Life Expectancy

earlier, in the street. In fact it was a warmer and even more adorable smile than the one I'd received.
        "Why are you whispering?" he asked.
        "It's a library," she whispered.
        "The usual rules have been suspended."
        "Are you the librarian?" she asked him.
        "Me-a librarian? No. In fact-"
        "Then you can't possibly have the authority to suspend the rules," she said, speaking softly but no longer in a whisper.
        "This gives me the authority," he declared, and fired a round into the ceiling.
        She glanced at the front windows, where the street was visible only in a succession of wedges between the half-closed "Venetian blinds. When she looked next at me, I saw that she was disappointed, as I had been, by the pathetic volume of the shot. The walls, padded by books, absorbed the sound. Outside, it might have been not much louder than a muffled cough.
        Giving no indication that his casual gunfire rattled her, she said,
        "May I put these books down somewhere? They're quite an armful."
        With the pistol, he indicated a reading table. "There."
        As the woman put down the books, the killer went to the door and locked it, always keeping an eye on us.
        "I don't mean to criticize," the woman said, "and I'm sure you know your business better than I do, but you're wrong about needing only one hostage."
        She was so dangerously appealing to the eye that under other circumstances, she could have reduced any guy to his most deeply stupid state of desire. Already, however, I found myself more interested in what she had to say than I was in her figure, more fascinated by her chutzpah than by her radiant face.
        The maniac seemed to share my fascination. By his expression, anyone could see that she had charmed him. His killer smile became more luminous.
        When he spoke to her, his voice had no bite to it, no trace of sarcasm:
        "You have a theory or something about hostages?"
        She shook her head. "Not a theory. Just a practical observation. If you wind up in a showdown with the police and you have only one hostage, how are you going to convince them you would actually kill the person, that you're not bluffing?"
        "How?" he and I asked simultaneously.
        "You couldn't make them believe you," she said. "Not beyond a shadow of a doubt. So they might try to rush you, in which case both you and the hostage wind up dead."
        "I can be pretty convincing," he assured her in a mellower tone that suggested he might be thinking of asking her for a date.
        "If I was a cop, I wouldn't believe you for a minute. You're too cute to be a killer." To me, she said, "Isn't he too cute?"
        I almost said I didn't think he was that cute, so you can see what I mean by her bringing out the deeply stupid in a guy.
        "But if you had two hostages," she continued, "you could kill one to prove the sincerity of your threat, and after that the second would be a reliable shield. No cop would dare test you twice."
        He stared at her for a moment. "You're some piece of work," he said at last, and clearly meant to compliment her.
        "Well," she replied, indicating the stack of books that she had just returned, "I'm a reader and a thinker, that's all."
        "What's your name?" he asked.
        "Lorrie."
        "Lorrie what?"
        "Lorrie Lynn Hicks," she said. "And you are?"
        He opened his mouth, almost told her his name, then smiled and said,
        "I'm a man of mystery."
        "And a man with a mission, by the look of it."
        "I've already killed the librarian," he told her, as if murder were a resume enhancement.
        "I was sort of afraid you had," she said.
        I cleared my throat. "My name is James."
        "Hi, Jimmy," she said, and though she smiled, I saw in her eyes a terrible sadness and desperate calculation.
        "Go stand beside him," the maniac ordered.
        Lorrie came to me. She smelled as good as she looked: fresh, clean, lemony.
        "Cuff yourself to him."
        As she locked the empty ring around her left wrist, thereby linking our fates, I felt I should say something to comfort her, in response to the desperation I'd glimpsed in her eyes. Wit failed me, and I could only say, "You smell like lemons."
        "I've spent the day making homemade lemon marmalade. I intended to have the first of it tonight, on