["Follow The Path of The Stars" playing]
¶ I'll find a better life For you ¶
¶ The stars have said Our love's untrue ¶
¶ And just because We shared a lie ¶
¶ There is no reason For a soul to die ¶
¶ I've got a soul And you broke my heart ¶
¶ Find a new scene And let us depart ¶
¶ Don't hang around And let yourself be Caught in this ¶
¶ You'll find a better People there ¶
¶ A friendly love The kind who care ¶
¶ And not the sort Like me you've found ¶
¶ We're mean and hard And we push around ¶
[scatting]
¶ I've got a soul And you broke my heart ¶
¶ Find a new scene And let us depart ¶
¶ Don't hang around And let yourself be caught ¶
[scatting]
¶ I've got a soul And you broke my heart ¶
¶ Find a new scene And let us depart ¶
¶ Follow ¶
¶ Follow, follow ¶
[dinging]
You scratch all day, Charlie. Still a loser.
[door opens]
Somebody busted the lock.
I had to hold my foot against the door.
-Good thing, you're flexible. -Shut up.
-Cutting it pretty close. -Just fixing my face.
That's my last one.
I'll trade you for it.
Suits you better anyway.
Better go out through the back.
Story of my life.
Parking lot D. Don't be late.
[footsteps fading away]
[scratching]
Well, well, well, boys. What do you know?
[man] What did you get?
Mickey, tip.
What can I tell you, Professor? Strippers.
My wife will get everything now. [sobbing]
She'll get my boat.
Maybe not.
-She hasn't seen these? -Yet.
[sighs]
I'll give you 500.
She gave me a thousand.
Oh, man.
I love my boat.
-Can I keep these? -You can get 'em framed.
Okay.
You won't make other copies?
What kind of a guy do you think I am?
[commentary over radio]
¶
[screaming]
[indistinct radio commentary continues]
[tuning radio channels]
[man on radio, indistinct]
...our technical director of the project of the day was Nicola Tesla...
[camera clicks]
-Damn it. [woman] Charlie!
[gunshot]
[tires screeching]
¶
[phone ringing]
[over the phone] Hey, it's Kat. Leave me a message.
[Charlie] Pick up, god damn it!
I don't know where you are or what the hell just happened.
I'm going to the club, okay?
[loud rock music playing]
[speaking, indistinct]
You know what I mean?
[indistinct]
¶
[indistinct]
Tom Soberin.
-Hey! -Get out of here!
Seven bucks for a cranberry juice?
[rock music continues, muffled]
I didn't know she was working the Canadian ballet too.
What you don't know could fill the lake.
She made a date last night.
Jealous? [giggles]
Never heard of him.
She doesn't try that bull shit, of course, on her regulars.
She's in trouble.
Ah, the worst trouble she's got is you, Charlie.
-Listen if you got her messed... -I'll find her.
You're such a bastard.
Mayflower Apartments.
She asked if they were nice.
Maybe she was sizing him up.
[man] Hey, I think you've had enough of rest. Move it!
Get off the bench!
-Tom Soberin. -Who wants to know?
"Charlie Paczynski." [laughs]
Used to bowl for Charlie Pazinci Any relation?
[Tom] I said move it or I'll call the cops!
¶
[door creaking]
['40s music playing]
Come on in, tough guy. I'm ready. I already died in '45.
Field surgery during the Bulge.
But, you know, I never did see that bright light bull shit either.
6G, you know him?
I know everybody.
You know where he went?
Well, I know, he left in a hurry. And he left with nothing.
-When? -Last night.
Oh, damn it.
What are you? Private investigator?
Yeah.
Oh, I thought I was making a joke.
You ever investigate the hazards of man, hmm?
You know anything about him?
I know 6A cooks meatballs every Friday night, filled with garlic.
And I know 6B keeps an illegal pet named Sparky.
And I know that 6D keeps a key under the mat that is frequently used by 6H.
But 6G never drew anyone's attention.
Until you heard him bolt out of here last night.
And the ado that followed, yes.
What do you mean, ado?
Men in suits.
-Would you like a drink? -No, no. What suits?
What do you mean, "what suits?"
Everyone looks the same in a suit, like a rat.
Oh. I did hear through that door over there
they wanted 6G's Tesla file. "Tesla file," they said.
