Kill the Night

by Terry, Mark

  Mr. Barrett took the glowing tube from Tesla’s hand and then realized what he had done. “It’s not hot like a light bulb!”

  “Precisely,” Tesla said. “Is chemical reaction. Mercury gas inside is excited by electricity. It gives off ultraviolet light, which is absorbed by phosphorescent coating on inside of bulb. That gives off illumination. Will never be any soot on inside you see on bulbs from filament dissipation and so no diminishment of light.”

  Mr. Burnham stepped forward and grabbed the bulb. “It’s some kind of trick. There aren’t even any wires giving this bulb electricity. Edison, what’s the trick?” He looked to Edison.

  “I don’t think we can seriously consider that a new light bulb. How do we know it’s not just a GE knock off?” Edison pointed out.

  Tesla sighed. “First, feel it. Produces no heat. You can’t use in brooding box for poultry, or incubator.” He took the bulb from Edison and screwed the sleeve cap off, holding the pieces out. “Secondly, do you see filament?”

  Mr. Barrett raised a hand. “Gentlemen, I think we can take this new bulb to the general committee and let them know that GE bulbs will NOT be used in the Westinghouse display.”

  “This will not stand!” Edison bellowed “The world will know alternating current is a danger to mankind!”

  “Really, Mr. Edison, history may be kinder to a man who received defeat graciously.” Ida said, hands on her hips.

  “Madam, there is no such thing as defeat here today. All this merely delays the inevitable. Soon, Edison electricity will light up an entire city.” He turned to scowl at Tesla. “And the mad doctor will return to his lab-or-atory.”

  “And if he were to do it before you?” Ida inquired.

  “Why, Edison Labs would pay for your,” he swept a hand, “telegraphy experiments!”

  Tesla looked as if he could hardly contain his excitement, then made a serious, dour face, and stepped forward. “Mr. Edison, in all seriousness, you already failed in agreement once.”

  “That’s in dispute, my boy! Not this.” He eyed the men around him and nodded at Ida. “Not this! Respected businessmen and the press are right here.” Edison offered Tesla his hand. “I am on my way to Los Angeles on the Santa Fe. I am going to build their street light system—the first in the world.” He cocked his head. “Can you light up a city before me, Tesla?”

  Tesla looked at the outstretched hand, then nodded at his former employer. “I’ll beat you to it,” Tesla declared, then turned and hurried off.

  Ida raced to catch up with him but the inventor stopped, and his head snapped up towards the skylight. He squinted and peered intently into the rafters above. Ida stopped and peered in the same direction, but could see nothing.

  After almost two full minutes, Ida finally whispered, “What are you looking at?”

  “I thought I saw something up there.”

  He glanced at Ida, then shook his head as if clearing his thoughts. Then he hurried through a back office door.

  In a far corner, Simon and Grgor started up the ladder, both looking into the rafters carrying hammers.

  Interlude 35

  Thursday, March 16, 1893, 10:13 a.m.

  Electrical Exhibition,

  Chicago Columbus Exposition

  Tesla led Ida into in a small back office with a cot. He opened an ancient suitcase and began throwing clothes and documents into it haphazardly. He filled the case to the brim then latched it shut. Papers stuck out the edges.

  “Where are you going to go?” she asked.

  “I’m headed for Colorado,” Tesla said, without looking up.

  “I’m going with you,” Ida said matter-of-factly.

  He left the small room and exited into the afternoon sun by a side door, not going back into the giant hall.

  “Miss Tarbell, you may not find where we are going to be…” he turned and looked back at her, “accommodating.” He waved at a passing coach, but the driver did not stop. Tesla set down his suitcase with a sigh.

  “I don’t care. I have travelled from New York with the ‘great’ Mr. Edison, only to find him parading himself like some carnival barker. I am not leaving this story—or letting it get away. You are stuck with me for the duration.”

  He stood up to meet her gaze levelly. “Miss Tarbell, I implore you. You do not understand the gravity and the dangers of continuing on. The elements are harsh, the risks are high and there are things I just can’t explain right now.” He waved urgently at another passing carriage.

