Either Joe was lying, or he had no idea what he had.
The metal figure waved its pointer again and then fell still. Disappointment washed over Ash, replacing the anger. He’d reached a dead end. He’d spent the last few days searching for a windup doll. No matter how intriguing the little figure was, it didn’t have possibilities.
The dog cocked its head and stared at him intently, as if sensing his distress. Hell, it was probably trained to do that.
He was damned if he was going to let a dog read him. Besides, he had no reason to give up hope. If he hadn’t been misled, then Joe must have been. There must be more possibilities than Joe had originally seen.
“Fascinating man, your ancestor. Did you know he liked Grand Central Terminal quite a lot?” Ash imagined the eccentric inventor standing alone in the concourse, talking to the artificial stars. Those were the last years that Earth had a sustainable population, so what had old Nikola had to worry about? “Used to come here at night.”
“Really?” Joe looked uncomfortable.
Ash knew that he’d never liked talking about the genius in the family, so he kept going. “The concourse was his favorite sanctum. It’s said he came late at night, when he could be alone, to bounce ideas off Pegasus, Hercules, and the other heroes.”
“Did he?” Joe raised his hand to order another drink.
Ash had never understood this casual disregard for his famous ancestor. “Of all the drawings to have in the family, why pass down a drawing of a toy?”
“Maybe it’s more than a toy.”
Ash picked it up and examined it. A simple hook latch on one side held the body together. On the other side was a hinge. He lifted the latch and opened the tiny man’s round stomach. Gears and cogs filled the space inside. He saw, in a rough way, how they led to the actuators that moved the arms. A clever piece of machinery, but it wasn’t the Oscillator—it was a toy. He closed it up, latched it, and handed it to Joe. Nothing interesting there.
“I can’t stay long,” Ash lied. “I have to get home to Mariella.”
“How is she?”
“The same,” Ash said. “I spend a fortune on therapists and teachers and God knows what all, but she just sits there with her broken brain and rocks.”
Joe downed his drink in one long swallow. “It’s not necessarily broken. Just different.”
The crazy man was sensitive about broken brains.
Ash kept going. “Her brain is broken. We broke it. We brought her into this polluted world with all her other risk factors, and we broke her brain.” He had read enough studies on autism and pollution, autism and genetics, autism and parental age, autism and preterm birth to know what had happened to Mariella. All that knowledge didn’t help. “Broken brains can’t be fixed.”
Joe slammed his glass onto the table. Ash felt good that he had provoked him. Joe was usually an even-tempered guy, but clearly he’d found a soft spot.
The dog nudged Joe’s knee, and he dropped his hand onto its head, fondling its ears and running his hand down its back. He might pet the dog’s neck and find the GPS tracker. Ash would have to act properly shocked if he did, but he was more than up to that challenge.
Joe packed his automaton into the satchel, stood, and exchanged a hand signal with the bartender that seemed to indicate he wanted the drinks put on his bill.
“I don’t want to keep you from Mariella,” Joe said stiffly. “She needs her father.”
Ash rose, too. “I hope to see you around more, Joe.”
Joe shook his hand. “You know where to find me.”
Ash watched him walk out the door with the dog at his side. He knew where to find him.
Every minute.
He took the secure phone out of his pocket. He’d assigned Quantum to watch by the clock in the concourse and wait for instructions. A hopeful part of him had thought that Joe might have brought the Oscillator or its plans to their meeting, and he could have had Quantum steal it from him. Instead, he’d brought a doll.
It wasn’t much, but there must be possibilities there that Joe hadn’t realized and that Ash himself hadn’t seen in the few minutes the automaton had capered about in the dim light of the bar. Even if it didn’t, Joe liked it.
He texted Quantum: take his bag.
Chapter 18
Joe walked out of the bar without looking back. Alan Wright hadn’t changed a bit with his crack about broken brains and how they couldn’t be fixed, and it pissed him off that the man would use those words to characterize his own daughter. With a father like that, the kid didn’t stand a chance.
