Known as “Oscar of the Waldorf”

Oscar has a tiny role in the book, (he fetches some water for the traumatized time traveler), but I couldn’t resist introducing the man who was credited with inventing the Waldorf Salad, Thousand Island Dressing, and Eggs Benedict!

Petrosino really was a friend of Enrico Caruso.

Petrosino really did head up the elite “Italian squad” and was a pioneer of crime fighting techniques.

Through the Italian squad, he infiltrated an anarchist group and found evidence of a plot to assassinate President William McKinley.  He informed the secret service, who brushed him off, even though Theodore Roosevelt vouched for his brilliance.  Then McKinley really was assassinated.  Damn!

Petrosino himself was killed a few years after the time of Paige’s visit.  He was on a top secret mission to Sicily when he was gunned down in the middle of a Piazza.  Shortly after the murder, a letter arrived at the detective’s Italian branch stating that the Morello gang had arranged for his murder.  Nobody knows the truth. 

Petrosino was a beloved man and crime fighter.  There have been numerous memorials, commemorations, awards and movies made!

Caruso was a world famous tenor with a huge personality.  He was indeed in downtown San Francisco during the 1906 earthquake but due to the calm heroics of his valet, he managed to get dressed, exit the hotel to wait on the street below while his valet returned multiple times to pack up and remove all of Caruso’s trunks.  The same valet then manages to source a horse and cart, which makes its way through the (now burning) city to the ferry where he proceeds to secure a boat to Oakland! 

Yes, it’s redundant.  His name means “wolf.”  So his moniker was “Wolf, the wolf.”  Still, it worked at the time.  

Lupo really was married to Salvatrice, a sister of one of the other gang members, although I’m quite sure she didn’t get involved with any of his “businesses” vis-à-vis, burying of bodies, or casing potential victims.  Still, it’s fiction, and I got another woman out of the house so… Yay!

Absolutely real, larger-than-life character.

Even if you know nothing of the banking industry, you’ve heard the name JP Morgan Chase. 

Morgan had his hand in everything; steel, electricity, banking, politics, railroads, shipping, you-name-it.  Like most businessmen, if he invested in something, he wanted a return.  Tesla’s vision of sourcing cheap, or even free energy didn’t excite his investment bone, so he pulled his funding.  It’s just the way of the world, but it’s a sad demonstration of what happens when scientific discovery is monetized.  Tesla brought so many amazing, life-changing inventions into the world, it’s a crying shame to think of what he could have achieved if he had simply been able to “carry on.”

Genius, madman and, like Einstein, a vegetarian.

I initially fantasized about my girl Paige going back in history and meeting Edison, a suitably impressive and deeply entertaining individual.  But in researching Edison I inevitably learned more about Nikola Tesla, after which, there was no question that he should be the scientific superhero she yearned to meet.

Having decided this, however, I found myself in a dilemma.  Tesla was such an incredible human being that, if one were inclined toward crazy extraterrestrial theories, you might conclude that he was from another planet.  Descriptions from those who met, and knew him are of a man who was physically, intellectually and even
“energetic-ally” exceptional and astounding. 

It felt almost sacrilegious to write words to be spoken by this semi-deity.  Tesla had bright blue eyes, (some thought the unusually light color was a result of the incredible mental facilities burning so brightly behind them) but when Paige meets him in my story they are dark.  That is the extra-fictionalized, human version of this surreal personality that I would have paid anything to have met myself! 

So there.