  “Nikola, call me Ida,” Ida began icily. “I do not know to whom you think you are speaking, but I am a national muckraker for McClure Magazine. I have covered Paris, Rome, and Mexico City. I have travelled more miles than a dozen people in their lifetimes. You are not leaving me out of this!”

  “Dear, Miss,” Tesla started, then corrected himself, “Ida. I have no doubt about your tenacity, or your perspicacity for that matter. You simply do not understand.”

  “Then explain it to me.”

  “I cannot! You have to take my word.”

  “Which I cannot do.” Ida shook her head. “I am a reporter. That is what I do. I will do it with or without you. It seems to me if you are unduly concerned about the gravity of what is to come, I should be as near as possible.”

  Tesla sighed.

  “Is that not correct, Nikola?”

  Tesla shook his head. He gave a short wave and picked up his suitcase.

  “Good, then it’s settled. I’m following you.”

  The Hansom cab came to a halt in the narrow street and a resigned Tesla reached up and opened the carriage door.

  Above, a dark figure leapt from the roof of the Electricity Hall to the Mines and Mining Building next door.

  Interlude 36

  Thursday, March 16, 1893, 11:12 a.m.

  Grand Central Station, Chicago,

  Most of the goods that comprised the fabric of modern life in the nineteenth century reached most Americans west of the Mississippi via boxcar. The material with which their houses and apartments were constructed, their furniture, automotive parts, and the luxuries and necessities of life all arrived at individual homes and business via the railroad. As the No. 39 from Chicago to Kansas City prepared for its launch, it seemed to be an ordered chaos. Bedlam with purpose. A luxury passenger car was attached to the rear of the train with figures swarming over, around, and under her.

  The locomotive finished a long drink under the water crane. Its gauges, levers, and gadgets gleamed in the incandescent light of Edison bulbs. The throttle levers, the air-brake equipment, and the injector and stoker valves were all checked and double checked. The fireman started work on his fire, building up the fire to create the roaring exhaust to propel the beast across the vast American landscape.

  When Thomas Edison and the bookkeeper John Randolph arrived at the depot, a couple of car-men were oiling the journal boxes that lubricates the bearings of the axles. They used three-foot long wooden paddles to straighten the pads that lubed the bearings.

  An older gentleman with a thick moustache, likely a foreman, approached the two men as he wiped oily gloves on his overalls. “I inspected the cars and noticed on one of the flat cars the coupler pushed all the way up against the buffer casting, and I thought, here is a broken yoke, or the rear draft stops are gone.”

  Edison and Randolph looked at each other, confused.

  “Shouldn’t take that long to fix.” The foreman winked and went back to the train.

  Edison nodded and he and Randolph stepped to the back of the platform and sat down. “You know, Randolph, I can remember the early days of train travel when I was a young boy. In those days, trains weren’t the Pullman Palace cars we enjoy today. In those days, most trains were just platforms on wheels with stagecoach bodies chained to them.”

  Randolph nodded. “I remember, sir. They weren’t coupled together as they are today, but chained.”

  Edison chuckled. “The train would start up and the jerk that came when the cars mov
ed was so sharp that everyone’s hat would fly off.”

  Randolph laughed, completing the thought, “And when it stopped, people would go flying over their seats!”

  “Passengers opened their umbrellas because the smoke and soot were so thick coming from the engine,” Edison mused.

  “And after the first couple of miles, they were all willing to jump overboard because the sparks from the soot had lit them all afire.”

  “When they got off, people were slapping each other and their children, putting out the flames on their clothing.”

  The foreman came back and found the two men nearly doubled over with laughter and wiping the tears from their eyes. His expression brought Edison up short.

  His brow furrowed. “What’s the problem now?” Edison barked, taking Randolph by surprise. The next laugh in the bookkeeper’s throat died in a choked gurgle.

  “A lineman called from just outside Joliet. A rear coach caught fire, and they detached it from the rest of the line. They let it burn.”

  “How long will it take to clear the track?” Edison asked, coming to his feet.

