The Last Days of Night(96)

Coffin smiled. It felt as if they were bonded together by their mutual antipathy.

“How would this work?” Coffin asked.

“You agree to sell Thomson-Houston to EGE.”

“You want me to sell my company to Edison?”

“I want you to sell your company to Morgan. Just as Morgan convinces the other EGE investors to fire Edison.”

“Then Morgan owns both companies.”

“Yes,” said Paul. “At which point he can combine them and install you as the new president.”

“Why would he want me to…” Coffin trailed off. Paul waited silently as Coffin figured it out.

“Oh my,” said Coffin. “As the head of this new conglomerate, I would have free rein to do things such as, for instance, negotiate a licensing deal between Westinghouse and EGE? A deal of which Edison would never approve?”

“I knew you were the right man for the job.”

“Why me? You could get anyone to be Morgan’s stooge. He’ll own a majority share in the thing no matter who its president would be.”

“True,” answered Paul. “But you’d actually be good at the job.” Paul had no need to admire the talents that Coffin possessed. He had only to harness them.

“What Morgan wants above all else,” continued Paul, “is returns. No more feuds, no more personal vendettas. When you’re in charge, you’ll make the deal with Westinghouse because you know it makes financial sense. It’s good business. And you, sir, are a filthy bastard whom I do not trust so far as I can throw you. Which means I can trust you to always do what is good business.”

Coffin tapped his fingertips against the desk. He was being offered the position of president of the largest lighting company in America. When all these deals were concluded, Coffin would be among the most powerful industrial executives in the world. His fingers danced gentle rhythms against the wood.

“And then what of Edison?” Coffin asked at last. “What becomes of him?”

“Retirement,” said Paul with finality.

Coffin nodded. This was evidently the answer he’d hoped for. He paused again.

“Really, man,” said Paul. “How long do you have to think about whether you’d like to be the president of Edison General Electric?”

“Oh, I’m not interested in that job.”

“Are you kidding?” asked Paul.

“I’m not interested in running a company with the name ‘Edison’ in its title. I would forever be drowned by the impossible legacy.”

“You are turning down the most powerful position in the field of electricity because you’re worried that the public won’t regard you as the same haloed saint that they mistakenly thought Edison to be?”

“I never said I was turning it down,” said Coffin.

Paul could see the implications in his smile.

“Oh dear Lord,” said Paul. “You have demands?”

“Only one. If you were to remove Edison’s name from the company masthead, well, then I would not have to stare at the damned thing every day when I came in to work.”

“I cannot believe that a man in your position, after what I have just offered you, is bargaining.”

“A word of advice, Mr. Cravath?”

“I have so longed for advice from you.”

“The moment you stop bargaining is the last in which you’re ever given a thing.”

“Fine,” said Paul. “I’ll tell Morgan. Call the thing whatever you like. I’m sure you could call it Aunt Sally’s Electrical Shop and he’d be happy as long as it makes a nickel more in profit than its current iteration.”

“Thank you,” said Coffin as he plucked a pen from its cradle and started to doodle a few words on paper. He was testing out names. Titles. Legacies.

“If we are agreed,” said Paul, “then the company is yours. And I will take my leave.”

He turned to the door. Coffin did not even look up, his attention focused on the scribbled names before him.

“Hmm,” uttered Coffin as Paul’s hand was on the brass knob. “Let’s make it simple. Just lop off the first word. The one I dislike.”

“All right.”

“?‘General Electric.’ It has a rather nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”





Intellectual property has the shelf life of a banana.

—BILL GATES



TWO DAYS LATER, Nikola Tesla stepped out of a carriage onto lower Fifth Avenue. Paul was there to greet him. George Westinghouse stood by Paul’s side.

Paul had too much on his mind to notice the morning cold.

Westinghouse appeared pained at the sight of the long-lost inventor. Or perhaps he was simply overwhelmed. Paul could not pretend to know how deeply he’d hurt Westinghouse with his subterfuge, or how profoundly Tesla moved him by descending, alive, from a two-horse hansom.

Agnes followed Tesla out of the carriage. She handed a few coins to the driver before catching Paul’s gaze. She’d gotten Tesla back to New York precisely on time, precisely as planned. She had been as good as her word, and her word was better than most. Perhaps better than anyone’s. It occurred to Paul that this woman who lived with a borrowed name and an imagined history was the most trustworthy person he knew.