Life Expectancy

reached our goal.
        Or we could make our way across the room with stealth foremost in mind, which would require us to move as slowly as Siamese twins negotiating a minefield. Judging by the average length of time that he had thus far been absent when extracting additional issues from the files, we would not reach the purse before he returned.
        As if my thoughts were as clear to her as the lunacy in my eyes, she said, "That's not what I had in mind. I'm thinking if I claim a female emergency, he'll let me have my purse."
        Female emergency.
        Maybe it was the shock of living out my grandfather's prediction or maybe it was the persistent memory of the librarian being shot, but I couldn't get my mind around the meaning of those two words.
        Aware of my befuddlement, as she seemed to be aware of every electrical current leaping across every synapse in my brain, Lorrie said, "If I tell him I'm having my period and I desperately need a tampon, I'm sure he'll do the gentlemanly thing and give me my purse."
        "He's a murderer," I reminded her.
        "But he doesn't seem to be a particularly rude murderer."
        "He shot Lionel Davis in the head."
        "That doesn't mean he's incapable of courtesy."
        "I wouldn't bet the bank on it," I said.
        She squinched her face in annoyance and still looked darned good. "I hope to God you're not a congenital pessimist. That would be just too much-held hostage by a librarian killer and shackled to a congenital pessimist."
        I didn't want to be disagreeable. I wanted her to like me. Every guy wants a good-looking woman to like him. Nevertheless, I could not accept her characterization of me.
        "I'm not a pessimist. I'm a realist."
        She sighed. "That's what every pessimist says."
        "You'll see," I said lamely. "I'm not a pessimist."
        "I'm an indefatigable optimist," she informed me. "Do you know what that means-indefatigable?"
        "The words baker and illiterate aren't synonyms," I assured her.
        "You're not the only reader and thinker in Snow Village."
        "So what does it mean-indefatigable?"
        "Incapable of being fatigued. Persistent."
        "Tireless," she stressed. "I'm a tireless optimist."
        "It's a fine line between an optimist and a Pollyanna."
        Fifty feet away, having left the room earlier, the killer returned to his table with an armload of yellowing newspapers.
        Lorrie eyed him with predatory calculation. "When the moment's right," she whispered, "I'm going to tell him I've got a female emergency and need my purse."
        "Sharp or not, a nail file isn't much use against a gun," I protested.
        "There you go again. Congenital pessimism. That can't be a good thing even in a baker. If you expect all your cakes to fall, they will."
        "My cakes never fall."
        She raised one eyebrow. "So you say."
        "You think you can stab him in the heart and just stop him like a clock?" I asked with enough disdain to get my point across but not sarcastically enough to alienate her from the possibility that we could have dinner together if we survived the day.
        "Stop his heart? Of course not. Second best would be to go for the neck, sever the carotid artery. First choice would be to put out an eye."
        She looked like a dream and talked like a nightmare.
        I was probably guilty of gaping again. I know I sputtered: "Put out an eye?"
        "Drive it deep enough, and you might even damage the brain," she said, nodding as if in somber agreement with herself. "He'd have an instant convulsion, drop the gun, and if he didn't drop it, he'd be so devastated, we could easily just take the pistol out of his hand."
        "Oh my God, you're going to get us killed."
        "There you go again," she said.
        "Listen," I tried to reason with her, "when the crunch came, you wouldn't have the stomach to do something like that."
        "I certainly would, to save my life."
        Alarmed by her calm conviction, I insisted, "You'd flinch at the last moment."
        "I never flinch from anything."
        "Have you ever stabbed someone in the eye before?"
        "No. But I can clearly picture myself doing it."
        I couldn't suppress the sarcasm any longer: "What are you, a professional assassin or something?"
        She frowned. "Keep your voice down. I'm a dance