The Last Days of Night(94)

“How?”

“Anything we tell him will leak back to Edison.”

“Yes.”

“Whether or not it’s true.”

Westinghouse could not see the grin on Paul’s face as these last words were spoken. And yet as Paul listened patiently to the quiet clicks and hisses of the telephone wire, he hoped that far away, in an oak-lined office in the countryside near Pittsburgh, Westinghouse was grinning too.





Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.

—ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL



GEORGE WESTINGHOUSE LISTENED carefully to Paul’s plan before informing his attorney that he would not play a part in it.

“You’re asking me to tell the whole of my management team that you’ve found Nikola Tesla?” asked Westinghouse incredulously.

“Yes,” said Paul. “Tell them Tesla has been hiding out in Chicago.”

“What—why—” Westinghouse sputtered. “Why Chicago?”

“Because it’s far away.”

Paul could hear the huffing from the other end of the line.

“Our aim is to distract Edison’s attention, is it not?” continued Paul. “Very well. Edison knows that he’s likely put you out of business unless you can come up with an original light bulb. Or unless Tesla can. So if we leak to Edison that Tesla has been working on just such a thing in secret, from a laboratory in Chicago, he’ll be distracted.”

Westinghouse did not answer.

“It’s the perfect wild-goose chase,” added Paul.

“I will not lie to my entire staff.”

“I’m sorry. But we can’t have Fessenden growing suspicious. If you tell only him, he might catch on that something is afoot. The story needs to pervade the conversation of your employees.”

“Edison will realize soon enough that Tesla is not in Chicago,” said Westinghouse. “And that he has not designed any new light bulbs.”

“Yes. But by then it won’t matter.” Paul heard a creak coming from the direction of the doorway. He turned to see J. P. Morgan framed in a wispy gray stream of cigar smoke. Having concluded his conversation with Luigi di Cesnola, Morgan was ready for Paul to be finished as well. They had a lot of work in store for them. And J. P. Morgan did not look like a man who was accustomed to being kept waiting.

“No one will believe that Tesla has a secret laboratory in Chicago,” came Westinghouse’s voice through the telephone. “No one will even believe that he’s still alive.”

Paul had been dreading the conversation that he was about to have for a very long time. He felt lucky only that he did not have to see the look on his client’s face as he confessed his deception.

“Nikola Tesla is not in Chicago,” said Paul. “But he is very much alive.”

As Paul kept talking, the pale smoke from Morgan’s cigar drifted across the museum office.

—

The next evening, Paul caught Agnes as she exited the rear door of the Metropolitan Opera House. Theatergoers poured from the Met onto Thirty-ninth Street, the din of their commotion a background rattle. An hour to midnight, and Manhattan glowed with lights both new and old.

“There you are!” exclaimed Agnes. Her expression shifted from startled to worried. “I went by your office looking for you.”

“I’ve been busy.”

“Is Morgan on board? Is it working?”

“I need you to go back to Tennessee,” said Paul.

“Excuse me?”

“I’m sorry. We are in a terrible rush.”

“A rush to do what?”

“I need you to collect Nikola and bring him here.”

Agnes gave Paul a long and searching look. They had been waiting for this moment for a very long time. Now that it had arrived, it came without fanfare or celebration. The hour felt grave. The night sky glittered.

“Why now?” she asked.

“Because I believe Thomas Edison is about to try to kill him.”

“And you want me with Tesla when he does?”

“Of course not,” said Paul. “This time, I want Edison to look for him in the wrong place.”

Paul told her about his confession to his client, and their move to make use of Fessenden’s betrayal.

“I cannot imagine that your talk with Westinghouse was easy,” she said.

“It wasn’t.”

“Are you all right?”

Paul had no idea how he felt anymore. He had only to press forward.

“He’ll forgive you,” she said. But Paul was not of a mind to be comforted.

“Eventually” was all he said in response. “It doesn’t matter now.”

There was no time, at the moment, for sentiment. Not even with Agnes.

“Where would you like me to take Tesla?” she asked.

Paul looked up at the bustle of Manhattan. “Bring him home.”

—

“Mr. Cravath,” said Walter Carter as Paul walked into his office the next morning. “Where in the world have you been? We have a bankruptcy to attend to.”

Paul had cabled his partners from Nashville, suggesting that there was one last resource he sought to exploit before declaring Westinghouse’s bankruptcy. They had heard nothing from him since, save for admonitions to continue waiting.