“Davis is playing for keeps, Naygoohock” she observed. She often referred to him using the Inukitut word for doctor. Tesla had correctly surmised a woman with Petersen’s exotic looks—half Danish and half Inuit—would attract his attention.
He smiled thinly. “So are we.”
Tesla escorted Ellsmere to a rear bedroom in his apartment suite, and he dozed off in a chair. The electrical wizard rejoined Petersen, who sat leafing through a magazine. They then stepped into the side room where she’d been eavesdropping on the conversation between Tesla and Henson. There, on two desks cater-corner to one another, were two consoles that looked at first glance like what a radio engineer might use. To a degree this was true, as the apparatuses were electrical in nature. The black metal constructs were festooned with several mesh screens, toggle switches, dials and gauges. Heavy cables led from each through holes bored in the plaster and lathe walls at the baseboard eventually connecting to the radio tower on the roof of the lab.
There were hand-printed labels over the toggles indicting a different office or an abode in which Tesla had planted listening devices. These were tea saucer-sized, created with help from his friend the electrical engineer and physicist Leon Theremin. Over time, he’d had them planted in the aforementioned locations to eavesdrop via his mastery of electricity. To not have his legs cut out from under him like in his decades-long battle with Thomas Edison, who he felt cheated him out of not only accolades but more importantly, his dealings as well. His listening disks, as he called them, were secreted in such places as the summer home of Henry Ford, an associate of Edison’s, three in Edison’s research lab in West Orange, New Jersey, and one most recently installed by Petersen in Davis’ office at the Challenger’s Club—Davis being a major stockholder in Edison’s enterprises.
This was how he’d found out about the council, and thereby deployed Petersen to find out more. He’d also heard the conversation between Davis and Schutz the night Henson had rescued Daddy Paradise’s daughter. Possibly he should have been more forthcoming in his first meeting with the explorer about this, but bitter past experience had taught him to play things close to the vest as they said here in America. Tesla had asked Petersen, the daughter of an old associate come to New York ‘to expand her horizons’ she’d said, to keep tabs on Lacy DeHavilin as her name, too, had come up once when Davis was on the phone talking about Henson. Subsequently, he’d employed his second story man, Jimmie Dale, to break in and plant a disk in the widow’s home given she had wealth. But he soon determined given her political bent, she was the opposite of the kind of person they wanted on this Medusa Council.
Now, he and Petersen sat and tuned in various frequencies to see what was transpiring. Maybe he was paranoid, Tesla considered yet again as he turned a dial. But hadn’t his obsession with perceived enemies yielded useful information of actual enemies? Wasn’t it just as telling to be more than just revenge on who’d cheated him in the past, or the potential to damage him in the present, that the price of freedom was unrepentant surveillance?
Well, he allowed, sipping his tea, such a rationalization sounded good.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
After dropping Ellsmere off in Tesla’s care, Henson was still brooding about what happened to Stevenson. Not only did he feel bad about her having to deal with killing someone for the first time, he had to also wonder if she was right. Had he become so inured to taking a human life? He’d been using his knife rather freely as of late, and hadn’t paused to reflect on the import of removing someone from this world—persons who sought his demise, but still.
As he unlocked his apartment door and went inside, he stepped on something. He clicked on the light, and picked up a note that had been slipped under the door. At first, he figured it was from Destiny. He quickly read the message and swore under his breath. Henson closed the door and started for the closet to gather some of his equipment. But a knock on the door had him spinning on his heels and turning the knob.
A youngish white woman stood there.
“Yes, ma’am?” he said.
“You’re Matthew Henson, aren’t you?” There was a nervous quaver to her voice.
“I am. What can I do for you?”
“I need your help, please.”
“Look, I’m in the middle of something kind’a urgent. Give me your name and a way to get in touch, and I’ll get back to you, okay?” Henson slipped the note into his pants pocket.
Her body shook, and she put a hand to her lipsticked mouth. “Oh, if…if you could just give me a minute of your time, I’d be ever so grate…” But she didn’t finish. She got weak in the knees, and she pitched forward.
“Aw, sweet Lord.” Henson caught the fainting woman and reflexively looked up and down the hall. Great, a passed out white woman at his door at this time of night. Lightly, he tapped her face with his open palm. “Ma’am? Ma’am, can you hear me?” No response. He sighed. He had no choice, he had to get her out of his arms. He set her on his couch. Then he figured he’d go across the hall and fetch Edna Mullins to help him, be a witness in case matters got out of hand.
He lifted her up and, as he got her inside his apartment, turned toward the couch. That’s when he heard the onrush of feet and