Tesla file? What's that?
How should I know? I don't go nosing around in other people's business.
Sorry about the lock.
I'm 85 years old, and I'm not scared.
I'm ready.
[commentary over radio]
[indistinct chattering]
[phone ringing]
Uh-uh, that's mine.
What do you got?
[man on phone] Never mind, Charlie. What have you got for me?
Well, Your Honor. I've got a shoe box full of photos
might influence your constituents in November.
Give me the name.
-Soberin. S-O-B-E-R... -Can't help you.
Never heard of him.
Hello?
Jerk.
¶
Help me, Mr. Paczynski.
-How do you know my name? -Please, I cannot be seen.
What do you hear? Take it easy.
-Did you find him? -Find who?
[tires screeching]
Ah, shit.
[tram bell dinging]
[woman] Your door was open.
Oh.
Been a bad day, miss.
Meeker.
Nicole Meeker.
What brings you to me?
You're the only private investigator in the Buffalo phone book.
What, people don't cheat on their spouses anymore?
Sure they do. But the spouses don't mind.
The man I was involved with, he disappeared.
Maybe he ran off with his wife.
I finally found the address and drove up from Pittsburgh last night.
I went by this morning, couldn't get in,
but I did see something that interested me.
Yeah? What did you see?
I saw you.
What do you mean, me?
The man I'm looking for is Tom Soberin.
The doorman said that you were also asking for him.
Tom hasn't been well. He's been taking medication for depression.
He's been paranoid, delusional.
He says that people are watching him. Even trying to kill him.
He may be right.
Please tell me where he is.
Might not make any sense to you, but if I speak to him personally...
I don't mind getting paid to look for somebody I'm already looking for.
I'm not paying you to look for him.
I'm paying you to find him.
You say Soberin's up here from Pittsburgh?
Distinguished Professor of Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University.
He must be distinguished in all the right places.
My number's on the back.
And yes, I do have very unconventional taste.
[door closes]
¶
[people chattering]
Who are you?
Don't look at me! Keep your eyes out.
You made a date with my friend last night.
Oh.
-Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't know. -God damn it!
It's supposed to be a hit, and you stick her in the middle of it?
No, no. What's happening here you can't begin to comprehend.
I'm three seconds, from throwing you over the rail.
I'm trying to listen too.
Christ! She said you lost it.
-Who? -Nicole Meeker.
-You saw her? -She's looking for you.
Thinks you're worth the trouble. I didn't mention the carnival parking lot.
-I have to tell her. -If you want to confess your sins, find a priest.
Who fired the gun?
Tell Nikki I found the Tin Man.
What the hell are you talking about?
You wanna know who fired the shots? Have Nikki meet me.
Where and when?
Today, out on Three Sisters.
You see her, then you see me. Got it?
I'll be waiting.
Don't let yourself be followed again.
I'm so sorry about...
About Kat, I...
Yeah. He's waiting there now.
I gotta go.
[dramatic music playing]
¶
Hey!
Damn it!
[car starting]
[man] Get the hell out of here.
[Charlie] You got the road jammed up.
[man] You're a long way from Polonia.
[Charlie] Working a missing person case.
You couldn't find a hole in a donut.
Can I get one of those?
No.
Male or female?
The jumper is male.
Got a light?
Fifth of the season. The place is a magnet.
Honeymoons and suicides.
What's the difference?
Ha, you should take that routine to Vegas.
I'll escort you to the airport.
I told you, I got a job and I already found the guy.
Some nut out of Pittsburgh name of Soberin.
Which one of these maroons put you up to it?
-I don't get it. -Soberin?
You can help tuck him in.
[engine starts]
[siren wails]
¶
She's dead, isn't she?
-If you want me... -Don't you dare.
I'm gonna find the guy.
Well, you won't have to look far.
[footsteps fading]
[footsteps approaching]
When he didn't show up, I knew.
So the police said that it was a suicide?
That's how they see it.
And how do you see it?
He was a mess, like you said.
I think somebody made him a mess.
Doesn't really matter anymore, does it?
Doesn't it?
Why do you care so much?
Ask me something else.
You ever just want to disappear?
I already have.
No, I mean it.
Go some place where no one can find you.
I've never been to the ocean.
Yes, what?
What?
Any other day.
There's another day.
