Life Expectancy

might have a lower cost than acquiescence.
        Funny how so much windy philosophy could be inspired by a little puke.
        One man's regurgitation, even if it might give rise in him to some remorse, couldn't stop the ticking of a single detonator. We must have had at most a minute or two until the works of Cornelius Rutherford Snow fell into ruin nearly as complete as the empire of Ozymandias.
        "Gimme," Lorrie said.
        "What?"
        "The gun."
        I hadn't realized I still had the pistol.
        "Why?" I asked.
        "I don't know which pocket he put the key in."
        We didn't have time to search the pockets in his pants, coat, and shirt. Considering the vomit, we didn't have the inclination, either.
        I failed to understand what the gun had to do with the handcuff key. I worried that she would hurt herself, so I decided not to give her the pistol.
        Then I realized that she had already taken it out of my hand.
        "You've already taken it out of my hand," I said, and my voice sounded slurred.
        "Better turn your face away," she warned, "there might be shrapnel."
        "I think I like shrapnel," I replied, unable to remember what the word meant.
        She fumbled with the gun, squinting at it in the dark.
        "I don't think I hurt as much as I used to hurt," I told her. "Now I'm mostly cold."
        "That's bad," she said worriedly.
        "I've been cold before," I assured her.
        Punchinello groaned, shuddered, and began to upchuck on himself again.
        "Have we been drinking?" I wondered.
        "Turn your face away," Lorrie repeated, this time sharply.
        "Don't talk so mean to me. I love you."
        "Yeah, well, we always hurt the one we love," she said, grabbing a fistful of my hair and pulling my face away from the handcuffs.
        "That's sad," I said, meaning that we always hurt the one we love, and then I discovered I was lying on the sidewalk and must have fallen.
        "Lummox."
        A gun boomed, and I didn't realize until later that she'd put the muzzle of the pistol against the links of chain that connected one handcuff to the other, and had freed herself from Punchinello with that shot.
        "On your feet," she urged me. "Come on, come on."
        "I'll lay here till I'm sober."
        "You'll lay there till you're dead."
        "No, that's too long."
        She cajoled me, she cursed me, she commanded me, pushed and yanked and pulled, and the next thing I knew, I was on my feet, leaning on her, moving between the van and my Shelby Z, into the street, away from the mansion.
        "How is your leg?"
        "What leg?"
        "I mean what about the pain?"
        "I think we left him back there on the sidewalk."
        "God, you're a hulk," she said.
        "I'm a little husky, that's all."
        "It's all right, it's okay. Lean on me. Come on."
        In a voice now as thick as English custard, I said, "Are we going to the park?"
        "That's right."
        "Picnic?"
        "That's right. And we're late, let's hurry."
        I peered past Lorrie, toward the sound of an approaching engine.
        Headlights washed across us. An array of revolving blue and yellow beacons on the roof indicated that it was either a police cruiser or an intergalactic vehicle.
        The car slid to a halt, doors flew open, and two men got out about fifteen feet away. One of them said, "What's going on here?"
        "This man is shot," Lorrie told them. I wondered who she was talking about. Before I could ask she said, "We need an ambulance."
        The cops approached warily. "Where's the shooter?"
        "Over there on the sidewalk. He's hurt, doesn't have a gun anymore."
        When the officers moved toward Punchinello, Lorrie shouted, "No! Stay back. The building's going to blow."
        In my condition, her warning was mystifying; it didn't seem to make sense to the police, either. They hurried toward Punchinello, who lay half revealed in the backwash of the squad-car lights.
        With single-minded determination, Lorrie kept me moving toward the park.
        "Too cold for a picnic," I said. "So cold."
        "We'll build a bonfire. Just move."
        My teeth chattered, and words shivered out of me: "Will there be p-p-potato salad?"
        "Yes. Plenty of potato salad." "The p-p-pickly kind?" "Yes, that's right, keep moving." "I hate the