Westinghouse’s thoughts seemed further removed from Paul than ever before.
“I know you don’t understand,” said Westinghouse. He placed a hand on Paul’s shoulder. “One day, you will.”
When you have exhausted all possibilities, remember this—you haven’t.
—THOMAS EDISON
VICTORY FELT STRANGE.
After brief, formal goodbyes with Westinghouse and the attorneys, Paul left Morgan’s office in a disoriented state. Out of instinct he began to wander up Wall Street in the direction of his office until he realized that Carter and Hughes would be there. They would be in the mood for a fight, as they would soon learn of Paul’s various deceptions. Tesla’s survival, the associate attorneys, the coup to dethrone Edison…it was an impressive list. Either they would be firing Paul or he would be quitting, depending upon one’s perspective. Carter would do a lot of yelling, Hughes would do a bit of scolding, and Paul would have to sit quietly until they eventually let him negotiate something—the formal terms of the separation. It was likely that others would need to become involved: lawyers hiring lawyers hiring lawyers, the snake litigating with its own tail. The process would be occasionally enraging and mostly tedious.
Paul slowed his steps. He was suddenly placeless. He didn’t know if he wanted to sleep, to eat, to celebrate, or simply to sit quietly in a dark room and stare at the wallpaper. For a moment it occurred to him that he might visit his associates in their stuffy, sweat-smelling office. The diligent boys deserved a drink. He would finally figure out which one was Bynes. And yet it wouldn’t be much of a celebration. The associates were not his friends; they were his employees. They were so like Paul in their aspirations that a celebration in their company seemed dreary. They would all have new positions in his new firm soon enough. Tonight they could wait.
Paul thought of the friends on whom he might call. Friendly faces from law school whose company he had long appreciated. But he hadn’t seen any of them in months. This meant that a dinner would be spent catching up. There would be a ritual recitation of their respective affairs: trials, suits, parties, new women in their social milieu. Paul imagined a few hours, two bottles of champagne, and a fleet of baked oysters as he recited the litany of events that had been taking up his time. It would be a history lesson, not a conversation. What Paul wanted was a compatriot, but what he would get would be a congregation.
He thought of Agnes. He was still angry with her. Still indignant over her refusal to understand his decisions. Time would vindicate his actions, he felt assured. She would not need to forgive him; he would need to forgive her.
She would be married soon enough. He hadn’t been able to win her hand as a poor man. To become a rich one, he’d had to drive her away. The irony offended him. As did her throwing in his face the suggestion that he might once have had a chance to be with her. She was wrong. Men like Henry Jayne would always have an advantage. Jayne had been spared the burden of difficult choices. He’d never had to dig into the dirt for his fortune. He had been blessed with the luxury of his pricey innocence. Agnes told Paul to win, and then was aghast at what it took to do so.
It was this train of lonely thoughts that led Paul to a dim alehouse along the Bowery. He had not intended on going anywhere so seedy, but he found himself beckoned by the noise from the thoroughfare. The density of the din made him feel appreciated, at home in the buoyant laughter of strangers.
Paul drank three tin mugs of Brooklyn’s newest batch of lager. All around were the shouts of men who’d come to work their mouths as their calloused hands were given a rest. The men could tell that Paul didn’t belong, but they left him alone. It was as if they could tell that he was fit only for solitude.
Cheers, he thought as he tasted his bitter brew. To great success.
The alcohol swirled pleasantly around his brain as a man slid onto an adjacent stool. Paul didn’t look up at first. Not until he heard the man call for a glass of gin. He spoke with a voice that Paul had heard only once, a very long time before.
“What in hell are you doing here?” said Paul.
Charles Batchelor paid for his gin with two silver coins. “Mr. Cravath, I’d like to make you a proposition.”
Paul nearly knocked over his lager. He felt an implicit threat of violence. And yet, as he watched Edison’s right-hand man grimace at the poor-quality gin, Paul realized that Batchelor had not shown up for a fight. He had not even come to threaten one.
“Are you all right?” said Batchelor. “You’ve gone pale.”
“Did you follow me here?”
“Do you think I typically pass my evenings in places like this?”
“Why?”
“Because you have a problem. With which I believe I can be of help. I will also humbly admit that I too have a problem. And together we might come to agree that the solution to your problem and the solution to mine are in fact one and the same.”
“I beat you,” said Paul. “I beat Edison. I can assure you that you will never in your life receive an ounce of my help.”
Batchelor rolled his eyes. He seemed to find Paul’s earnest anger rather quaint. “Come off it, will you? We’re both professionals. This is business. Let’s act like it.” Batchelor set his glass on the pockmarked bar top, twirling the rim with his fingers. “Charles Coffin, your newly installed president of General Electric, is as crooked as an old screw. You know this. He’s dishonest, unpredictable, and eventually he’s going to betray you. You need to install an experienced number two at the company, someone Morgan can trust to keep the ship afloat. Someone who won’t sell off the cargo mid-voyage the first time somebody makes an offer. I’ve been a vice president at EGE for years, and I know how to run it better than anyone.”
He spun his fingers again, the gin in his glass swaying like the waves in a summer storm. “I’ve gotten too far in this business to start again. I’m not following Thomas back to New Jersey, tail between my legs. I’ve tended to his particular lunacy for long enough. It’s time I tried another’s. Put in a good word for me? Tell Morgan to keep me on as Coffin’s vice president, and you may both count on my assistance.”
While many thoughts rattled through Paul’s mind, the most prominent was a fervent wish that he were not three beers into his evening. Wooziness combined with exhaustion made clear thinking difficult. Was Batchelor trying to lure him into some sort of trap? Had Edison put him up to a late-play revenge?
Except that injury to Paul no longer served Edison. Nor would it serve Batchelor. The war had ended, and Batchelor’s speech only made any sense if it was genuine. Yet the notion that Edison’s man was coming to him with outstretched palms was too bizarre to comprehend. Paul wanted one night—just one brief and drunken respite—in which to relish his well-earned anger. He’d be strategizing for the next war soon enough.
“Go home,” said Paul. “Come and see me in a few weeks, and we’ll see what I can do.”
Batchelor seemed unperturbed by Paul’s reticence. “You’re celebrating. I can see that. It’s rude of me to disturb your…revelry.” Batchelor looked around the alehouse. The sound of the workmen seemed to grow louder. Paul stared at his nearly empty mug. His loneliness was none of Batchelor’s concern.
“One point of caution, though,” continued Batchelor. “If we don’t help each other, then I’ll have to assume that you’d like us to hurt each other. I do not want this. But it must be noted that I can hurt you a lot worse than you can hurt me.”
“What are you talking about?”