Стивен Кинг (Stephen King)DOLAN'S CADILLAC
I waited and watched for seven years. I saw him come and go - Dolan. I watched him walk into fancy restaurants, dressed in a tuxedo, always with a different woman, always with his pair of bodyguards. I watched his hair turn from gray to silver. I watched him leave Las Vegas; I watched him return. Always in the same gray Cadillac. He did not know I was watching him - I never came close enough for him to know that. I was careful. But I dreamed of revenge.
He killed my wife. Do you want details? Her name was Elizabeth. She taught in the same school where I taught and where I still teach. She taught first-graders. They loved her. I loved her, too, and still love her. She was not beautiful, but she was pretty. She was quiet, but she could laugh. I often dream of her. There has never been another woman for me. Nor ever will be.
He made a mistake - Dolan. And Elizabeth was there, at the wrong place and the wrong time, to see it. She went to the police, and the police sent her to the FBI, and she was questioned, and she agreed to testify. They promised to protect her, but they underestimated Dolan. She got into her car one night, and it exploded. With no witness, he was let free. He made me a widower - Dolan.
He went back to his world, I went to mine. I am a schoolteacher. Schoolteachers and people like Dolan don't have the same life style. The penthouse apartment in Vegas for him, the empty home for me. The beautiful women in furs and evening dresses for him, the silence for me. But I watched. I was careful. Very careful. I knew what he was, what he could do.
During my summer vacation three years ago I even followed him from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, where he went quite often. He stayed in his fine house and had parties, and I stayed in a cheap hotel. I was losing hope. He was well guarded, so well guarded. He went nowhere without his two armed gorillas, and the Cadillac was fully armored, too. Then I followed him back to Las Vegas, always keeping a distance, and when we passed an orange sign which said DETOUR 5 MILES, I saw how it could be done.
I suddenly remembered some movie I had seen years before. In this film a band of robbers had tricked an armored car into the desert by setting fake detour signs. When the driver turned onto a deserted dirt road, the robbers removed the signs. They surrounded the car and killed the guards. I remembered that very well.