Tesla - Jason Walker (readict books txt) 📗

out of the lab, locked the front door, and briskly walked down the hallway, then down a flight of stairs to the main doors where he exited onto a bustling street full of rosy-cheeked pedestrians. He hurriedly joined the moving train of people winding his way through the crowd to the doors of the Hotel New Yorker. As he entered the newly built, stunningly opulent hotel where Nikola Tesla had stayed, Peter cleaned his slush-covered shoes on the lobby entrance before meandering through the hotel lobby to see if his employer was sitting down and conversing with someone. When he didn’t see Nikola seated amongst the guests in the lobby, he decided to take an elevator up to his room and knock on his door. The elevator opened almost immediately when he pressed the button. An elderly white-coated gentleman inside the elevator asked him, “What floor would you like, sir?”

Peter smiled at the elevator operator. “The thirty-third floor, please.”

The doors to the elevator shut. The operator made some small talk with Peter until they had reached Tesla’s floor. “Thirty-third floor, sir. Have a good day,” the elevator attendant said as the doors opened to the hallway.

Peter stepped out, and as he did, he glanced back, thanking the operator. He immediately started surveying the numbers on the doors, swinging his head from right to left. When he finally found the room number he was looking for, he knocked on his mentor’s door. His worry began to worsen when Mr Tesla didn’t answer after a more intense second round of knocks, which shook the solid wood door and echoed down the hallway. Peter tried a third time, then called out, “Mr Tesla? Sir, are you in there? Are you okay?”

He received no response from the other side of the door. Growing more alarmed, Peter rushed downstairs. He quickly approached the front desk manager and quietly spoke across the desk so that the nearby guests couldn’t overhear. “I think that something might have happened to my boss. He didn’t show up to work, and he isn’t answering his door. He’s on the thirty-third floor. Can you do a welfare check on him for me, please? He’s here under the name of Mr Nikola Tesla. His room number is 3327.”

“Of course, sir,” said the front desk manager, giving him a nod of confirmation. He walked into the back office and spoke to one of his staff members who was taking a break. “I need you to do a welfare check on Mr Tesla, please, Tony.”

The employee nodded as he stood up from the chair where he had been sitting reading the local newspaper and sipping lukewarm coffee. The manager thanked him and walked back to the front desk where Peter had been patiently waiting. The manager looked at him and said, “One moment please, sir. I’ll just try Mr Tesla’s phone one more time. I’ve also asked one of our staff to do a welfare check for you as you have asked. He’ll be heading up to his room shortly.”

“Thank you,” said Peter, sounding concerned.

The front desk manager looked at the man that was making the inquiries as he went over to the phone in the corner. “Sir, may I know your name so I might log it down?

Tesla’s lab assistant stoically replied, “It’s Peter Ivanovic. I’m Mr Tesla’s lab assistant.”

“Thank you,” the desk manager said as he rang Tesla’s room and waited for Tesla to pick up. To Peter, the ringing seemed to continue for an eternity, but there was no answer from the other end.

Peter looked on and finally said, “Nothing?”

“Not to worry,” said the manager as he hung up the phone and wrote down Peter’s personal information. “He may have gone to the park. I know it’s snowing, but I also know that Mr Tesla likes to feed the pigeons in the park sometimes.”

“Thank you for the advice,” replied Peter. “I shall go to the park and check it out. I’ll be back in a few minutes. I’ll come back and let you know if I find him, okay?”

The manager nodded in agreement with Peter’s offer. “Certainly, sir. I’ll look for your return in approximately fifteen minutes. I should have an answer for you by then,” said the front desk manager. Peter looked at the front desk manager and smiled at him. “Thank you for your assistance. I’ll be back soon,” Mr Ivanovic said, as he hurriedly walked off, heading back out the main doors orienting himself toward the park bench where Mr Tesla usually spent his time meditating on his inventions under the flurry of white wings. Only, at this time of year, the pigeons had taken to nesting on the warm rooftops and verandas of the city.

It didn’t take him long to get to the bench where Tesla often spent his afternoons feeding the pigeons. Peter knew that it was something that relaxed him and gave Mr Tesla an opportunity to get out of the lab and enjoy time with his favourite birds. When Peter looked around, he saw someone else sitting on the park bench where Nikola spent so much of his time thinking. Nikola wasn’t here.

Not giving up the search, his assistant walked back to the hotel. The desk manager was helping another customer at the desk and there were two more couples behind the first. Not wanting to be rude, Peter sat down in the lobby and waited. He took a complementary paper that was on a table in the lounge and began to read the front page.