  “Well, I’ve got to get some of my boys together and get them out there. Can’t do that until they get back from their rounds. Probably can’t set them to work until after lunchtime. Could be several hours more before the track is cleared.” The foreman cleared his throat nervously.

  “And?” Edison prompted.

  “Well, it appears that workers went back and already attempted to move the car to a siding.” The man looked between the increasingly agitated Edison and the bookkeeper. “The fire appears to have weakened some of the car’s structure. What may have already been a defective axle gave out. The car is stuck on the tracks several miles from the nearest siding.”

  “Can’t we push it off the tracks?” Edison groaned, waving his arms.

  The foreman nodded. “Yes, sir, but we’re going to need some additional equipment to do that. A handful of men will never be able to tilt the car off the tracks. Even if we could, it would still be a danger to a passing engine.”

  Randolph came to his feet. “Can’t we put our train on another track? There must be more than one way to get to California!”

  The foreman looked down at the ground thoughtfully, then turned and went into the car foreman’s office and retrieved a clipboard from the wall. He began thumbing through several sheets, talking to himself out loud as he walked back toward the two men. He checked his pocket watch. “We could put you on the Cleveland-St. Louis route, but you’d have to move to a spur in Indianapolis to make way for the Sunbeam on its way back here. But if we get you started, you’d have at least an hour to spare.”

  “And from Indianapolis?” Edison asked impatiently.

  “Then we’ll put you on the Louisville, New Albany, and Chicago Line all the way to St. Louis.” He checked his pocket watch again.

  Edison sighed in frustration, gesturing with his hands for the man to bring forth more information.

  “We’ll get you to St. Louis by lunchtime, then put you on the Atlantic and Pacific Line on through to Kansas City by early morning.” He flipped a couple of pages again, then pulled his watch out of his coat to check it a third time. “There, you can pick up the Santa Fe track, and you’ll be able to go through New Mexico and on to Los Angeles to finish the journey as planned and on time.” The foreman looked back and forth at Edison and Randolph, as if waiting for a sign.

  Edison clapped his hands together in a dramatic, single gesture. “Well, waste is worse than loss gentlemen!”

  Interlude 37

  Thursday, March 16, 1893, 12:35 p.m.

  Electrical Exhibit,

  Chicago Columbian Exposition

  The four-horse carriage Ida Tarbell and Nikola Tesla were seated in had a retractable roof over the rear half and twin seats facing one another. Tesla sat in the seat facing the driver, while Ida sat facing him, at the opposite window.

  Tesla’s brow wrinkled in frustration. He stared out the window, then he turned to Ida. “We are going to be travelling through some rough and dangerous territory. There are still Apaches attacking trains in open country we’re going to cross. Telluride is a bank-robbing, gun-fighting town. Butch Cassidy robbed a bank there just last year.”

  Ida crossed her arms and looked at Nikola, then raised her eyebrows and shrugged. Tesla sighed. A sudden rap on the side of the carriage startled them. They looked to see a young man in a messenger’s outfit.

  “Excuse me, you are Miss Ida Tarbell?” the concierge asked politely.

  “Why, yes, that’s correct,” Ida responded, puzzled.

  He handed over a small envelope with white gloved hands. “It’s marked urgent.”

  “Where did you get this?” Ida asked, snatching the envelope.

  “It came to the Exposition Management just a few moments ago.”

  “How would they know where to find me?” she muttered aloud. Ida opened the telegram and read it quickly.

  GE informed Edison to CA STOP

  CA not authorized STOP

  McClure deadline STOP

  Return at once STOP

  Ida looked up, her eyes narrowing. “Of all the miserable, interfering—”

  “Is everything all right?” Tesla asked.

  “Nikola, I must send a telegram to New York in response. I won’t be more than a couple of minutes.”

  Tesla nodded and Ida stepped out of the steam carriage and through the Grand Central Hotel doors. Once she was inside, Tesla leaned out of the carriage and rapped on the side of it to get the bellhop’s attention. “Take my bags down. Quickly now! We have a train to catch!”

