The Last Days of Night(32)

At least they’d been able to fit the saltines under Tesla’s door.

Paul asked Fessenden to lead him to Tesla’s apartment above the private laboratory. Tesla was apparently still locked inside, having reneged on his promise to come out once he’d been delivered his saltines.

Tesla did not answer the door. Paul’s pleas for a brief audience fell against the mute wooden doorway.

As he turned down the hall, Paul saw a slip of white paper flit out from under Tesla’s door. He bent over to pick it up.

“Mr. Paul Cravath” were the first words he read on the Machinery Department requisition form. “It is imperative of me that I am quitting the employ of Mr. George Westinghouse. He is not of an inventing person. I take my leave and will see you in Manhattan, New York, New York.—Nikola Tesla.”

The problems before Paul had just doubled. Not only would he have to manage the public war in print between Edison and Westinghouse, but he would now have to manage the private one between Westinghouse and Tesla.

—

Unexpectedly, it was Tesla who selected the venue for the peace negotiations. Even though he seemed to have no taste for the food, nor the slightest interest in the wine, he appeared to have developed an affinity for Delmonico’s. Not even Tesla was immune to the fragrance of exclusivity. He was merely immune to the expectations of politeness.

So in the same week that Edison’s lawyers trapped Paul into nuisance court appearances in three states over the differences between A/C and D/C, and the New York State Legislature held bloviating sessions about banning A/C altogether, Paul had to beg his own client to travel to New York to share canard aux olives with the man most likely to get them free of it all.

“This gentleman knows neither morsel nor iota of what it means to invent,” sniped Tesla. The Bordeaux that had been generously poured into his glass went unsipped. “He has never so done, and never will he.”

“This is the malarkey I’ve been dealing with for months,” said Westinghouse.

“What I’d like to suggest,” offered Paul impartially, “is that the language we all employ in this conversation take a more soothing tone.”

Tesla was having none of this. “It is Mr. George Westinghouse whose language is sorely incapable of expressing the varied wonders in which I am conversant.”

“My point precisely! Does anyone have even the faintest idea of what he is talking about? He sounds like the only English he’s ever learned is from Chaucer.”

“I have not any such acquaintance,” explained Tesla. “Is he another of your idiotic laboratory mammals?”

“Stop,” pleaded Paul. “Both of you. Stop.”

Paul had not thought this was going to be easy, but he had also not been aware of how personal their disagreement had become. “This is about more than the vacuum-bulb issue, isn’t it?”

“You are in the right,” said Tesla. “The problem I have faced is that Mr. George Westinghouse is not an inventor.”

“The problem I have faced is that Mr. Nikola Tesla is an ass.”

“Mr. Tesla,” said Paul, “Mr. Westinghouse is one of the most accomplished inventors in American history. This is not me speaking as his attorney, mind you, but as a man whose every day is graced by the products of his work.”

“Air brakes,” said Tesla. “You, sir, conjured a few bright notions on the halting of heavy objects traveling at speeds very fast. Twenty years in the past, you made a quite big train stop. Bravo. The orchestra stands and every patron shall bow.”

“Please,” said Paul, “we would all be helped by rather more clarity and rather fewer insults.”

“What manner of electrical system have you invented, Mr. Westinghouse?”

Seeing Paul’s look, Westinghouse answered with great patience. “The alternating-current system that my company is perfecting—and has already begun selling—is a product of both your recent breakthroughs, for which I give you full credit, and the Sawyer–Man patents, which we acquired some time ago. You, sir, had a good idea. I built a system that put it to use.”

“Yes indeed, precisely true,” snapped Tesla. “But you have not invented a thing, do you see? Misters Sawyer and Man, they are my peers. They had most brilliant ideas. You signed a check.”

“They registered patents. I bought the rights to those patents. And then I combined their work with yours and my own and created—am in the process of refining—an electrical system that will change the nature of human life. That’s how business works.”

“The workings of your business,” said Tesla, “are not to be found listed in the catalogues of my concerns.”

“What are your concerns?” asked Paul, hoping this might provide some clarity as to the root of the men’s disagreement.

“Alternating current works. It can power motors. It can power lamps. It can power cities. I know this to be true.”

“And I as well,” said Westinghouse.

“All right,” said Paul. “We find ourselves on common ground.”

“And so we should travel elsewhere,” said Tesla. “You wish for the building of an alternating-current lamp, something different from that of Edison. But why? For your legal problems. Not for scientific discovery. You are wanting a new product. I am wanting a new invention.”