Strangers

I'd ever thought I could. In a way, you changed my life."
        Closing the trunk lid, locking it, handing the keys to Dom (who had already put Marcie in the car), Ginger said, "Jorja, I'm flattered. But you're giving me much too much credit. You changed your own life."
        "It wasn't what you did that day," Jorja said. "It's what you were. You were exactly the role model I needed."
        Embarrassed, the physician said, "Good God! No one's ever called me a role model before! Oh, honey, you're definitely unbalanced!"
        "Ignore her," Dom told Jorja. "She's the best role model I've ever seen. Her humble mutterings are pure shmontses.
        Ginger Weiss whirled on him, laughing. "Shmontses?"
        Dom grinned. "I'm a writer, so it's my job to listen and absorb. I hear a good expression, I use it. Can't fault me for doing my job."
        "Shmontses, huh?" Ginger Weiss said, pretending anger.
        Still grinning, the writer said, "If the Yiddish fits, wear it."
        That was the moment when Jorja knew Dominick Corvaisis' heart was already claimed and that she would have to exclude him from any romantic fantasies she might cook up in the future. The spark of desire and glimmer of deep affection shone brightly in his eyes when he looked at Ginger Weiss. The same heat warmed the physician's gaze. The funny thing was, neither Dom nor Ginger appeared quite to realize the true power of their feelings for each other. Not quite yet, butsoon.
        They drove out of Elko, toward the Tranquility, thirty miles to the west. As twilight faded toward night in the east, Dom and Ginger told Jorja what had happened prior to her and Marcie's arrival. Jorja found it increasingly difficult to hold the good mood she'd been in since stepping off the plane. As they sped through the gloom-mantled barrens, with craggy and threatening black mountains thrusting up at the horizon under a blood-dark sky, Jorja wondered if this place was, as she had thought, the threshold of a new beginning… or a doorway to the grave.
        

        
        After the Lear landed in Salt Lake City, Utah, Jack Twist quickly transferred to a chartered Cessna Turbo Skylane RG piloted by a polite but tight-lipped man with a huge handlebar mustache. They arrived in Elko, Nevada, at four-fifty-three, in the last light of day.
        The airport was too small to have Hertz and Avis counters, but a local entrepreneur operated a modest little taxi company. Jack had the cab take him - and his three big suitcases - to a local Jeep dealership, where they were getting ready to close, and where he startled the salesman by paying cash for a four-wheel-drive Cherokee wagon.
        To this point, Jack, took no evasive action to shake off a tail or even to determine if he had one. His adversaries clearly possessed great power and resources, and regardless of how frantically he tried to elude them, they would have sufficient manpower to keep tabs on a lone target trying to escape on foot or by taxi in a town as small as Elko.
        Once the Cherokee was his, Jack drove away from the dealership, and for the first time he looked for a tail. He glanced repeatedly at the rearview and side mirrors, but he spotted no suspicious vehicles.
        He went directly to an Arco Mini-Mart that he had noticed during the taxi ride from the airport. He parked at the dark end of the lot, beyond the reach of the are lamps, got out of the wagon, and surveyed the shadowy street behind for an indication of a pursuer.
        He saw no one.
        That didn't mean they weren't out there.
        In the Mini-Mart, the blindingly excessive fluorescent lighting and chrome display fixtures made him long for the good old days of quaint corner groceries operated by immigrant couples who spoke with appealing accents, where the air would have been redolent of Mama's homemade baked goods and Papa's made-to-order deli sandwiches. Here, the only aromas were a vague trace of disinfectant and the thin odor of ozone coming off the motors of refrigerated display cases. Squinting in the glare, Jack bought a map of the county, a flashlight, a quart of milk, two packages of dried beef, a little box of small chocolate doughnuts - and, on a morbid impulse, something called a "Hamwich," which was "a guaranteed delicious onepiece sandwich of pulverized, blended, remolded ham paste, bread, and spices," and which was claimed to be especially "convenient for hikers, campers,