Fackelmann's scam, the wraith returns (p. 934)
while it gets later and later and the sad kid is trying to scream at Gately that the important thing was buried in the guy’s head and to divert the Continental Emergency to start digging the guy’s head up before it’s too late, but the kid moves his mouth but nothing comes out […] the sad kid holds something terrible up by the hair and makes the face of somebody shouting in panic: Too Late.
Context
The grave-dream (the third leg of the novel's head-digging triangle, with scenes 003 and 178) has a clock in it: "later and later," "before it's too late," and the closing verdict mouthed in silence — Too Late. The dream's machinery belongs to dreams and entertainment-self; what belongs here is that the book's endgame is experienced, from inside, as time running out on a digger who can't stop eating.