Alan had always been a survival-of-the-fittest guy. Joe suspected his compulsion to save the world was driven by misanthropy. Alan thought that Earth would be better without humans on it, or at least everyone but Alan himself. Joe had once listened to a long lecture from Alan about the “sustainable carrying population of the planet,” and it had left him wondering if Alan would be happier if five billion (brown and a long row of black) humans suddenly died. Joe didn’t want anything more to do with him. He didn’t know why he’d even agreed to meet him.
Edison nosed Joe’s hand—a gesture designed to calm him down. Joe petted his muzzle. Edison was right. He shouldn’t let Alan get him riled up, and he ordinarily wouldn’t, but his father’s funeral had put him on edge and reminded him of his prison sentence underground.
Edison looked at the satchel and wagged his tail. He’d seen Joe put a tennis ball in there. “We’ll take a walk through the tunnels, play some fetch soon. Would you like that?”
Edison’s tail wagged again, and he bounded a few steps ahead of Joe. It was as simple as that to keep him happy. Joe needed to take a cue from him. Who cared what Alan Wright thought?
Edison was leading the way down to the concourse. Should they take the elevator and hike out to the tunnels from the house, or should they head for a platform and walk out from there? Track 36 (red and orange) was free right now. They’d be able to climb down there and hike over to Edison’s favorite spot, where a bunch of tracks converged at once. It had a large section of unused, and un-electrified, tracks so that Joe could throw the ball fairly far.
Decision made, Joe followed Edison down another flight of stairs into the concourse. He paused at the balcony and looked out over the vast room. Passengers checked out the boards, milled around the clock, and rushed off to the platforms. A guy leaning against the information booth looked familiar. He was about Joe’s height, with straight black hair. He wore jeans and a black T-shirt. Joe struggled to place him.
Then the man moved.
Joe’s research in human movement had made him aware of how people stand, how their joints move relative to each other, how they carry their heads. This man was familiar. He reached for a train schedule, pulled it out of its slot in the side of the information booth, and pretended to read it.
But he was pretending. His eyes didn’t rove across the numbers. He folded the schedule again and took a single step to return it to its original position. That step was enough for Joe to recognize the athletic grace and purpose, each movement precise and fluid. He had moved just like that when he grabbed Joe’s suitcase the day before.
“Edison,” Joe called in a low voice.
The dog caught his tone and came to heel, his bouncing joy gone.
He hesitated another moment, trying to decide where to go. Upstairs was isolated this time of night. Someone might come down out of The Campbell Apartments as they had done, but most would take the front door onto the street. If he and Edison backtracked, the man might catch them completely alone. Joe had no illusions he could best this guy in a fight. Joe wasn’t a total wimp—he’d fought as a kid and teenager at the circus. But not for years and never against anyone who moved like the man by the information booth.
He thought of calling someone but dismissed the idea. It would take too long for them to arrive, and he’d look like a paranoid fool, afraid to walk down to his own front door without an escort. He couldn’t call for hel
p every time he had a feeling. As a crazy person, he already had so little credibility that he didn’t want to squander it.
If he couldn’t call for help and he couldn’t go back, forward was the only way. The 8:52 (purple: brown, blue) southeast train was leaving in two (blue) minutes from Track 42 (green, blue). Even this late the platform would be pretty full. That train halted for about a half a minute at an underground signal not long after it left the platform to let another train go through. When it stopped, he and Edison could get off at the last second and disappear into the underground darkness. No matter how clever this guy was, Joe could lose him in the tunnels.
But if he and the dog didn’t get off the train in time, it would carry them out of the station and outside into the night. Outside. Blood rushed in his ears, and he imagined his house, waiting far below with its porch light on. This seemed like his best chance of reaching it.