[tram rumbling]
[telephone ringing]
Yeah.
[woman on phone, indistinct]
I don't know what... Slow down!
What the hell...
[indistinct voice continues]
Yeah?
Yeah, you stole my lighter.
Have you been to St-Paul's? Can you meet me there?
Jesus, not since I was baptized. And not today, kid.
[siren wailing in distance]
¶
Son of a bitch.
You ever hear the one about the tallest detective?
You saved me a trip.
What would you do if you were in my shoes, Charlie?
-I'd burn my socks. -Funny.
Ticket at the airport,
carrying more bread than Hansel and Gretel
and your partner in crime laying dead in the morgue.
That funny too?
Her name is Kat. I wanna see her.
Her family is here and they've never heard of you.
Weren't you due a promotion like three years ago, Escobar?
Meanwhile the guy you set up takes a nose dive into the whirlpool.
-They're connected. -By you.
They're connected by you!
I didn't buy that plane ticket.
Right, it was the knockout with the wad of cash.
I've had that same dream.
Only my wife's the knockout
and she's carrying a six pack of beer and a bucket of wings.
Your wife likes Polish sausage, mac, trust me.
Whoa! I'm still in the room.
[knocking]
We'll need your passport.
You can eat it.
Come on, where's the rest of it?
No, no, no, no, no. We don't just walk up here.
What do we do?
Well, if we're lucky, we schedule an appointment.
Appointments are for assholes.
You probably make 'em all the time.
[elevator dinging]
[man speaking, indistinct]
[man] His mother told him to stop 'cause he ran out of fuel...
But Tesla's mind was already busy concentrating that...
Did I miss anything good?
Secrets of the universe revealed.
[man] Like the charge on the cat's back,
these are examples of the primitive effect
depicting the energy fields that surround every living thing.
Tesla was one of the first to experiment with these energies
in a field so often dismissed as more spiritual than scientific.
Yet so many of his imaginings 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.
No. No, I did.
Then why was Soberin carrying the company...
[Borden] Ah, my sister makes an appearance.
Emily, meet Mr. Paczynski.
Sterling's stand-in for the evening.
[Emily] How do you do?
Emily, is it?
Mr. Paczynski is a genuine gumshoe,
in the great grand tradition of Philip Marlowe.
I always preferred Mike Hammer.
Even your idols are second rate.
Must be interesting work. What brings you here?
Bad habit.
When someone lies, I take it personally.
You shouldn't. Who lied?
Sterling's been rounding off the corners of the truth again.
It seems Mr. Paczynski, isn't buying the official version of Tom Soberin's demise.
I don't blame him.
You don't know the half of it.
Thanks for the drink.
[footsteps approaching]
You came to me looking for Tom Soberin, didn't you?
The newspaper said suicide.
Who was he to you?
My mentor, at the university.
You were working with him?
I work alone.
[thud]
Look, I didn't even know Tom Soberin was here.
I was hired by a man named Sterling Whitmore.
To do what?
Study a design, an invention. Anyway,
every night I had to turn in my notes, and every morning I would get them back.
People take all kinds of precautions in my line of work.
Okay.
But two days ago, something odd happened.
When I got my notes back, there was a mark on them.
A symbol Tom Soberin would make when he thought I miscalculated.
So Whitmore hired Soberin to double check your homework?
-But there was no mistake. -How do you know?
I know.
Why did he make the note?
To send a message.
-What kind of message? -To stop.
To stop working on the design and see him.
Just like at school.
So I called the university and they told me he was here,
at the Mayflower.
When I went to my apartment there were men coming out of it.
I've been dodging them ever since.
What do you expect me to do?
If Tom wanted me to stop,
whoever killed him knows why.
[sighs]
What makes you think I care?
Well, you're here.
You got a name?
I'm Nikki Meeker.
Here, your lighter.
Tom was a master technician.
Great.
You don't hire him to design.
You hire him to build.
[engine stalling]
[engine stops]
Damn it.
¶
[engine revving]
[tires screeching]
[man] Let's go, man.
I've been run out of a few of Borden's parties myself.
I can only take those assholes for so long before I say something that pisses 'em off.
You saying Chase tried to run me down?
Wake up, Paczynski. That's Bohemian Grove Buffalo style.
Bohemian Grove?
