Life Expectancy

battlefield of limestone walls and ceiling, like spirits in a war between good and evil.
        This was one of those places where you wouldn't be surprised if Leatherface, from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, turned a corner and fired up his trademark weapon. He might have met his match in the killer clowns.
        "Tonight," Punchinello said as we approached the intersection where a right turn would take us to the library, "I will finally make my father proud, after failing him in everything else."
        "Oh, honey," Lorrie said, "don't be so hard on yourself. You seem to be a whiz on all the gun-knife-poison stuff."
        "That wasn't what mattered to him. All he wanted was for me to be a clown, the greatest clown of all time, a star, but I have no talent for it."
        "You're still young," Lorrie assured him. "Plenty of time to learn."
        "No, he's right," Honker said with apparent earnestness. "The boy has no talent for it. It's a genuine tragedy. His father's the Konrad Beezo, so he learned from the greatest, but he can't even do a good pratfall. I love you, Punch, but it's true."
        "No offense, Honker. I faced the truth long ago."
        At the intersection, we turned neither left nor right. I had my bearings now. Straight ahead would be the Snow Mansion, in front of which I had parked my Shelby Z, directly across the town square from the bank.
        Crinkles said, "I've been in the ring with Punch, done the exploding clown-car routine with him, the foot-in-the-bucket hokum, the rain-from-under-the-umbrella skit, even the mouse-in-the-pants number, which nobody can screw up-"
        "But I screw them all up," Punchinello said morosely.
        "The audience laughs at him," Honker revealed.
        "Aren't they supposed to laugh at a clown?" Lorrie asked.
        "This isn't good laughter," Punchinello said.
        "Really, miss, it's mean," Honker told Lorrie. "It's laughing at, not with."
        "How can you tell the difference?" she wondered.
        "Oh, lady," said Crinkles, "if you're a clown, you know."
        As we proceeded under Center Square Park, I was struck by these two men's change in attitude. They seemed less hostile toward us, positively chatty. Lorrie was now miss and lady instead of it.
        Maybe the three million dollars put them in a better mood. Maybe Punchinello had spoken to them, explained who I was; they might see us not as hostages any longer but as honorary clowns.
        Or perhaps they intended to waste us in the next few minutes and preferred to shoot people with whom they had formed a bond. Trying to think like a psychopath, I asked myself, What fun can it be, really, to shoot a virtual stranger?
        In a mood to flagellate himself, Punchinello revealed, "Instead of getting my foot stuck in the bucket, I once got my head stuck in the damn thing."
        "That sounds pretty funny," Lorrie said.
        "Not the way he did it," Honker assured her.
        "They booed," Punchinello said. "They booed me out of the big top that night."
        In front of the handcart, pulling as Honker pushed, wheezing, Crinkles said, "You're a good boy, Punch. That's what matters. I'd be proud if you were my son."
        "That's nice, Crinkles. That's really nice."
        Honker said, "What's so great about being a clown, anyway? Even when rubes are laughing with you, they're also laughing at you, and the fringe benefits suck."
        At the end of the passageway, we arrived at another formidable oak door with iron banding. Beyond lay the subcellar of the Snow Mansion.
        The three men produced powerful flashlights with which they revealed this space. The most salient details were the explosive charges set strategically around the enormous room, at the bases of support columns, detonators already inserted.
        I assumed the fourth key point in the town square-the county courthouse-was likewise wired to blow. Quiet little Snow Village was going to be big news.
        Bakers are a curious bunch, especially when something in a recipe doesn't seem right, so I asked Punchinello, "Why flashlights here but candles in the tunnels?"
        "Candles were so authentic out there," he explained. "I am a connoisseur of the authentic wherever it can be found, which is less often every day in this increasingly plastic, polyester world."
        "I don't understand."
        He regarded me with what might have been pity when he said,