walked back to the van and got my shovel.

When I got back he was saying "Robinson? Robinson? Robinson?" like a man speaking into a dead phone.

"I,m here," I said. "You talk. I,ll listen. And when you,re finished I may make a counter-proposal."

When he spoke, he sounded more cheerful. If I was talking counterproposals, I was talking deal. And if I was talking deal, he was already halfway to being out.

"I,m offering you a million dollars to let me out of here. But, just as important¡­"

I tossed a shovelful of gritty till down on the rear deck of the Cadillac. Pebbles bounced and rattled off the small rear window. Dirt sifted into the line of the trunk-lid.

"What are you doing?" His voice was sharp with alarm.

"Idle hands do the devil,s work," I said. "I thought I,d keep mine busy while I listened."

I dug into the dirt again and threw in another shovelful.

Now Dolan spoke faster, his voice more urgent.

"A million dollars and my personal guarantee that no one will ever touch you... not me, not my men, not anyone else,s men."

My hands didn,t hurt any more. It was amazing. I shoveled steadily, and in no more than five minutes, the Cadillac,s rear deck was drifted deep in dirt. Putting it in, even by hand, was certainly easier than taking it out.

I paused, leaning on the shovel for a moment.

"Keep talking."

"Look, this is crazy," he said, and now I could hear bright splinters of panic in his voice. "I mean it,s just crazy."

"You got that right," I said, and shoveled in more dirt.

He held on longer than I thought any man could, talking, reasoning, cajoling yet becoming more and more disjointed as the sand and dirt piled up over the rear window, repeating himself, backtracking, beginning to stutter. At one point the passenger door opened as far as it could and banged into the sidewall of the excavation. I saw a hand with black hair on the knuckles and a big ruby ring on the second finger. I sent down a quick four shovelfuls of loose earth into the opening. He screamed curses and yanked the door shut again.

He broke not long after. It was the sound of the dirt coming down that finally got to him, I think. Sure it was. The sound would have been very loud inside the Cadillac. The dirt and stones rattling onto the roof and falling past the window. He must have finally realized he was sitting in an upholstered eight-cylinder fuel-injected coffin.

"Get me out!" he shrieked. "Please! I can,t stand it! Get me out!"

"You ready for that counter-proposal?" I asked.

"Yes! Yes! Christ! Yes! Yes! Yes!"

"Scream. That,s the counter-proposal. That,s what I want. Scream for me. If you scream loud enough, I,ll let you out."

He screamed piercingly.

"That was good!" I said, and I meant it. "But it was nowhere near good enough."

I began to dig again, throwing fan after fan of dirt over the roof of the Cadillac. Disintegrating clods ran down the windshield and filled the windshield-wiper slot.

He screamed again, even louder, and I wondered if it was possible for a man to scream loud enough to rupture his own larynx.

"Not bad!" I said, redoubling my efforts. I was smiling in spite of my throbbing back. "You might get there, Dolan you really might."

"Five million." It was the last coherent thing he said.

"I think not," I replied, leaning on the shovel and wiping sweat off my forehead with the heel of one grimy hand. The dirt covered the roof of the car almost from side to side now. It looked like a starburst... or a large brown hand clasping Dolan,s Cadillac. "But if you can make a sound come out of your mouth which is as loud, let me say, as eight sticks of dynamite taped to the ignition switch of a 1968 Chevrolet, then I will get you out, and you may count on it."