The clock in the middle of the concourse always ran a minute fast, and the train would leave a minute later than its scheduled time. This was standard Grand Central policy. Giving passengers that extra time relaxed them enough to make Grand Central Terminal the train station with the fewest slips and falls in the US, in spite of the smooth marble floors. Joe needed to build the time discrepancy into his schedule.
He waited the extra minute, pretending he was still surveying the vast room and the iconic ceiling. What could the guy possibly want with him? The box hadn’t contained plans for any extravagant Tesla device. While the doll had been fun to make and was fascinating to watch, it didn’t seem worth going to all this trouble for. But clearly someone else thought differently, which meant that he was missing something. After he got out of this situation, he’d have to give that more thought.
He glanced once more at the clock and said, “Heel.”
Edison stayed close to his heels as they went downstairs. The dog had understood his tone and was on guard. His yellow muzzle was raised, and his alert brown eyes roved over the people in the station. He was clearly trying to figure out who had Joe worried.
Joe tried to set himself a brisk pace, like a man who was late for a train, not like a man who was trying to outrun an assailant. He skirted the side of the room as he made his way toward Track 42 (green, blue). The man by the clock made no move to follow. He slouched against the information booth as if his train wasn’t leaving for a good long time.
Joe walked onto the platform, stepping into the heat and noise produced by a train getting ready to disembark on a hot summer evening. About forty people stood on the gray concrete, saying good-bye, getting in a last kiss, a last sip of coffee, before boarding. Nobody here seemed suspicious either.
He turned around, ready to return to the clock and go home. No need to go through with his plan. But his sigh of relief caught in his throat. The man in the jeans and the black T-shirt stood at the entrance to the platform, dark eyes scanning the crowd.
He’d followed Joe after all. That didn’t mean he had malicious intent. Lots of people waited by the clock for their trains. New York was full of dancers and martial artists and just plain graceful people who moved like this man did.
Recognizing his comforting patter as denial, Joe walked to the second to the last car and boarded at the last second. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the man jump on board a few cars behind. Joe held his breath as the doors closed, and the train pulled out.
He counted in his head as the train approached the signal. If it didn’t stop, like it usually did, he would pull the emergency brake lever. He wasn’t sure that would actually stop the train or if it would signal the driver to think about stopping the train, but it gave him something to focus on, a backup plan.
Fortunately, the train slowed where he expected it to. He counted to twenty in his head, each color flashing, then stepped to the door. He reached up and pulled open the silver hatch housing the emergency door controls. Hoping that it would actually work, he pulled the red handle down and tugged on the door handle. The door slid open halfway.
He pushed through sideways and jumped, bending his knees when he landed to take some of the impact. Hot pain shot up from his ankles, but nothing felt broken. Edison looked out at him through the half-open door as the train released its hydraulic brakes and got ready to move.
“Jump, boy!” What would he do if Edison stayed on the train? What if the guy took his dog? He should have made Edison jump out first. Joe pursed his lips together and let out a shrill whistle.
Edison jumped, landing next to him.
He pulled the dog behind the signaling tower and crouched as the train pulled away. If the man following him wasn’t looking directly at them, he’d never know they were here. Once he came up to Joe’s car, he’d know, but that would be too late.
After the train clattered away, he checked Edison’s paws and legs. The jump from the train hadn’t hurt the sturdy dog. They’d both come through it all right.
He struck out at a brisk jog. He could evade anybody down here. Nobody knew the tunnels better than he did. But he and Edison should get behind the security door as soon as they could.
His satchel banged against his hip as he ran, reminding him about the little automaton inside. This figure was the first part of the complex secret that his father had left for him. He had an idea, but he couldn’t put it into action until later that night.
Edison ran ahead of him, his bright yellow coat shining under the orange lights.
Later, the three of them were going on an adventure—Joe, Edison, and Tik-Tok.
Chapter 19
Ash was sitting in his limousine on the way to Rosa and Mariella’s apartment when he got a text: subject did not enter clock. took a train. bailed out in the tunnels.