That camp near San Fran
where all the big wigs dance around the bonfire
thinking up ways to manipulate the world economy?
Nixon said it was the faggiest thing he ever saw.
Look what happened to him.
[laughing]
That's a string pulling crowd pulling your string.
Chase got something to hide?
We all got something.
You, uh... You've done some strange pulling yourself.
I'm one generation removed from a carnival barker.
What lie did I tell you?
You said Tom Soberin wasn't on your payroll.
I said he didn't get the Chase-Whitmore company card from me.
Check your notes.
-What was he doing for you? -Great story.
Little Roger Wood,
a propeller pin sheared off their boat motor.
Boy went over the edge of Niagara Falls
with nothing more than a life vest and his swim trunks.
Nary a scratch.
The boat driver was battered and drowned.
Great story.
Same journey, different results.
Of course, that was the Canadian Horseshoe.
What no one has ever done is survive the American side.
Great for suicides, not so good for pickle barrels and diving bells.
But there is a way.
With precise trajectory and an ideal rate of flow,
a properly built device could manage it.
Good luck.
[Whitmore] Come on in, Stick.
Stick, this is Mr. Paczynski.
Ah, we picked up your car.
Have it humming by morning.
Mr. Stickney, here, is a riverman.
Knows Niagara better than the average man knows his own shoes.
When you first heard the falls, how close were you?
Uh, I don't know a mile or two.
I can hear 'em right now.
[laughing]
If you think I'm buying that Tom Soberin was building you a barrel, you're nuts.
One man's nuts is another man's balls.
[laughing]
Nikki Meeker wasn't making notes for a sideshow stunt.
You talked with her?
-Is she all right? -She's fine.
Where is she?
Tell me about Chase's sister.
Mighty sexy, if you ask me.
What does she do?
Looks good in the company newsletter.
You look like you could use some shut-eye, Mr. Paczynski.
You're welcome to one of our guest rooms.
There are planners and there are doers.
You strike me as a doer. Am I right?
I'm just a guy.
[laughing]
Yeah.
[clock chiming]
Quite a feat, isn't it?
I was with the Corps of Engineers on that one.
Wish we could do it again.
Give us a leg up on our travel plans.
You ready?
[exhales]
¶
[car engine starting]
¶
Charlie, you been following me?
Don't think I won't crack you.
I think you'd love to.
You set up Tom Soberin.
-What are you talking about? -You paid Kat to get him in that parking lot.
I paid her to make sure Tom had a good time.
He didn't.
-You all right, miss? -She's fine.
It's fine.
-Do I need to call the police? -Yeah, ask for Maguire.
And you used me to finish the job.
Please, can't we talk about this...
Phone book's full of names, why call yourself Nikki Meeker?
If my brother found out what I did...
Please it's not safe.
You can tell me or the police, maybe squirt out a few tears this time.
My brother kept a design in his safe.
A very valuable but incomplete design.
Whitmore knew it would rot in there, so
we made a deal. I'd get it, and he'd find someone to make sense of it.
Now, we're getting somewhere.
Whitmore gave Nicole's notes to Soberin.
And whatever was in those notes made Soberin come running to me.
Why?
He said the design shouldn't be developed.
What do you mean? What is it?
-I don't know. He didn't say. -Come on!
It was never finished, that's why we hired Nicole.
You have to believe me.
I did a stupid thing, not a terrible thing.
You've done both and your brother knows it.
My brother doesn't even know the design went missing.
Well, someone tried to make a speed bump out of me.
Whoever they were, they killed Soberin and Kat.
And they'll come after you. Just leave.
Uh-uh.
Well, I hope you can protect Nicole better than I did.
You called her Nikki.
Please, let me make this right.
We're way past making it right.
I'm sorry, I...
I would've met you on that beach.
You're a beautiful piece of work, kid.
But if you killed Kat, I'm gonna nail you to the wall.
[footsteps fading]
Slavko fixed your faucet.
Extraordinary what some people learn to tolerate.
You may have something we're looking for.
Sense of humor?
Maybe I can save you some time.
I'm quite certain you do not know what we're looking for
or where it is.
But I've got it.
Don't feel bad.
Most of the world does not know what is under its nose.
Mustache.
Here you are, banging your head against the dark, as they say,
and you keep at it.
You keep at it. Very good.
