First, he needed to make the movements clearer. Nikola Tesla claimed to have extraordinary eyesight, but Joe’s wasn’t that great. He took out his set of small screwdrivers and removed the automaton’s delicate arm. Soon, laid out on the table were a dozen tiny parts.
Looking at the pieces gave him pause. He was altering Nikola Tesla’s original design on a hunch. That was practically the definition of hubris. He laughed, then remembered the scar on his father’s hand, the one that he had said was caused by hubris. Hubris, another word in the Tesla family lexicon.
His hands moved as if they had a mind of their own as he plucked tiny pieces from the green felt and fitted them into the tiny arm. At the circus he’d worked with Jackson, a quiet man with long fingers who always smelled like engine oil and Brut aftershave. Jackson was responsible for keeping the carousel and the rides running. He’d taught Joe about machines. Before he’d gotten the scholarship from MIT, Joe had thought of leaving the circus to become a watchmaker, particularly because he knew that it would horrify his father. The Tesla genius thrown away on watches, even if Tesla himself had been a mechanical genius.
His life would have been different, maybe better, if he had. He loved the contemplative nature of assembling simple, tiny pieces into intricate designs. Manhattan had watchmakers, too. Maybe he could find one who’d take him on as an apprentice. Or maybe he’d buy broken watches online and fix them so that they could be resold and go back to work in the world. He smiled at the headline: Multimillionaire Software Recluse Turns to Watch Repair.
A quick glance at the grandfather clock told him it was two a.m. (blue). The concourse was officially closed. It would take a while to get everyone herded out, clean up the worst of the mess, and leave the hall empty and quiet. He would wait.
He left the reassembled Tik-Tok in the center of the green felt, like a professor waiting for his class to arrive, and went to the kitchen to make himself a sandwich. Edison, never one to sleep through the creak of the icebox’s door, trotted in. Joe had removed the interior and replaced it with a modern fridge to keep the period look but still have proper refrigeration. Considering the sound of that door was such a siren song for Edison, he wondered if he ought to replace the whole refrigerator.
“Here to see if you can beg some food?” Joe asked him.
Edison’s eyes went straight to the open refrigerator, and his tail gave a tiny wag. That was a yes.
Joe laughed and pulled out a white paper-wrapped packet of shaved ham. Edison licked his lips. He gave the dog a piece before making himself a ham on rye with a pickle. They both went upstairs to the library, Joe to catch up on some mindless TV, Edison to look mournful until he got more ham.
Chapter 21
Vivian dragged herself out of bed. She stumbled into her clothes as quietly as she could so as not to wake Lucy. Lucy shared her apartment with her, and she had an early class in the morning. Lucy woke up like a grizzly bear, a good reason to let her sleep.
Vivian made it to Grand Central Terminal right before two a.m. The place had just closed up for the night, and a few people still milled around on the front steps. If she was lucky, Tesla’s credible threat might have hung out in the terminal until closing time, hoping to get another glimpse of him. If so, she intended to follow him home, maybe get his identity. Then she could turn the information over to Tesla and recommend that he give it to the police to follow up. He might not ask them for help, but she’d at least give him all the information she could.
She hadn’t been waiting long when a man matching Tesla’s description and photo — tall, Asian, coordinated, wearing black — strolled out the front doors. She was across the street, half-hidden by the doorway of Pershing Square. Lots of men might fit that description, but she had a hunch that this was the guy.
He looked both ways, then turned left. She intended to let him get a good lead on her, but he went right into the Chrysler Building. Interesting.
She jogged over. She didn’t need to get close, because the lobby was lit up. Her guy chatted with the security guard as if he knew him, then swiped a card and headed for the elevators. So, he worked here. Even if she lost him, she could come back and stake out the building. Good. While she waited for him to return, she typed what she’d found into an email and sent it to herself. Nothing looked more natural than someone standing around texting these days.
The man returned a few minutes later. He loped down the street like someone with no place to be. As the streets emptied, she had to leave more and more space between them. She was reaching the point where she’d have to close up the distance and risk being caught, or let him go.
She decided on the latter. A few expensive cars were on the streets, but this wasn’t a friendly neighborhood. She cut over a block and headed back. She had a couple of miles to put behind her before she was home.
The deserted streets kept her from dropping her guard, and she saw his shadow from half a block away. He’d doubled back, too. She slipped into an empty doorway, but she knew the game was up. Not a good place for a fight either. Nothing stirred on the street except for her and the man she’d been following.
Near as she could tell, he hadn’t been carrying a gun, except maybe something small in a shoulder holster. It was too warm outside to wear a jacket without looking conspicuous, and he was dressed in jeans and a black T-shirt that was too tight to hide anything underneath.
She had a gun. She wore a loose blouse with a ruffle along the bottom that was the perfect size to hide a flat gun tucked into the back of her waistband. Cop-fashion, her sister called it. Vivian hated to use the gun, but she wasn’t going to take any crap either.
With one sweaty hand, she reached back and pulled it out. She released the safety. He hesitated at the sound. He knew what it meant. Hopefully that would be enough.
It wasn’t.
He kept coming, but he raised his hands in the air. “I don’t know why you’re following me, lady.”
He had a slight accent she couldn’t place. East coast, at least. “From where I’m standing, it looks like you’re following me.”
He moved closer. “I’m trying to get home.”
She stepped out into the light so he could see the gun, assess her stance, and know she meant business. She was in the middle of the sidewalk now, the streetlight full on her. “I think you’d better find a different way home.”
He glided forward another step. If he came in any closer, she’d have to shoot. Life wasn’t like the movies where you could let someone get an arm’s length away from you before shooting. A gun was most useful as a distance weapon.
If she pulled the trigger, she wouldn’t have time for a warning shot. She’d have to hit him. And, if he kept coming after that, she’d have to kill him. He didn’t look like someone who’d let a gunshot stop him from killing somebody. He looked like somebody who might just get pissed off.
She kicked out, and her quarry slowed in surprise. He wasn’t close enough for her to kick him.
But she wasn’t aiming for him. Her foot crashed against the side of a blue BMW M5. Its alarm wailed. People mostly ignored car alarms these days, but this was a damn expensive car on a street where its owner was probably nervous.
Her assailant looked up when lights went on in the building next door. She could see him weighing his options. He might take her before she shot him, but he might not, and the appearance of someone else on the scene changed the odds.
He shrugged and backed away. She didn’t lower the gun until he was around the corner. Then she stepped away from the BMW and tucked the gun under her shirt.