The longer it took for the bell hops to return, the more upset the lab assistant became. He had nearly worked himself into a panic attack. Something felt horribly wrong to him at the core of his being, and he shuddered over the dread-filled thoughts roaming his mind. It was almost noon, and he hadn’t heard from Mr Tesla since they’d made plans the previous afternoon.

When Tony returned some ten minutes later, he frantically gestured for the front desk manager to come with him to the back office. His face was twisted, indicating that something was terribly amiss. “Call the authorities, Boss,” said Tony.

Startled, the manager asked, “Whatever for?”

James, the other on-duty attendant, replied, “Looks like Mr Tesla passed away during the night. I’m afraid he’s dead in his bed.”

Tony then added, “The door was locked. No one broke in, it appears he just passed on his own.”

Horrified by the news, he made a frantic gesture with his hands while returning to the front desk to pick up the phone.

“I’m sorry. One moment, sir. I’ll be right with you,” the manager said to the customer that was waiting. Peter patiently waited for some kind of an update and noticed that the manager was apologizing to the first customer, excusing himself from his attention. The couples behind him were growing impatient. The manager did his best to ignore the increasing line-up while he phoned for the hotel doctor to go up to room 3327 and wait for the proper authorities to arrive. The standard protocol was to phone the police. He’d recently been made aware that there was a new number for them to call for police assistance, and he had to procure the number, which hadn’t yet been placed by the phone. He again apologized to the customer and told him that there was an urgent medical emergency. The customer quietly nodded at his explanation and patiently waited, listening to the muffled request for police assistance as the manager dialled the new number to the authorities.

Peter sat down in a nearby chair and held his head in his hands as he looked down at his shoes, trying to drive the thoughts out of his mind that something terrible had happened to his friend and mentor. He could tell something was amiss and really wanted to talk to the manager in charge, but the man was busier than ever.

In what seemed like mere minutes after the manager hung up the phone, several FBI agents entered through the main doors, sauntering quickly to the main desk to speak to the hotel manager. This time, the front desk manager had Tony take over dealing with anxious customers while he escorted the FBI agents to the elevator on course to enter Mr Tesla’s room.

When the manager finally returned to the hotel lobby, Peter was waiting for him. He confronted him while he was coming out of the elevator.

“What’s going on? I went to the park, and he wasn’t there, and now I noticed that several policemen are in the lobby over there,” he said as he pointed toward the uniformed officers that had just walked in and were talking amongst themselves over in a corner.

“I’ve been waiting for quite some time, and I’m deeply worried about my friend,” he said.

The hotel manager looked toward the officers in the lobby and knew he had to go to see them straight away. He started to walk toward the officers, but Peter cut him off once more.

“Please, sir, I’m Mr Tesla’s lab assistant. Has something happened to him? I must know.”

The front desk manager nodded his head and looked at Peter. “I’m sorry, sir, but you were right. Mr Tesla has been found to be deceased in his room. That’s all I can tell you. That’s why the authorities are here, and I need to go and see them, so if you’ll please allow me to step away for a moment. I’ll have one of the officers come and talk to you straight away if you’ll just go and wait over in the lobby. I’ll tell them that you’re here, but right now, the doctor is waiting for the police officers to go to the room to assist the others that arrived earlier. I need to escort them up there.”

Confused, Peter stepped out of the man’s way. “The others? Has any foul play occurred? Is that why the police are here?” he asked.

The manager shrugged his shoulders as he walked past Peter. “I don’t believe so, but I’m not the person to ask. I’ll send someone to see you. Thank you for your patience. It’s a bit hectic around here as a result of this most unfortunate circumstance. My apologies for the loss of your friend, Mr Tesla, but I must leave you now, sir,” he replied as he spun himself toward the police officers.

The police removed the body at three in the afternoon. They brought it down through the main elevator and through the lobby, proceeding to wheel it through to the back service exit. A Caucasian man reading the newspaper, dressed in a neatly pressed suit, got up and followed the entourage out of the building as Peter watched people come and go. Peter eyed all of them curiously and waited for somebody to come and tell him precisely what had happened to Nikola.

That finally happened at 4 p.m. The police officer told him that Tesla had died in his sleep and that his body had been taken to the city morgue. The officer then inquired into whether there were any next of kin that Peter might know in the area. This had never come up in conversation between him and his mentor, owing to the nature of their day-to-day discoveries playing with lab instruments, mapping out secrets to the universe, but to the best of his knowledge, there weren’t any. Peter did, however, recall in a flash of memory, Mr Tesla’s no-so-subtle inference to his feelings about women, but he didn’t tell the police officer that, in loyalty to his