Excuse me. [clearing throat]
[speaking foreign language]
Well, you've heard of the FBI.
Think of us as their brothers.
[speaks foreign language]
Whoa! Final notice. From last week.
[tram bell dinging]
[thud]
[footsteps]
-[thumping] -[Charlie grunts]
-You. -You.
Special Agent Barry, I work with DARPA.
Who's she?
They track the best ideas and the brightest minds behind them.
I can see why you came to me.
[footsteps]
My goodness, somebody turned this place upside down.
The Serbs were here.
[Charlie] Sounded Russian.
Tesla was a Serb. Did they take anything?
Yeah. I had a Picasso hanging right there.
-Who's a Serb? -Come here.
[Barry] I don't need you to explain it.
I want to know if you've ever seen anything like it.
Why would I?
Because Tom Soberin's lungs were full of Niagara 90 minutes after he met you.
What the hell is going on?
Have you ever heard of Nicola Tesla?
Yeah, about 48 hours ago. He invented something right?
-Yeah, the 20th century. -[thumping]
[Barry] Your car.
[tires screeching]
[Barry] I will tell as much as I can, as fast as I can.
Tesla kept an notebook of theoretical inventions
locked in his safe at New Yorker Hotel.
That notebook contained everything from a free energy system to so called death ray.
Within an hour of his death, the United States government
seized everything in that room.
But somebody else got there first and the notebook was gone.
Six months ago there was a black market auction in Stockholm
for a disintegrating page torn from a decades-old notebook.
Half a design for an unknown invention.
Nicole Meeker was the last person to have it.
We think she smuggled it out and we know she came to you.
I don't have it. She never gave me anything.
She could've planted it in your office, your car, anything.
She's never set foot in either.
There are less than a dozen minds
that our government sees fit to keep tabs on,
for their safety and ours.
Nicole Meeker is one of them and it is my job to bring her in.
Hey, I won't stop you.
[Barry] Take a right up here.
Where do the Serbs fit in?
That notebook is like the holy grail for Serbian nationals.
They will track the globe for any sign of it.
Half a design and nobody even knows what the hell it's for?
Imagine introducing an automobile
with an unlimited energy supply.
Or a system to irrigate the deserts of Africa.
Tesla thought it possible
for people to transmit themselves.
Do you hear what I'm saying? Transmit themselves.
Just because he thought it, doesn't make it so.
When people were getting around on horseback,
he envisioned a wireless device
so small you could keep it in your pocket.
It would let you check the news or the stock market
or talk to anyone anywhere in the world.
Here, all the way to the top.
Television, satellite technology, computers,
everything we take for granted...
-Tesla? -Yes, yes, Tesla. All of it.
How come I never heard of him before Tuesday?
The politics of science.
Whatever it is, I'd rather we have it than anybody else.
Chase killed Soberin over this?
He's got a buyer, we want them both.
We know when but not where.
He can't sell what he doesn't have.
But he expects to get his design back one way or another.
I'm offering you a way out.
Bring Nicole in and we can protect you both.
This is where you tell me, my country needs me, right?
Tomorrow, Silo City, foot of Ohio Street. Should we expect you?
You had me at death ray.
[sighs]
[choir singing]
Get your things.
-What's happened? -I had some visitors.
Just like me and Soberin?
I might've had different guys. They fixed my sink.
Visitors were followed by the FBI.
And the FBI was followed by some dark suits.
So you're handing me over?
To give them the design.
And what will they do with it?
When a scientist advances a theory,
they open it up to the world, people make with it whatever they want.
I can't protect you.
I don't need a protector.
I need an ally.
Is this it?
Half of it.
You know what it is yet?
A kind of amplifier for energy.
I'm not sure how it's meant to be used.
You think Soberin knew?
I don't see how he could.
I've never seen anything like it.
[Charlie clicking lighter]
Belonged to a friend.
Then you better hold on to it.
Michael.
You can do this one now.
And bring the original.
I burned it.
[dramatic music playing]
¶
[engine stops]
[faint buzzing]
-Run! -What?
[firing]
[dramatic music playing]
[panting]
[footsteps approaching]
¶
[gun firing]
¶
[grunting]
[Charlie] You son of a bitch!
[gun fires]
Nikki!
¶
Well, I'd say we're even.
