* * *
“I pretty much keep myself to myself,” Lilly said. They had come out into the night air and were turning off Fourth into a passage that connected through to the late-night lights around Market Place. There was a moment’s hesitation, as if she were unsure about confiding something. “I guess I don’t really relate much to most of the people you meet these days. Things seem to change faster and faster. Not a lot of it makes sense anymore.”
Her words mirrored his own situation perfectly. Was that what she had somehow recognized, and why she was showing such interest in a bartender? “I know what you mean,” he said.
“Yes, I think you do. I don’t feel that with people very often.” She glanced sideways at him as they walked. There was more than idle curiosity at work. “You must meet all kinds in a job like yours.”
“You saw a few of them yourself tonight.”
“But you don’t just see them,” Lilly said. “You seem to see into them, as well. I was watching.”
“I know you were,” Corrigan answered. “So that makes you a bit of the same yourself, doesn’t it?” Lilly conceded with the quick smile of somebody being caught out, at the same time managing to convey that it was because she was not used to it. Compared to the empty stares and clumsy gropings to extract meaning that he saw every day, it felt like communication bordering on mind reading.
A promotional scouting robot spotted them as they came out into Market Place and rolled across to intercept them, flashing colored lights and logos of nearby places that were open late. “Hello, there! Enjoying the city late tonight?” it greeted jovially. “For your further entertainment we have Jermyn’s cabaret bar less than half a block from here, still open for drinks, dancing, and shows until dawn. Getting hungry? The Lilac Slipper offers the best in contemporary and traditional Cantonese cuisine, ten-percent discount for Pirates. Or, for more erotic tastes, ho-ho . . .”
Lilly sighed. “Maybe I could pass on having that coffee out. I’ll fix you one at home. How does that sound?”
“Sounds good,” Corrigan said. “How far is it?”
“Over the river, north. We’ll need a cab. Do you have a compad? I’m not carrying one.”
“I hardly ever use them.” Corrigan looked at the robot. “Can you call us a cab?”
“Sorry, I just make reservations. But why do you want to leave? It’s Saturday night. You want to be part of the scene, right?”
“Wrong.” Corrigan steered Lilly away to search for a pay booth. The robot pursued them, babbling tenaciously, until a mixed group of people appeared on the far side of the street, and one of them called it away.
“Aren’t you into being part of the scene?” Lilly said it in a light, mocking tone that combined several wavelengths—phrasing it as a question, but simultaneously telling him that she already knew and understood his answer because they both recognized and laughed at the same absurdities.
“Guilty,” Corrigan replied.
“You don’t need to find yourself?”
“I wasn’t aware that I ever lost myself.”
“But that’s terrible.”
“Now you know the worst.”
They both laughed. She slipped her arm loosely through his.
There was a gift store, with various curios and Pittsburgh mementos in the window. Suddenly Corrigan stopped and stared in at them. “What is it?” Lilly asked.
He pointed to a figure of an Irish leprechaun, identical, as far as he could judge, to the one in his hallway back at the flat. “That’s Mick. He keeps popping up wherever I go. Do you know, I’ve one the same as that at home. It was a wedding present.”
“Was that to the wife who left yesterday?”
“No, there was one other before—a while back, now.”
“Maybe he’s haunting you,” Lilly said. “Can you have leprechaun ghosts?”
“Well, if it’s a crock of gold that he’s after, he’s wasting his time haunting me,” Corrigan said.
They resumed walking. “So, when you see into people, what things do you see?” Lilly asked, getting serious again and picking up their earlier subject.
Corrigan thought back to Wilbur, Oliver, and Delia. “Oh, the strange ways they go about trying to get what they want,” he replied.