Summary
The narrator, known only by his surname, Robinson, is a schoolteacher who lives in Las Vegas. He has become widowed after Dolan, a wealthy crime-boss, has his wife murdered in order to prevent her from testifying against him. The murder remains unsolved, and Robinson, unskilled in the arts of revenge, has no recourse. Over a seven-year period, however, Robinson—mentally haunted by his wife's voice—devises a scheme of retaliation.
Discovering that Dolan regularly takes the same route when travelling to Los Angeles in his Cadillac, Robinson decides to trick Dolan into taking a fake detour, on which the Cadillac will crash into a ditch and be buried alive. He takes on a summer job with a road paving crew so that he can learn to operate the heavy equipment needed to excavate an oblong ditch just long and deep enough to contain the car, but not so wide as to allow escape through its doors.
The trap works, and Dolan is stuck in his Cadillac as it crashes into the pit. One of the bodyguards in the car with Dolan is killed in the crash; the other, crushed by the engine block, screams out of pain and panic, prompting Dolan to kill him. Robinson greets Dolan and announces his intent to bury him alive. Dolan addresses Robinson by name, prompting him to lean over the roof of the car as Dolan fires a few bullets skyward. He misses Robinson, who proceeds with the burial.
Dolan, increasingly desperate, pleads with Robinson for his freedom, offering him a large sum of cash. Robinson merely tells him he will be released if he screams, gleefully listening to Dolan's cries as he completes the burial and paves over the car. With what must be the last gasp of air left to him, Dolan screams out, "For the love of God, Robinson!" (An allusion to The Cask of Amontillado) as the latter drops the last piece of paving into place.
Robinson pays a relatively small price of undergoing much physical and mental exhaustion, but he feels satisfied that he has done a great service to the memory of his late wife, whose voice finally falls silent; this silence is something of a relief to Robinson. The press reports Dolan missing, joking that he is "playing dominos or shooting pool somewhere with Jimmy Hoffa."
Robinson notes that every year, he travels along that highway to the area where he buried Dolan alive, and urinates on that spot. Sometimes he thinks he can hear Dolan laughing (Dolan began laughing insanely as he realized he was about to die), and it makes him (Robinson) smile.
Read more about this topic: Dolan's Cadillac
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