The American Side Page #4

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have become our realities,

do we dare doubt the others?

There's a no greater potential

in the world

than those undeciphered

imaginings in our

government's Tesla file.

[audience applauding]

Hey, you know which one

of these guys is Whitmore?

Yeah. This one.

Tom Soberin.

An expert technician.

And now he's

a dead one.

I read that.

Threw himself in the drink.

Maybe.

What is he to you?

I'm a private investigator.

Glad to know

they still make those.

Tom Soberin was using

the Chase-Whitmore

company card.

You'd have to ask

Borden about that.

It's Chase-Whitmore

in name only these days.

My partner was

Borden's old man.

So Soberin wasn't

working for you?

If he was working

for Borden,

he'd have been lucky to see

daylight, never mind

moonlight for me.

Borden doesn't share.

But you can

ask him yourself.

He keeps inviting me

to his shindigs and I keep

not showing up.

Have fun.

Don't talk business.

Weaving spiders

come not here.

[classical piano playing]

[people chattering]

[dramatic music playing]

[machine buzzing]

[man]

Giovanni Aldini.

Charlie Paczynski.

Those drawings are from a book

by the Italian physician.

Examples of galvanism.

He ran electric current

through the bodies

of dead animals.

-For what?

-Theatrics.

But he was also among the first

to treat the mentally ill

by shocking the brain.

Shock treatment?

Thought that was lot of hooey.

History's great discoveries

were all at one time

thought to be,

as you

so provincially put it,

"a lot of hooey."

Top shelf.

Where mama hides the cookies.

What's this character up to?

That's a publicity photo

of Nikola Tesla

in his laboratory.

What's he trying to publicize,

that the cheese

slipped off his cracker?

When Tesla needed money

for a project,

he would send

Westinghouser J.P. Morgan

one of those

fantastic pictures,

whether it related or not.

It's a fake.

Double exposure.

I'm told a touched up

photo or two

has helped you pay

your bills from time to time.

This isn't an open house,

Mr. Paczynski.

Any idea what sort of trouble

Tom Soberin was in?

Ah, Tom has never said no

to a whiskey or a woman.

-Wasn't he married?

-Please.

Legal trouble?

Money trouble?

Did he gamble?

He used his standing

at the university to woo

a co-ed or two.

Pretty risky business,

don't you think?

You gamble,

Mr. Paczynski?

Football

and horses. You?

I make bets.

But it isn't really gambling

if you know who's going to win.

I'll see you out.

[Charlie]

Your old partner tells me

he didn't much care

for Soberin working

both sides of the street.

Even you

appreciate loyalty.

-So you made him choose.

-Of course.

And Whitmore lost his man.

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