The rain came in strips that night, not the soft weather of memory but a sheeted, sideways insistence that slashed at the neon and made the sidewalks look like spilled coins. Owen Hale kept his head down and his toolbox up as though both were talismans. He had learned to treat late calls like ritual appointments: the machines expected him, the tenants would watch, and somewhere between socket and circuit he might find a pattern he could straighten.
Hollowwell Towers squatted a little gracelessly between a nail-salon block and a corner that still boasted a night stall selling roasted chestnuts and skewered sweet potato. The building had its quirks — a rooftop where residents grew stunted tomatoes and argued, every fall, about whose sauce recipe was legitimate; hallways that smelled of lemon disinfectant and simmered spices on different days of the week. These were the things that had nothing to do with elevators, except that they made the place feel like it belonged to people.
Owen eased himself over the wet threshold and let his jacket take the first of the drips. He shouldered his kit, felt the weight and the familiar clink of sockets and snap-locks, and moved to the metal door that kept elevators honest. His hands were used to cold steel and to making rigid things cooperate. He liked that his fingers could give order to a stubborn gauge; he preferred it to small talk.
Light from the lobby fell in a warm rectangle across the pattern of rugs, and two tenants stood under it as if it were a stage. One wore a ridiculous hat — a tower of patched felt, stitched with tiny bell-like trinkets — and the other was a woman with a tray of glasses and a face that had become expert at watching the building’s moods. A parrot, brilliant and loud, occupied a perch on the arm of a man in a threadbare coat. The bird squawked and mimicked the fluorescent hum of the lobby lights, then offered: “Hold fast! Hold—” and trailed off like someone who had nearly remembered a punchline.