The Last Days of Night(34)

“Well worth it, I believe,” said Paul. “So does Westinghouse.”

“Well worth it if it covered both the patents and their future refinement. But now that same fee only covers the patents. Mr. Westinghouse will have to bring on new men to replace Tesla, but he’s still paying Tesla his full rate. In perpetuity.”

“You thought you were negotiating a patent deal, Paul,” interrupted Hughes, “but you were actually negotiating a labor contract. And now your client—a client of this firm—is paying a usurious royalty rate for work that the other party is not obligated to perform.”

“But…” Paul tried to think of a response, his cheeks flaming with shame. “How else could I have—”

“You could have put another goddamned clause into the deal,” barked Carter. “?‘If and when Tesla leaves, the royalty rate cuts to fifty cents,’ or twenty-five cents—who knows what you could have gotten.”

“We employ such clauses frequently in these sorts of deals,” said Hughes. “American Steel has them with Benjamin Marc. I’ve worked on similar deals with Serrell before. He was expecting the ask. But you didn’t think of it. And you didn’t consult us. He must be laughing himself silly.”

How could Serrell have manipulated him so thoroughly? As Paul replayed the negotiation in his head, Serrell’s wicked ingenuity at last revealed itself.

Carter came to the same realization. “He offered you a position, didn’t he?” Carter crossed his arms with the worn exasperation of looking at someone who might once have been so promising but had turned out to be so very, very dim.

Hughes put the matter more sympathetically than his father-in-law. “He offered you a position at his firm so that you wouldn’t confer with us. He knew you were inexperienced. And he knew you were ambitious, eager to take all the credit yourself. So by offering some simple conspiracy against us, he drove a wedge between you and your more experienced partners.”

Paul’s shame curdled in his stomach. “I did not know that such a clause was an option,” he said with all the control he could muster.

“You did not know,” said Carter, “because you are twenty-seven years old. You are buried over your head in dirt and you are too stupid to realize it’s quicksand.”

“Walter,” ventured Hughes. “There’s no need.”

“I do not require your false pity,” said Paul with a force he hadn’t intended. “You’re to play the angel on one shoulder while Mr. Carter is the devil on the other? Spare me the penny theater.”

“This is hundreds of thousands of dollars Westinghouse will lose because of your arrogance,” said Carter. “Millions, possibly.”

“The patents only last six more years,” pleaded Paul lamely. “It’s a lot of money, to be sure, but in six years the damage will be done, and once we prevail over Edison it won’t matter.”

“Prevail?” said Carter. “How in the hell is Westinghouse supposed to beat Edison when he’s locked into paying a two-fifty-per-unit royalty that Edison is not? Westinghouse will either have to make his units more expensive than Edison’s, which will be death in the marketplace, or sell them for a price such that he’s barely making a profit, and then the whole corporation will sink. A fine position you’ve put him in.”

It was the “you” that stung the most. This disaster was of Paul’s making.

“I made a mistake.”

“You made a mistake,” repeated Hughes. “But you won’t again. That’s all we ask.”

Paul looked to Hughes for a rope of any kind with which to pull himself up.

“What do you want?” asked Paul. But as soon as he said it, he realized what was coming. And he realized that he was powerless to fight it.

They wanted to share the client. And if Paul refused, they would tell Westinghouse not only about the full implications of the expensive royalty he was obligated to pay, but that such payments might have been avoided had it not been for Paul’s error. The bad news could be delivered in one of two ways: either with a tone of gentle inevitability, with which attorneys typically mollified their clients, or with the attachment of blame that Paul could not deny. The whole firm would likely be fired. Yet only Paul was without additional clients. Only he could not recover from the loss of this one.

Perhaps he had been too young for a case of this magnitude, Paul admitted to himself. Perhaps Westinghouse’s faith in him had been misplaced.

He accepted their proposal without argument.

“Well then,” said Carter. “We’ll send word to Westinghouse. We’ll tell him it’s firm policy, the size of this lawsuit being bigger and more important than any one man. Three attorneys for the price of one—he can’t be too upset.”

Paul watched as Carter and Hughes left the room. He did not turn away from the slight smiles on their faces. He wanted to remember their looks. If ever again he was tempted into overconfidence, he would have those smiles to chasten him.

A beginning. A middle. An end. And then gone, to be recalled when necessary.

A resolution firmed his spine as the door shut. There was, Paul knew, only one way to win. And that was to win Tesla back. He didn’t leave that night until he’d figured out how.