Tesla

The neon sign flickered from a faulty connection. It didn’t help that the window had no curtains; nor did it help the mother of all hangovers that Jon was battling against.

    Jon lay on the floor staring up at the mottled ceiling of the office.  Even in his current state he marvelled at how tenacious the remaining paint was.  Little flakes of dirty cream coloured paint clung to the ceiling for grim death almost as if the paint was too frightened to let go and explore the great unknown. 

That's a joke, Jon thought to himself, everything is known at some point.  Even the unknown!

Lying there on the solid wooden floor of his run down office, Jon knew it was time to return to the Club.  He always drank himself to a stupor when it was time.  Even with these thoughts passing through his mind, Jon was attempting to come to grips with another far more pressing issue than the unknown tensile skill of old paint; trying to hold down the remains of his dinner. 

Every time the room flickered from pink to orange to black to pink again from the broken sign his stomach heaved.  A flicker to pink and a low groan issued forth.

    “Ah. You’re awake.” a feminine voice said from somewhere above.

    “What the hell…” said Jon as he sat up and smacked his head into the overhanging edge of his desk. “Christ!”

    “Language, Mycroft!” came the voice again

    Jon rubbed the top of his head and could feel the small egg shaped bump already forming.  Gingerly he grasped the edge of the desk and pulled himself into the semblance of an upright shape, his hangover now banging away like a jackhammer.  “The name is Jon, not Mycroft.” He added

    “You look like death warmed up” said the voice 

    “You know how it is” Jon replied as he picked up the chair and turned it upright before sitting down.  “Now, what do you…” He finally took notice of the owner of the voice sitting on the opposite side of the table.  “What are you doing here?”

    “My!  That’s not the way to greet an old friend. Nor a lady.” 

    “Last time we met, your husband threw me out of a third floor window.  It bloody hurt!” said Jon remembering how painful that incident was.

    “Come now, Mycroft.”

    “Jon!” he said “How, many times do I need to say it.  That name means nothing to me now.”

    “Okay…Jon.  Besides, I’m sure that Abraham didn’t mean to throw you out of that window.  He does have a temper and it gets the best of him from time to time.” She paused for a moment, “Didn’t he send you a card about that?”

    “He did” replied Jon, “But there was a bloody great ogre attached to it.  Told me to stay away or my limbs would be ripped off.” He reached for the mostly empty bottle of cheap bourbon but frowned as it was moved out of reach by his guest.  “He still tried, you know.” He finally said, “So I dealt with it.”

    “So,“ she replied. “Something did happen to Olaf.  Abraham was a little annoyed when he never came back, but couldn’t prove that you had anything to do with it.  I guess he still felt a little sorry about throwing you out the window.”

    “He has a funny way of showing it.” Said Jon. “Anyways, enough about that little incident, Florence.  Why are you here?”

    Florence sighed and leaned back and played with a loose tear of faux leather on the tatty arm of the chair she was sitting in with pale, thin fingers.  “It’s do with Abraham, to be honest.”

    “Christ.” Muttered Jon, “You know I don’t want anything to do with your husband, and I doubt very much that he wants anything to do with me other than to put me in a deep hole somewhere.”

    Tears welled in Florence’s eyes.  ”I know that Jon.  But he’s vanished.”

    “What do you mean vanished?” He replied, “Vanished as in turned to dust or vanished for the weekend?”

    “No!  At least I hope not.  I mean, he has enough enemies who would love for that to happen.” Said Florence

    “Luckily for him, several of those most ardent enemies have passed on from this mortal world.” Jon said with a hint of sarcasm.

    Florence looked at Jon for a moment, unsure how to take his last comment.  Finally she replied.  “But not enough, I fear.”  She picked up a black leather bag and undid the small golden clasp, before reaching in to pull out a thin sheet of parchment.  She unfolded it and passed it to Jon.  “He left 10 days ago to meet Papa Doc at the Crypta-go-go and he hasn’t been back since.  I found this on his desk, but I don’t know what it means.”

    Jon reached over and took the sheet of parchment and read the thin scrawl of text and frowned.  “This word.”  Jon said as he placed the parchment down on his desk and pointed at it.  “Does this mean anything to you?  Anything at all?”

    Florence looked at where he was pointing and shook her head.  “No.  Nothing on it makes any sense.  It just seems like a random collection of words.  Why?”

    “I’ve seen it before, but as somebody’s name.” answered Jon. 

    “A name?” 

    “It’s a name I haven’t heard in many years.  In fact I thought he was dead.” Jon reached for his bottle of whiskey and this time Florence didn’t stop him.  He poured the tan coloured liquid into a stained glass tumbler.  “You want a drink?”

    “You know I don’t drink whiskey, Jon.”

    “I thought I’d better offer.  Manners and all that.” He said and finished the fiery liquid in one mouthful.  “God, I hoped to never hear that name again.”

    Florence looked over at Jon.  In all honesty, she thought he was defeated already; his pinstripe shirt crumpled and stained; dark hair lank against his head and what looked like two days growth of facial hair.  “Who is he?”

    Jon stared into the empty glass.  “Tesla? He was a great man, a scientist with dreams of revolutionizing power.  Unfortunately, he went mad and had to be stopped.”