What have I gotten myself into here?
That's a hell of a question he's asking.
Those suits back there didn't mind killing a federal agent.
Didn't mind killing me, but not you. Why not?
Someone was killed?
Well, you must understand by now.
[Charlie] No, I don't understand.
I don't understand any of it. I don't understand you!
You think they're pissed now. Wait till they found out you burned the thing?
Look, you want my help, you better start sharing some goddamn information.
Any more surprises, now's the time.
Your FBI agent pushed this into my hand.
What do you know about DARPA?
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
I'm a physics professor.
You a bit of a science buff?
DARPA tried to recruit me off the Carnegie Campus.
Well, la di dah.
Barry was working for them or so she claimed.
If Tesla's involved, they're never far behind.
Tesla?
Oh, come on. I lecture on Tesla.
The war of the currents.
He beat out Edison.
He built a power station at Niagara that electrified Buffalo.
But most of his ideas were suppressed. It's all politics.
Same reason I didn't get tenure.
The ideas that got support were the ones that could be weaponized.
That's why he stopped labeling his diagrams and started splitting them in half.
Splitting them in half?
He knew someone would exploit them.
Yeah. They're called the Department of Defense.
He even hid parts of design.
-What do you mean hid? -Hid wherever he worked.
His lab in Colorado, the tower he built on Long Island.
Both destroyed. Coincidence? [laughs] I think not.
What about the power station in Niagara?
Collapsed with 10,000 cubic feet of rushing water
blocking the access tunnels.
Look, Tesla, didn't just cut designs in half,
he disguised how the designs went together.
Look, just like these nautical charts. That looks right, right?
But this, see, doesn't go directly next to that.
She's good.
Tesla was also one of the first to warn against the dangers of smoking.
What does this look like to you?
Reminds me of a Tin Man.
Like from the Wizard of Oz?
No, Tin Man from the Sound of Music.
What does it mean?
Something Soberin said.
We've been sitting here too long.
[radio playing, indistinct]
[polka music playing]
[speaking in foreign language]
Lots of prohibition.
Polonia got into witness protection.
You know where the devil can't go, he sends a woman.
She doesn't trust me either.
It's just a Polish proverb.
Well, she said it in English.
I never said I didn't trust you.
That's good. 'Cause I don't have time to earn it.
Where are you going?
Those were Borden Chase's men back there.
Chase?
His sister took the designs from the safe.
He's been ringing her out to get 'em back.
What will you do?
Convince her to go to the police.
Get one good shot at him.
Really?
I don't even own a gun.
Hey.
He doesn't know I burned it.
[footsteps approaching]
[footsteps fading]
[electric sparking]
I must've shorted out the security system again.
I've done some things, but you take the prize.
Pretty wild stuff, isn't it?
Oh, come on. Don't be so provincial.
That's the second time you called me that.
All these books and no thesaurus?
-Where is she? -In the dungeon.
I don't like your jokes.
You seem like the type of guy who thinks anyone with money is a crook.
I think everyone is a crook.
You're a killer.
I'm a businessman.
Now, what will it cost me
to turn your attention back to reservation cigarettes and discount liquor?
Your sister, and I'll throw in a bonus.
What can you possibly offer me besides admiration.
The former contents of your safe.
I can get it back, never mind how.
Mr. Paczynski.
-Refreshed? -Recharged?
Apparently he caught a glimpse of our little therapy session.
He can't get his brain around it.
So now we're going to spend the evening staring one another?
She leaves with me. That's the deal.
She's not on a leash...today.
Deal for what?
The design, tell him.
That design took me 25 years to acquire.
Do you know what I would do to someone who tried to steal it?
Lighting her up like a Christmas tree wasn't enough?
Over a million people were treated with electroconvulsive therapy
last year alone.
Treated for what?
Emily.
My sister wouldn't steal from me.
Because she knows that if she did,
the retribution would be biblical.
[thud]
What kind of a man would betray his sister's trust
because of the accusations of a night crawler like you.
Open the safe.
We're family, Mr. Paczynski.
That's a gene pool screaming for chlorine.
The feds will be coming.
[sighs]
[man] He'd have taken the money.
This broad offers you the golden goose
and you wanna cook it for dinner.
He's got a goddamn electric chair in his house.