He tightened his lips. Joe had known he was being followed, and he still had the automaton. Quantum had failed. Maybe he should see if Geezer might be more useful.
The bright lights of the city on the other side of his rain-streaked windows promised warmth and food and fun, but he chose to stay in the luxurious privacy of the car. He logged into the dark chat room where he sometimes met Geezer.
geezer: About time, ash.
He was taken aback. Geezer was usually tentative, wanting approval and recognition. He just wanted to run with the big dogs.
geezer: I know you’re here.
ash: hi
geezer: You sent that man to take the suitcase from Tesla, didn’t you?
How could Geezer know that? He must be tracking Tesla, too, but how would he make that connection?
Ash had been unable to track Tesla online, so he’d hacked his mother’s email. She’d sent her son a note saying she was running late, and he should order oysters without her. Ash guessed, correctly, that the most likely place for them to meet in Grand Central Terminal was the Oyster Bar.
Since it had two exits, he’d sent Quantum to wait by the clock on the theory that Joe would use that entrance to return home. But how could Geezer know any of that? Had he been in Grand Central and seen Quantum attack Joe?
ash: ??
geezer: it’s mine. i found out about it. if you try to take it, i’ll go public, call you a thief. i want credit for this one little thing. you don’t need it. you have enough.
Ash stared at the screen for a second. How did Geezer know what he did and didn’t have? He wondered what Geezer meant by going public.
ash: don’t want ur plans dude relax
A lie, but Geezer couldn’t know that.
geezer: no such thing as coincidence
ash: paranoid much?
geezer: you’re not as young as you’re playing
Ash didn’t like the sound of that. Geezer seemed to know more than he should.
ash: whatever
geezer: let me keep what’s mine. AW AW AW
Ash left the chat room before Geezer had a chance to say anything else. Ash stared at his own initials on the screen: Alan Wright, AW. Geezer knew who he was. That could not stand.
Rain ran down his window, turni
ng the car into a lonely pod. A quick glance told him that the glass partition was up. He usually left it that way. The chauffeur didn’t need to know all his business, especially not tonight.
Ash made a call on his secure phone, one he’d hoped he’d never have to make, but Geezer had brought this on himself. He entered Geezer’s real name, his address and the number zero. The man on the other end would eliminate Geezer, and it would look like an accident. An extreme measure, but he couldn’t let his connection to Spooky become public knowledge.
The car was stuck in traffic, barely inching along. If he didn’t mind getting wet, he could walk faster. But he did mind getting wet, so he stayed put.
With a few quick movements he brought up the tracking app on his phone. The tag was working. A strong green dot dashed forward a few meters, then back again. The app said it was in the concourse of Grand Central, but the dog was probably a hundred feet below playing fetch. How pathetic—Joe Tesla, multimillionaire, was playing fetch with a dog in a tunnel.
Maybe he’d join the Vanderbilt Tennis and Fitness Club at Grand Central and invite Joe to a friendly game. They could go out for a juice after, talk about things. Joe hadn’t been secretive about the automaton—he trusted Ash.
Ash intended to keep it that way.
His driver stopped in front of the 72nd Street entrance to The Dakota. The old stone building looked grand in the fading light. Because Ash loved it, Rosa had taken it in the divorce. She’d had other options, of course, but had taken his favorite apartment as a matter of course.
“Give me an hour,” Ash said. Mariella fell asleep early.
The doorman nodded to him as he hurried by on his way to the elevator. He was watching the numbers flicker by when he got another text, this one on his non-secure phone, from Rosa.
Mariella went to bed early. No bedtime stories tonight.
He sighed. The simplest thing to do would be to take the elevator right back down to his car, but he never did the simplest thing.
A minute later he stood in front of Rosa as she lounged on the sofa. The housekeeper who had seen him in mumbled an excuse and backed away, clearly not wanting to be part of whatever came next.
The Tesla Legacy Page 10