    “It sounds like you know the man.” Florence said quietly.

    He nodded, still looking into his glass.  “That was a long time ago, before I even met you and Abraham.  He had the idea of harnessing lightning as an energy source.  He believed it was far more efficient than steam power and that it would change the way we lived.  His ideas were largely ignored, or stolen.  Edison had a hand in that.  He ground that man up and spat him out.  It was no great wonder that Tesla’s mind snapped.” He shook his head and looked up at Florence, “Once he realised that there was a way to harness it, he created a machine, a coil I think he called it.  I was there when he fired it up and that’s when things changed.  Do you remember that day Florence?  The day it all changed?”

    Florence nodded.

    “I’ll never forget it.  I saw ten different me’s, all in the same place, all doing different things.  It’s my fault that the world changed, Florence.  It’s my fault you are what you are.”

    “Mycroft,” She said, “It’s not your fault.  How were you to know what was going to happen.”

    Jon sighed, “I should have stopped him from turning his damn coil on.  That’s what Scotland Yard asked me to do.  Stop Tesla.  But I didn’t!” he slammed his fist down on the desk, knocking the telephone off the receiver.  “I watched and waited and then it was too late.  The coil turned on and arcs of…  now what did he call it….  lectricity!  That’s it!  Arcs of lectricity slammed into the walls and the whole world went to hell in a basket.”

    “But what does this have to do with Abraham?”  asked Florence.

    “I have no idea” replied Jon, “But I have a feeling it’s the reason you are here.  You want to know what has happened to your husband.”

    Florence nodded.  “It is not like him to stay away for so long.  He never said anything to me about Tesla or anything about this,” she indicated the piece of parchment on the desk between them, “and he tells me all of his business arrangements.  There are no secrets between us.”

    Jon looked at the parchment.  “It looks like he did have a secret, Florence.  Unfortunately, I have no idea what that secret was.”

###

Florence pulled her thick coat tightly around her slim figure as she stepped out of the door.  Her nose wrinkled as it always did when she stepped outside.  The stench, to her at least, of millions of steam engines belching their rusty fumes into the air always made her feel a little off.  She looked up at the sky, or at least as much of it as she could see.  It looked lighter, which surprised Florence as she hadn’t realized that she had spent that much time talking with Mycroft.  No, Jon!  She thought to herself.  He calls himself Jon now.  They spent a long time talking through her husbands last days, his enemies of which there were quite a few; you couldn’t become one of the most notorious gangsters in London without annoying a few people. As Florence stepped down onto the sidewalk, two figures emerged from the shadows on either side of the buildings entrance.  Both pale skinned men in dark, well tailored suits.

    “Ma’am.” said the one on the right.  “Are you ready?”

    Florence nodded her assent.  “Take me home, Alex.  It’s been a long night.”

    “Sure thing, Mrs. Stoker.” replied Alex.

    Almost on queue, a black limo pulled up to the sidewalk, black tinted windows hiding the interior from view.  Alex quickly stepped ahead of Florence and opened the door for her.  As she entered the car and made herself comfortable, Alex flashed her a soft smile that just showed the tips his canine-like teeth.  “Hungry, Mrs. Stoker?  It’s been a long night and you haven’t eaten yet.”

    Florence could feel the hunger deep within her.  If truth be told, she hadn’t eaten properly since Abraham went missing and had done her best to hide it from the others.  It must be starting to show if her bodyguards were concerned enough to enquire about such things.  “A little, Alex.  Nothing too rich for me, though.  I’m not overly hungry.”

    Alex nodded and as he shut the door Florence could see her minder reach into his coat and pull out one of those new fangled cordless telephones that seemed to be the rage at the moment.  There was a soft tap on the side of the limo and Florence heard the tell-tale hiss of the steam-engine build up power before accelerating away from the curbside.

    Florence stared out of the window as the limo wound its way through the city.  Rays of sunlight started to piece through the thick steam-cloud that perpetually covered all of London.

    Another murky-grey day in the city by the looks of things thought Florence as she fought hard to keep awake.

###

Jon stood at the window and watched Florence enter the black skinned limo and the other two men clamber into a second vehicle and raced off to join the limo.  Must be new models.  Jon thought to himself.  Can’t even see the boiler for the engines.  He shook his head slightly to brush the thoughts out of his head.

    “Why did she have to come back into my life?” he murmured to himself as he reached for the near empty bottle of whiskey and poured the last dregs into his glass and pulled the small piece of parchment over to him and stared at it.

    The word Tesla kept leaping off the paper, but the rest of it was just random words with no linking meaning.  Jon wracked his mind to try to come up with some pattern, some kind of sense.  It reminded Jon of a shopping list, a neat column of words that meant something to the creator.  The one thing apart from Tesla that piqued Jon’s curiosity was that Papa Doc’s name isn’t mentioned on the list.  In fact nothing here had anything to do with Papa Doc.  Jon was pretty sure that Abraham and the Doc didn’t even like each other especially since they were in the same line of business.  He leaned back in his chair and reckoned that a trip to Crypta-Go-Go and a little talk with Papa Doc was going to be his first step to finding Abraham.  That and he wished that his brother was still alive.  He was always much better at these kinds of jobs.

    Before that though, a visit to the Club was needed.