Hard Light by Elizabeth Hand Read Free Book Online Page B

the floors were spotless, as were the walls.
    The sole exception to the modern renovation was an old-fashioned cage elevator. A seven-inch gap yawned between the car’s kickplate and the tiled floor. I glanced down into a basement black as a pit.
    â€œMind the gap,” said Krishna. She pulled aside the elevator’s folding metal gate, and we stepped inside. There was no inner safety door.
    â€œSeems weird they updated everything but this,” I said as the cage slowly rose, gears clanking.
    â€œWeird?” Krishna pressed her face against the grille and peered down the shaft. “I don’t think so. Easy to arrange an accident.”
    â€œYeah, but how many accidents before it doesn’t look like an accident anymore?”
    â€œDunno. You want to find out?”
    The elevator ground to a stop. Krishna yanked open the gate and bounced out into a windowless corridor. I followed, stepping gingerly over the gap. Behind us the elevator clanked softly, and I glanced back to see it rising to the next floor.
    â€œThere’s a little room up top,” said Krishna. “Morven’s secret place.”
    Here too the walls, floor, and ceiling were all painted gray. Recessed low-light bulbs made the door at the end of the corridor seem to recede as we walked toward it. It was like gazing through the wrong end of a gigantic telescope. Krishna’s wrenlike figure didn’t dispel the illusion.
    â€œThis is it,” she said when we reached the door.
    There was no number or name, no sounds from the other side. I knocked. Nothing.
    I turned to Krishna. “You sure?”
    She shrank into her vast coat, water dripping from its sleeves onto the floor. “Wasn’t my idea,” she said.
    I knocked again, harder.
    Abruptly the door opened, releasing a wave of laughter, jazz piano, and a rush of air ripe with competing perfumes and cigar smoke. A woman in a tight-fitting, plum-colored dress peeked out at us.
    â€œIs that Krish?” she exclaimed, and grabbed Krishna in a sloppy embrace. “I’m so glad you came!”
    Krishna extricated herself. “Happy birthday, Morven. Here, I brought a friend.”
    The woman looked past her at me. “I see. Who’s this?”
    â€œCass,” said Krishna.
    Morven regarded me coolly, and I realized that sloppy embrace had been a proprietary one. I edged away from Krishna and said, “We just met. I’m new in town.”
    â€œIs Adrian here?” broke in Krishna.
    Morven shook her head. “I haven’t seen him, but that doesn’t mean anything.”
    â€œI’ll just have a peep,” said Krishna, and slipped into the apartment.
    I tried not to look pissed off: Now there’d be no reason for Morven to ask me to stay.
    The same thought appeared to have struck Morven. “So. Cass. Have we met?” She had a mid-Atlantic accent, clipped and businesslike.
    â€œMaybe in New York.”
    â€œMaybe.”
    Her eyes narrowed as she regarded me. She looked like a Morven—witchy. A mass of unruly hair had been dyed pale blond, auburn, and magenta before reverting to gray at the scalp, held back from her face with an antique tortoiseshell comb. Fair skin bore the marks of too much sun—seams around her eyes, freckles that had grown dark and blotchy, a map of broken capillaries across her cheeks.
    Still, it was a striking face, more piquant than conventionally beautiful: large aquamarine eyes, pointed nose, small mouth, apple cheeks. Above her left breast was a small tattoo, a pair of interlocking, calligraphic letters in faded red ink— FC.
    She wasn’t quite tall enough to be a model, but she triggered a vague memory of a girl in a magazine. A long-ago ad for Herbal Essences shampoo, maybe, or Yardley English Lavender soap or Biba makeup—a slightly spooky hippie chick shilling dime-store perfume and lip gloss.
    I expected her to close the door in my face. Instead she said,