Strangers

Custom Foam Packaging did not operate a late shift. The building itself was dark, but the road around it and the big truck lot behind were lit by sodium-vapor lamps that colored the night yellow.
        At the rear of the building, Jack turned left, into the truck lot, through drilling sleet that looked like molten gold under the big lamps. Two score of trailers, without cabs attached, stood in orderly ranks, like beheaded prehistoric beasts, all painted mustard by the fall of sodium light. He swung the rig in a wide circle, brought it in close to the back wall of the factory, doused the headlights, and drove parallel to the building, heading back toward the road that entered the lot and along which he had just come. He braked to a stop at the corner, close up against the factory wall, at a right angle to the branch road.
        "Brace yourselves," he said.
        Mort and Tommy already knew what was coming. Their feet were pressed flat up against the dashboard and their backs were jammed against the back of the seat, as protection against the impact.
        No sooner had Jack braked at the corner of the building - the Mack poised like a crouching cat anticipating a mouse - than a glow appeared on the passing road. The light approached from the right, from the front of the factory: the most out-reaching headlamp beams of the unseen but oncoming Ford van. The glow grew brighter, brighter still, and Jack tensed, trying to wait until the last best moment before pulling into the lane. Now the glow became two distinct parallel beams, lancing past the snout of the Mack, and the beams grew very bright. Finally Jack tramped hard on the accelerator, and the Mack lurched forward, but it was a big truck, not quick off the dime. The Ford, going faster than Jack had expected, shot past the corner, directly across the Mack's bow, and Jack surged forward in time to catch only the rear of it. But that was enough to send the small van into a spin. It whipped around 360 degrees, then again, on the icy surface of the parking lot, before crashing nose-first into one of the mustard-colored cargo trailers.
        Jack was sure that none of the men in the Ford was in any condition to come out of the wreck shooting, but he did not dawdle. He swung the Mack around and headed back past the side of Harkwright Custom Foam Packaging. When he reached the main service road, he turned right, away from the distant fratellanza warehouse, toward the entrance to the industrial park and the network of city streets beyond.
        They were not followed.
        He drove three miles by a direct route to an abandoned Texaco service station that they had scouted days ago. He pulled past the useless pumps and parked alongside the dilapidated little building.
        The moment Jack halted the rig, Tommy Sung threw open the door on his side, jumped out, and walked away into the darkness. He was heading for a lower-middle-class residential neighborhood three blocks away, where, on Monday, they had parked a dirty, rusted, battered Volkswagen Rabbit. The car was newer under the hood than it was outside - and fast. It would get them back to Manhattan, where they would dump it.
        They had also stashed an untraceable Pontiac in the industrial park on Monday, within a two-minute walk of the mob warehouse. They intended to hump the bags of money to the Pontiac, then drive the Pontiac here for the switch to the Rabbit. But alternate transportation had become essential, and the Pontiac had been left to rot where they stashed it.
        Jack and Mort heaved the sacks of money out of the Mack and stood them against the side wall of the shuttered service station, where the slanting sleet began to crust on the canvas. Mort climbed back in the cab and wiped down all the surfaces they might have touched.
        Jack stood by the bags, looking at the street beyond the end of the rig, where an occasional car crept past on the glistening pavement. None of the motorists would be interested in a truck parked at a long-abandoned service station. But if a police car cruised by on patrol…
        At last Tommy pulled in from the side street and parked between the rows of pumps. Mort grabbed two sacks, hustled them toward the car, slipped, fell, got right up, made for the Rabbit again. Dragging the other pair of bags, Jack followed with greater care. By the time Jack reached the Rabbit, Mort was already in the back seat. Jack threw the last bags in with