he tiger.

Dolan.

The old.

"Elizabeth, help me!" I groaned.

Darling, that man has never owned a green Cadillac in his life. He never would. Of course it,s not him.

The pain in my head cleared away. I was able to get to my feet and get my thumb out.

It wasn,t the old people, and it wasn,t Dolan, either. It was what looked like twelve Vegas chorines crowded in with one old boy who was wearing the biggest cowboy hat and the darkest Foster Grants I,d ever seen. One of the chorines mooned me as the green Cadillac went fishtailing onto the detour.

Slowly, feeling entirely washed out, I raised the binoculars again.

And saw him coming.

There was no mistaking that Cadillac as it came around the curve at the far end of my uninterrupted view of the road it was as gray as the sky overhead, but it stood out with startling clarity against the dull brown rises of land to the east.

It was him Dolan. My long moments of doubt and indecision seemed both remote and foolish in an instant. It was Dolan, and I didn,t have to see that gray Cadillac to know it.

I didn,t know if he could smell me, but I could smell him.

Knowing he was on the way made it easier to pick up my aching legs and run.

I got back to the big DETOUR sign and shoved it face down into the ditch. I shook a sand-coloured piece of canvas over it, then pawed loose sand over its support posts. The overall effect wasn,t as good as the fake strip of road, but I thought it would serve.

Now I ran up the second rise to where I had left the van, which was just another part of the picture now a vehicle temporarily abandoned by the owner, who had gone off somewhere to either get a new tire or have an old one fixed.

I got into the cab and stretched out across the seat, my heart thumping. Again, time seemed to stretch out. I lay there listening for the engine and the sound didn,t come and didn,t come and didn,t come.

They turned off. He caught wind of you at the last moment anyway... or something looked hinky, either to him or to one of his men... and they turned Off.

I lay on the seat, my back throbbing in long, slow waves, my eyes squinched tightly shut as if that would somehow help me hear better.

Was that an engine?

No just the wind, now blowing hard enough to drive an occasional sheet of sand against the side of the van.

Not coming. Turned off or turned back.

Just the wind.

Turned off or turned b¡­ No, it was not just the wind. It was a motor, the sound of it was swelling, and a few seconds later a vehicle one single vehicle rushed past me.

I sat up and grabbed the wheel I had to grab something and stared out through the windshield, my eyes bulging, my tongue caught between my teeth.

The gray Cadillac floated down the hill toward the flat stretch, doing fifty or maybe a little more. The brake lights never went on. Not even at the end. They never saw it; never had so much as the slightest idea.

What happened was this: all at once the Cadillac seemed to be driving through the road instead of on it. This illusion was so persuasive that I felt a moment of confused vertigo even though I had created the illusion myself. Dolan,s Cadillac was hubcap-deep in Route 71, and then it was up to the door-panels. A bizarre thought occurred to me: if the GM company made luxury submarines, this is what they would look like going down.

I could hear thin snapping sounds as the struts supporting the canvas broke under the car. I could hear the sound of canvas rippling and ripping.

All of it happened in only three seconds, but they are three seconds I will remember my whole life.

I had an impression of the Cadillac now running with only its roof and the top two or three inches of the polarized windows visible, and then there was a big toneless thud and the sound of breaking glass and crimping metal. A large puff of dust rose in the air and the wind pulled it apart.