Strangers

the Guardmaster armored transport.
        He looked at his watch. Nine-thirty-eight. It was right on schedule, as it had been every night for a week. Even with the holiday tomorrow, the truck kept to its route. Guardmaster Security was nothing if not reliable.
        On the ground beside Jack was an attaché case. He lifted the lid. The blue numerals of a digital scanner were locked on the Guardmaster's open radio link to the company dispatcher. Even with his state-of-the-art equipment, he had needed three nights to discover the truck's frequency. He turned the volume dial on his own receiver. Static crackled, hissed. Then he was rewarded by a routine exchange between the driver and the distant dispatcher.
        "Three-oh-one," the dispatcher said.
        "Reindeer," the driver said.
        "Rudolph," the dispatcher said.
        "Rooftop," the driver said.
        The hiss and crackle of static settled in once more.
        The dispatcher had opened the exchange with the truck's number, and the rest of it had been the day's code which served as confirmation that 301 was on schedule and in no trouble of any kind.
        Jack switched off his receiver. The lighted dials went dark.
        The armored transport passed less than two hundred feet from his position on the knoll, and he turned to watch its dwindling taillights.
        He was confident of Guardmaster's 301's schedule now, and he would not be returning to these fields until the night of the stickup, which was tentatively scheduled for Saturday, January 11. Meanwhile, there was a great deal more planning to be done.
        Ordinarily, planning a job was nearly as exciting and satisfying as the actual commission of the crime. But as he left the knoll and headed toward the houses to the southwest, where he had parked his car on a quiet street, he felt no elation, no thrill. He was losing the ability to take delight in even the contemplation of a crime.
        He was changing. And he did not know why.
        As he drew near the first houses to the southwest of the knoll, he became aware that the night had grown brighter. He looked up. The moon swelled fat on the horizon, so huge it seemed to be crashing to earth, an illusion of enormousness created by the odd perspective of the early stages of the satellite's ascension. He stopped abruptly and stood with his head tilted back, staring up at the luminous lunar surface. A chill seized him, an inner iciness unrelated to the winter cold.
        "The moon," he said softly.
        Hearing himself speak those words aloud, Jack shuddered violently. Inexplicable fear welled in him. He was gripped by an irrational urge to run and hide from the moon, as if its luminescence were corrosive and would, like an acid, dissolve him as he stood bathed in it.
        The compulsion to flee passed in a minute. He could not understand why the moon had so suddenly terrified him. It was only the ancient and familiar moon of love songs and romantic poetry. Strange.
        He headed toward the car again. The looming lunar face still made him uneasy, and several times he glanced up at it, perplexed.
        However, by the time he got in the car, drove into New Haven, and picked up Interstate 95, that curious incident had faded from his mind. He was once more preoccupied with thoughts of Jenny, his comatose wife, whose condition haunted him more than usual at Christmastime.
        Later, in his apartment, as he stood by a big window, staring out at the great city, a bottle of Becks in one hand, he was sure that from 261st Street to Park Row, from Bensonhurst to Little Neck, there could be no one in the Metropolis whose Christmas Eve was lonelier than his.
        

    7.
        

    Christmas Day
        
        Elko County, Nevada.
        Sandy Sarver woke soon after dawn came to the high plains. The early sun glimmered vaguely at the bedroom windows of the house trailer. The world was so still that it seemed time must have stopped.
        She could turn over and go back to sleep if she so desired, for she had eight more days of vacation ahead of her. Ernie and Faye Block had closed the Tranquility Motel and had gone to visit their grandchildren in Milwaukee. The adjacent Tranquility Grille, which Sandy operated with her husband, Ned, was also closed over the holidays.
        But Sandy knew she could not get back to sleep, for she was wide awake - and horny. She stretched like a cat beneath the