moot practically all of his three hundred twelve lawsuits.”

Westinghouse was correct in his legal analysis. But there was a crucial detail that the inventor had left unaddressed.

“You’re changing everything?”

Westinghouse knew to what Paul was referring. “I said almost everything.”

“The light bulb.”

“That goddamned light bulb.”

“The biggest suit of them all. You can change every element of your electrical system, but if the light bulb that system powers is still similar to Edison’s, it’ll all be for nothing.”

“This is how I will put Mr. Tesla to use. If he was able to theorize a new kind of electrical system, then it’s possible he can theorize a new kind of light bulb as well. A better one, one that takes full advantage of alternating current’s efficiencies.”

“It doesn’t have to be better,” said Paul. “It only has to be different. From a legal perspective, if you and Tesla can together create a fundamentally new design of light bulb, then, sir…well, then you won’t have to worry about Edison in court.”

“Kid…your courts, your lawsuits…If you only understood. The promise of A/C is so much greater than that.”

Paul had never before seen such enthusiasm from Westinghouse. It occurred to him that this was the side of the inventor that only the men in his laboratory got to see: the childlike response of the man who chose to make his living inventing things for the joy of it.

“Fessenden and I, we’ve been going over the A/C ideas, and by solving the distance problem, well, it suggests to us an even greater advantage.” Westinghouse walked to his desk. Taking a key from his pocket, he unlocked the bottom drawer and removed a set of large paper sheets. Paul expected to see engineering schematics. But as he drew closer, he realized that they were maps. Maps of the United States.

“Edison’s D/C current may only travel a few hundred feet at a time, so he is forced to sell his generators one by one. He has done a damnably good job of convincing wealthy men across this nation to wire their homes with his current, but he still must sell a generator to every single one of them. By utilizing A/C, we will no longer be so encumbered.”

Westinghouse gestured for Paul to come closer. Paul read the legends on the corners of the maps. “Grand Rapids, Michigan.” “Jefferson, Iowa.”

“Alternating current will allow us to build one great generator at the center of every community. After which we can simply attach as many homes to this single generator as wish to be. It doesn’t take much work to attach a new home to the system once it’s built. We can put up our generator, have a few homes take us up on our current…then their neighbors will see how brilliant our light really is…and soon enough the entire town will be lit by Westinghouse lamps.”