Don't you think that's a little out of the ordinary?
You're ordinary. These people are not.
And the grain elevator?
Not only was there no dead body,
but the FBI never heard of your Agent Barry.
-What? -And,
as you can see,
no sordid Chase family history either.
He's got something on her.
Except maybe the old man contemplating the long goodbye.
-Why? -Read.
William C. Chase, three arrests, three months, summer of '69.
All up to the state park at the Falls.
Trespassing?
Either he was suicidal or smoking wacky tabacky.
Pretty thin, you'd agree?
Unless he was wearing a scuba suit.
Just what the hell goes on inside your head?
Personal items returned.
A flash light and an ax, no snorkel.
Leave that to the professionals, Charlie.
[door creaking]
What was Soberin building for you?
I was there.
I was seven years old.
You didn't hire Nikki Meeker for a barrel ride.
What do you think he could build with half a design?
I didn't want him to build it. I wanted to know what it was.
How would Soberin know what it was any more than Nikki?
He worked for the same outfit as your FBI gal.
-DARPA? -Sure.
Enlisted to inform them any time he got wind of
extraordinary discoveries, inventions or people.
DARPA has no operational mission.
They want a radical innovation of any kind.
You don't think that something like guided missiles came along because
some general filled out an R and D request.
They don't mind a thousand failures
because one success changes the whole goddamn game.
And a guy like Tesla would be a goldmine for an outfit like that.
Don't kid yourself. Tesla is the outfit.
¶
Reagan's Star Wars, the HAARP complex in Alaska,
the Manhattan Project... Bohemian Grove's greatest hits.
Soberin was briefed on Tesla's unpublished theories.
If a design surfaced...
He was trained to recognize what it was for.
-But he didn't. -He did.
He just didn't tell you.
If someone had both halves...
And knew how to put them together,
that someone could change the world.
¶
[door creaking]
¶
[Emily] Charlie.
What happened?
I can't go back there.
Then go to the police.
They won't believe me.
-I'll make 'em. -What can we prove?
Why'd you stand by him back there?
He never believed I broke into the safe,
but he put on a show about trusting me.
And when you left, he opened it.
Oh, Jesus.
Take your hand out.
Take it out.
Goddamn it.
It's not your fault.
I should have never taken the design.
We gotta get you out of here.
-I've made plans. -Then go.
For all of us.
I'm not going anywhere yet.
He'll kill you.
He'll kill Nicole.
Please. Let me do this.
Then let's get you and Nikki out.
[polka music playing]
[Charlie] You all right?
I'm just, um, figuring something out.
This is Emily Chase. She can get you out.
The Professor will take you both to the pump station.
She'll have a boat there tonight.
The government keeps track of people like me.
She's got the best forged passport I've ever seen.
The sketch on that napkin? I knew there was something about it.
I had to flirt with my wife to get this back.
It's a book I started writing once.
Government conspiracies, the moon landing, Superbowl 25.
I'm kidding, but there was a Project Nick.
It involved particle beams, and plasma, and projects within projects.
And one of them was a version of Tesla's dream
to capture, amplify and transmit the unlimited energy of the ionosphere.
Something that could only be accomplished on a massive scale.
Theories.
There was also reference to a discontinued offshoot of that program
code named Tin Man.
-What was it? -Nobody knows.
I do.
What Tesla thought he could do for the energy in the ionosphere,
he found he could do for the energy that exists around every living thing.
The energy of a person
amplified and focused like a machine.
Tin Man.
Imagine a whole army of soldiers.
That's why.
That's why he split it in half.
Why not destroy it?
Hope.
That someday we would be wise enough to use it as he intended.
The hell with hope. I'm with you. Let it burn.
I still had hope.
Oh, shit.
Well, imagine this in the wrong hands.
Or we can end it right here.
[sighs]
You think this thing would actually work
Whenever you look at the moon,
think of walking on it.
Some people have.
[car starting]
I was very glad to get your call.
I hope you'll keep in mind that I've already paid for this once.
We're all paying for it.
You're not still in a fit over that childhood game of ours.
Emily and played it a thousand times. There's never been any danger.
I've seen her since. You practically took her hand off.
Paczynski, that Polish, right?
How'd you crack that code?
Did you know that the Polish Underground would kill their own members
just to prove they weren't part of the Polish Underground?
