Life Expectancy

this time.
        Nevertheless, she got out of me the stuff about Konrad Beezo. She is indefatigable.
        I didn't mention my grandfather's predictions. If I brought up that subject, I'd almost inevitably also tell her that back in the newspaper morgue at the library, I'd experienced a semi-precognitive moment of my own, a premonition-sharper than a hunch but fuzzy on the details-that she would be shot.
        I didn't see anything to be gained by alarming her, especially since my sudden sixth sense might be nothing but hooey, just a flare from an overheated imagination.
        Finished preparing explosives, the out-of-uniform motley fools lit and placed a series of Coleman lanterns to illuminate the chamber when the power failed. They didn't have enough of them to brighten the entire big room, just the end in which they would be working on the vault.
        Lorrie and I were left sitting at a distance. When the electric lights went off, we would be in shadows.
        Having absorbed my story, Lorrie brooded for a moment and then said,
        "Are all clowns so angry?"
        "I don't know a lot of clowns."
        "You know these three. And Konrad Beezo."
        "I never met Konrad Beezo. I was like five minutes old when our paths crossed."
        "I count it as a meet. So regarding clowns and anger, that's four for four. I'm bummed. It's like you meet the real Santa Claus and he turns out to have a drinking problem. You do still have the shiv?"
        "The what?" I asked.
        "The shiv."
        "You mean the nail file?"
        "If that's what you want to call it," she said.
        "That's what it is."
        "Whatever you say. When are you gonna make your move?"
        "When the time's right," I said patiently.
        "Let's hope that's before rather than after we're blown to smithereens."
        They had finished placing the five gas lanterns. One stood at the foot of the stairs, one at the middle of the long flight, and a third on the wide landing at the top, outside the back door to the vault.
        From a couple of large suitcases, Punchinello unpacked tools, welder's masks, and other items I couldn't identify from a distance.
        Honker and Crinkles muscled a wheeled tank of acetylene up the stairs to the landing.
        Lorrie said, "What kind of name is Punchinello?"
        "His father named him after a famous clown. You know, like Punch and Judy."
        "Punch and Judy are puppets."
        "Yes," I said, "but Punch is also a clown."
        "I didn't realize that."
        "He wears a sort of jester hat."
        She said, "I thought Punch was a car salesman."
        "Where did you get that idea?"
        "It's just always the impression I've had."
        "Punch and Judy shows go all the way back to the nineteenth century, maybe the eighteenth," I said. "There weren't cars then."
        "Well, who would want the same job for two centuries? Back then, before cars, he was probably a candle maker or a blacksmith."
        She is an enchantress. She casts a spell over you, and you find yourself wanting to see the world from her perspective.
        That's why I heard myself replying as if Punch were as real as she and I were: "He's not a candlemaking, blacksmithing sort of guy. That's just not him. He wouldn't be fulfilled in that kind of work. Besides, he wears a jester's hat."
        "The hat doesn't prove anything. He could have been a hip sort of blacksmith with a funky style." She frowned. "He's always going berserk and beating up Judy, isn't he? So that makes five."
        "Five what?"
        "Five angry clowns and no happy ones at all."
        "To be fair," I said, "Judy's always beating the crap out of him, too."
        "Is she a clown?"
        "I don't know. Maybe."
        "Well, Punch is her husband, so at the very least she's a clown by marriage. So that makes six of them, all angry. This is quite a revelation."
        Elsewhere in town, the transformer blew up. It must have been housed in an underground vault, for the rumble of the muffled blast seemed to translate laterally through the walls of the bank's subcellar.
        Instantly the electric lights went off. The farther end of the room glowed with lantern light, while Lorrie and I sat in gloom. in the spacious landing at the top of the stairs, Honker and Crinkles stood in welder's masks, full-body fireproof aprons, and flared-cuff asbestos gloves. With