  When Tesla’s carriage arrived at the corner of South Wallace and West Sixty-Third, a crowd had begun to gather. He stepped down from the carriage and moved through the crowd. Several burly beat cops were brandishing their batons and occasionally shoved an unlucky spectator back into the teeming horde gathered for a look. From the front door of the Castle, two more detectives exited, carrying wet, dripping bags. A dark-haired woman stood on the precipice of the front step, a notebook in her hand. A third constable with his hat in his hand brushed past her on the steps and vomited off to the side, trying feebly to shield his face from the crowd.

  The woman watched with blank interest for a moment and then turned and looked over the crowd of onlookers. “Women and children have died inside this building in the most horrible ways. If you know anything, I urge you—no, I beg you—please come forward. Your information may be invaluable to finding survivors, to helping families with missing loved ones.”

  The two detectives who had come out carrying bags went back inside. Tesla moved back toward the rear of the crowd.

  She looked around, but the crowd merely stared back at her. “Is there no one? DOES NO ONE CARE?”

  “Who the hell are you?” an irritated male voice spoke from the crowd.

  “I am a detective. I work for the Women and Children Branch.”

  “A detective?” said a derisive female voice.

  “Please, if anyone knows anything about this—”

  At that moment, the doors opened again. This time the two policeman came out carrying a stretcher covered with several sheets. When they descended the short steps, the stretcher tilted downward slightly. An assortment of small body parts, innards, fingers and viscera spilled out onto the steps and the walk. Several women cried out.

  Tesla took long, deliberate strides toward the carriage. Ten steps away, five, his hand grasped the handle and his foot raised up on the step when a threepenny carriage darted in front of the steam car.

  Tesla closed his eyes and his shoulders slumped in resignation. Ida Tarbell, looking defiant, climbed down from the carriage. She marched heavy-footed over to Tesla and stared him down. He made no move to open the door for her, so after a moment, she opened it, herself, and entered the carriage ahead of him. Tesla climbed in and sat down across from her without meeting her stony gaze.

  Tesla watched through the windo
w as the driver of the three-penny tossed Ida’s bags up to the carriage driver. He sighed.

  He could feel her looking at him and then she spoke. “Really, Mr. Tesla, did you think it would be that easy to shake me?”

  “I entirely prayed so, madam. For your sake.”

  “What’s happened here?” she said, looking over the crowd.

  “An extremely unpleasant event, it would appear.” He rubbed his temples with his thumb and forefinger.

  “It won’t keep us from going to Colorado, will it?”

  Tesla blinked, almost bewildered, and shook his head weakly.

  Ida leaned out and rapped her open palm on the side of the carriage. Several female onlookers gasped, appalled. She shouted at the driver loading her bags. “My last bag! Let’s go for Lord’s sake! We haven’t got all day! We have history to make!”

  

  On the other side of Michigan Avenue in front of the Art Institute, which was under construction, a carriage came to an abrupt halt. The carriage horses were foaming and exhausted. The telegraph office occupied the lower level of the building during its construction, a white banner over the main threshold announcing its presence.

  Milo stepped from the roof, hit the sunbaked street seven feet below, and nimbly walked off as if he’d simply stepped from a curb. He turned to the driver. “Gear a fresh team immediately.” He glanced at the exhausted horses pushed to their limit, their flanks contracting and rippling from the exertion. “Shoot them for pity,” he said, turned, and entered the telegraph office in a crooked walk. At the window, he passed over several coins, and the messenger handed him a message that had been waiting for him.

  Proceed Immediately St Louis STOP

  Await instructions STOP

  The little man turned from the window, smiled, and left.

  Interlude 38

  Friday, March 17, 1893, 6:12 a.m.

  Indianapolis

  After their long delay in Chicago, Edison and Randolph arrived in Indianapolis early the next morning. They were in one of the largest cities in America not settled on a navigable body of water. The train pulled into the station after a one-hundred-eighty-mile trek from Chicago. When a rear door of the car opened a boy of about eleven or twelve rushed into the compartment selling newspapers, fruit, books, cigars, soap, towels, coffee, sugar, and tins of edibles.