Life Expectancy

black book to record the phone numbers of all my conquests. I didn't even need a page from a little black book. A Post-it note would do.
        One of the half-size Post-its you stick to the fridge as a reminder: just room enough to print BUY CARROTS FOR DINNER.
        Here I had the clearest shot that Cupid was ever likely to give me- chained to the most beautiful woman I'd ever met-and I couldn't take advantage of the moment, couldn't woo her and win her, for the stupid reason that I wanted to live.
        "We'll get an opportunity," I told her, "and when it comes, we'll take it. But it's got to be something a lot better than the female-emergency gimmick."
        "Like what?"
        "Something that'll give us an edge."
        "Such as?"
        "Something. I don't know. Something."
        "We can't just wait," she said.
        "Yeah, we can."
        "We're just waiting to die."
        "No," I said, pretending I was analyzing the situation, seeking advantages, instead of vamping in hope of a miracle. "I'm waiting for the right opportunity."
        "You're going to get us killed," she predicted.
        I threw some withering scorn at her: "What happened to the indefatigable optimist?"
        "You're smothering her."
        She had lobbed the scorn back at me so fast that my face was flushed and burning with it before I fully realized I'd taken the hitting two stories under the evil streets and surrounded 'by the evil earth of Snow Village, we watched Honker, Crinkles, and the nameless maniac plant explosives at key structural points and plug timers into the charges.
        You might think that our terror sharpened by the minute. I speak from much experience when I say that it isn't possible to sustain terror at a peak for long periods of time.
        If monstrous misfortune can be called a disease, terror is a symptom of it. Like any symptom, it is not expressed continuously to the same degree, but waxes and wanes. Sick with the flu, you don't vomit every minute of the day and are not in the throes of diarrhea from dawn to dusk.
        That may be a disgusting analogy, but it's apt and vivid. I'm glad I didn't think of it while chained to those chairs with Lorrie, because in my eagerness to patch things up with her and break the frigid silence between us, I probably would have blurted it out just to have something to say.
        I soon discovered that Lorrie wasn't one to gild an offense or nurse her anger. In perhaps two minutes, she broke the silence and became my chum and co-conspirator once more.
        "Crinkles is the weak link," she said softly.
        I loved her throaty voice, but I wished that she would use it to say something that made sense.
        At that moment Crinkles was packing plastic explosives around the base of a ceiling-support column. He handled the boom clay with no more trepidation than a child playing with Silly Putty.
        "He doesn't look like a weak link, but maybe you're right," I said by way of conciliation.
        "Trust me, he is."
        Now with both hands busy shaping explosives, Crinkles held a detonator in his teeth.
        "Do you know why he's the weak link?" Lorrie asked.
        "I'm eager to hear."
        "He likes me."
        I counted to five before replying, the better to ensure that my voice was free of an argumentative tone. "He wants to kill you."
        "Before that."
        "Before what?"
        "Before he asked the grinning feeb if he could kill me, he very distinctly expressed a romantic interest."
        This time I counted to seven. "The way I remember it," I said in a tone that I hoped might be taken for cheerful reminiscence, "he wanted to rape you."
        "You don't rape someone you don't find attractive."
        "Actually, you do. It happens all the time."
        "Maybe you would," she said, "but not most men."
        "Rape isn't about sex," I explained. "It's about power."
        She frowned at me. "Why do you find it so hard to believe that Crinkles might think I'm cute?"
        Only after I got to ten did I say, "You are cute. You're beyond cute.
        You're gorgeous. But Crinkles isn't the kind of guy who falls in love."
        "Do you mean that?"
        "Absolutely. Crinkles is the kind of guy who falls in hate."
        "No, I mean the other part."
        "What other part?"
        "The cute-beyond-cute-gorgeous part."
        "You're the most amazing-looking