They're a very stubborn people.
Let me see my design.
What's this?
My father's weakness was a curious mind.
Same thing with Whitmore.
You're old man got nicked three times when the falls were dry.
That's not curious, that's driven.
Little late life to start thinking, Mr. Paczynski.
The old tunnels to power house number one were exposed.
You've heard one too many Tesla-ments.
The quest for the holy grail armed with a maul ax
instead of a sword.
Now, why would he take a maul ax to the Falls?
Well, the beauty of a maul ax
is that one end is wedged like a hatchet.
But the other is blunt enough to bust rock.
And when the police released him, they gave it back.
Careful.
You had both halves. Twice the profit.
Oh, 100 times.
But you needed someone brilliant enough to put the two halves together.
And that is a very short list.
I wouldn't let Nicole Meeker or anyone like her near it.
I left a lot of interested parties very disappointed.
You don't even know what you had.
That design could be a blue print for free energy.
It could destroy the world economy overnight.
You lecture on the frontier of science, but you kill to keep the status quo?
The fact is that the design is indecipherable without both halves.
I wouldn't dirty my fingernails to get it back.
This can't be the half your old man found.
[Borden] It most certainly is.
This list,
it's not my hand writing.
[dramatic music playing]
[Charlie] Nikki!
¶
[foghorn blowing]
[gasping]
[flicking lighter]
[grunts]
Please! [screaming]
[crickets chirping]
[gasping]
-[rock and roll music playing] -[door opens]
Last call was 4:00.
Dude.
-What happened to you? -Get me Mr. Smith.
After 2:00 a.m. a man makes nothing but bad decisions.
-Where's Nikki? -You smell like the lake.
Come on, you and Emily all along?
Look, I only got a few laps to go.
I don't need money. I want adventure.
Then why weren't you in the barrel?
Jesus and the 12, is that what happened to you?
Where's Nikki?
The American side? They sent you over...
-Where is she? -How the hell would I know?
What was it like going over the brink?
No points off for being an reluctant astronaut.
FBI had everything but the where.
Somebody stole the barrel. Get it?
The date, the time, the contact, it's all there.
0600, 19 September, Celinda!
You tell me the place!
God save us from the gifted amateur.
Celinda ain't a who. It's a where.
Three Sisters. Asenath, Angeline and Celinda
Is this what I think it is?
Tin Man.
-Tesla's perfect soldier. -In theory.
In practice.
The only thing more valuable is...
Someone to put it together.
I'll drive.
[dramatic music playing]
Go, man, go
¶
Nikki!
Charlie, hurry there's no time.
It's over.
My brother's men are coming.
-It's finished. -What's happening?
[Emily] Nikki let's go. Go!
-[Nikki] Where are you taking me? -[Emily] Just keep walking.
¶
Whitmore has part of the plan.
-Don't believe him. -Whitmore is a government agent.
She'll never believe you.
The design was just bent, Nikki.
You're worth more to them. Someone who can solve all their problems.
Well, they could never make me.
She can't be smart about everything!
-Go! -No
-Move! -Go!
-What about you? -Go!
You can't get in the way too.
-[gunshot] -Charlie!
Come on!
[gunshot]
[wind howling]
[Nikki] You need a doctor.
You gotta get out of here. And don't look back.
Just rest.
You drew the half you'd never seen.
Lot of people want a piece of you.
Well, they have a pattern of you.
There's a joker in every deck.
Well, actually, there's two.
Where is it?
She burned it.
That would be a great loss.
If it were true.
["A Street Called Hope" playing]
¶
[phone ringing]
[man] Paczynski, it's for you.
["Motion" playing]
¶
[rock and roll music playing]
¶ Wish you were here ¶
¶ To whisper in my years ¶
¶ That you love me ¶
¶ More than words can tell ¶
¶ I can't forget ¶
¶ The day that we met ¶
¶ Heeded what you mean ¶
¶ More than words can tell ¶
¶ Can you forget ¶
¶ What I've done in the past? ¶
¶ Please forgive me ¶
¶ And give me one more chance ¶
¶ Wish you were here ¶
¶ I'd whisper in your ear ¶
¶ That I love you More than words can tell ¶
¶ Can you forget ¶
¶ What I've done in the past? ¶
¶ Please forgive me ¶