Strangers

complete sets of sophisticated false IDs - driver's licenses, birth certificates, Social Security cards, credit cards, passports, even library cards - in eight names, including "Thornton Bains Wainwright," and he always employed an alias when planning and executing a heist. But he worked anonymously that Sunday afternoon, portioning out another hundred thousand dollars to startled recipients all over Manhattan. The largest gift was fifteen thousand to a young sailor and his bride of one day, whose battered old Plymouth had broken down on Central Park South, near the statue of Simon Bolivar. "Get a new car," Jack told them as he stuffed money into their hands and playfully stuck a wad of bills under the sailor's hat. "And if you're wise, you won't tell anyone about this, especially not the newspapers. That'll just bring the IRS down on you. No, you don't need to know my name, and there's no need to thank me. Just be kind to each other, all right? Always be kind to each other, because we never know how much time we have on this world."
        In less than an hour, Jack gave away the entire hundred thousand that he had taken from the secret compartment in the back of his bedroom closet. With plenty of time on his hands, he bought a bouquet of coral-red roses and drove out to Westchester County, an hour from the city, to the memorial park in which Jenny had been buried over two weeks ago.
        Jack had not wanted to put her to rest in one of the city's crowded and grim cemeteries. Although he knew he was being sentimental, he felt that the only suitable resting place for his Jenny was in open country, where there would be expansive green grassy slopes and shade trees in the summer and peaceful vistas of snow in the winter.
        He arrived at the memorial park shortly before twilight. Although the uniform headstones were set flush with the earth, with no features to distinguish one from another, and although most of them were covered with snow, Jack went directly to Jenny's plot, the location of which was branded on his heart.
        While the dreary day faded into a drearier dusk, in a world colorless except for the blazing roses, Jack sat in the snow, oblivious of the dampness and cold, and spoke to Jenny as he had spoken to her during her years in a coma. He told her about the Guardmaster heist yesterday, about giving away all the money. As the curtain of twilight pulled down the heavier drape of night, the memorial park's security guard began driving slowly around the grounds, warning the few late visitors that the gates would soon close. Finally Jack stood and took one last look at Jenny's name cast in bronze letters on the headstone plaque, now illuminated by the vaguely bluish light of one of the streetlamps that lined the park's main drive. "I'm changing, Jenny, and I'm still not sure why. It feels good, right… but also sort of strange." What he said next surprised him: "Something big is going to happen, Jenny. I don't know what, but something big is going to happen to me." He suddenly sensed that his newfound guilt and subsequent peace with society were only the beginning steps of a great journey that would take him places he could not yet imagine. "Something big is going to happen," he repeated, "and I sure wish you were here with me, Jenny."
        

        
        The blue Nevada sky had been armoring itself with dark storm clouds ever since Ernie, Ned, and Dom had begun boarding up the diner's broken windows. Hours later, when Dom drove his rental car to the Elko airport to pick up Ginger Weiss, the world turned under a gloomy light, girdled in battlefield gray. He was too restless to wait inside the small terminal. He stood on the windswept tarmac, huddled in his heavy winter jacket,, so he heard the twin engines of the ten-seat commuter craft even before he saw it descend through the low clouds. The roar of the engines contributed to the mood of impending warfare, and Dom realized uneasily that, in a sense, they were assembling their army; war against their unknown enemy loomed nearer day by day.
        The plane taxied within eighty feet of the terminal, and Dr. Weiss was the fourth passenger to disembark. Even in a bulky, thoroughly unattractive carcoat, she looked petite and beautiful. The wind made a streaming banner of her silky silver-blond hair.
        Dom hurried toward her; she stopped and put down her bags. They hesitated, staring at each other in silence, with a peculiar