Carolyn Banks - The New Black Mask (№6)

Pearce said, “Castro planned to kill Roth from the start?”

“It was all that made sense.”

Schatz made a noise. “You’ve got no proof Castro planned anything, Fortune. How about some facts?”

“All right,” I said. “Fact one: Three years ago Roth was Castro’s junior partner. Almost overnight Roth had a big contract that should have been Castro’s, was in business for himself, had stolen Castro’s wife, and Castro hated him.”

Schatz shook his head. “Three years is too long to wait.”

“Castro didn’t wait,” I said. “That’s fact number two — when I started investigating the killing I found out Castro had been working hard to ruin Roth’s business as soon as he realized what Roth had done to him.”

“But murder?” Pearce said. “After three years? In hot blood, maybe. But Schatz’s right, a smart, educated man like Castro should have cooled down by then.”

“Revenge,” I said, “and his ex-wife back, and his sons.”

“You think he really figured the wife would go back to him after he murdered Roth?” Schatz said.

“Yes,” I said. “She’s a practical woman.”

Schatz shook his head. “Theory, Fortune, and crazy theory.”

“Theory,” I agreed, “but all I had. No clues, no evidence, no real facts. From the start I didn’t have a damn thing to go on except the theory and my imagination.”

From the moment the company hired me — Dan Fortune, Private Investigator — I had nothing to work with except a hunch about Maxwell Castro. No facts, no evidence. Nowhere even to start to prove it all, except to get inside Maxwell Castro’s mind. Try to think the way Castro had thought. Become Max Castro — successful architect and bitter man — wrestling with his hate...

He had to kill Norman Roth.

If he was to get his wife back, keep his sons, it had to be murder. There was no other way, not any longer.

He understood his ex-wife. In the end she’d go to the winner. A practical woman. Three years ago it had been Norman Roth, the sure winner. So she had divorced him and married Roth. It was what she would always do.

“You were good for me, Max, but Norman’s going to be better.” Susan had smiled. “You’re getting old. Why should I settle for an old rich man when I can have a young rich man?”

He’d wanted to kill the son of a bitch right then, but three years ago murder was too big a risk. He’d be the first suspect. There were safer ways then to stop Norman Roth, get Susan back.

Susan was a woman who shaped her present and her future. He’d always admired that, knew it was the reason she’d married him in the first place. A lot of men had wanted her, and he’d been no more than a small architect getting near middle age in a large firm. It was Susan who had convinced him to strike out on his own, used her contacts to help him, pushed him relentlessly.

It made him proud even now to realize that Susan had expected him to succeed from the beginning. He had been the winner she had to have, each partnership bigger than the last. He smiled as he remembered his climb over partner after partner to build one of the largest architectural firms in the city, the state, maybe the whole damned country.

Until he had taken on Norman Roth as his junior partner.

Young, handsome, Norman Roth! Outsmarted by a cheap stud like Roth! That was almost worse than losing his wife and sons, worse than the loss of the Shea contract itself. To be beaten by a fucking pretty boy not even thirty years old!

Castro tossed sleepless in his solitary bed in the large, empty apartment when he thought of that moment three years ago when Norman Roth had his contract and his wife. Of two years ago when Norman Roth, Architects, had more business than Castro & Sons. Of...

The frustration, rage squirmed through Max Castro’s mind. The rage and defeat inside the mind of a man accustomed to success. A man who knew he was superior. A different breed from normal men. I sensed that rage, that frustration. Felt it inside me as I put myself in his place from the start.

Captain Pearce studied the copy of my report to the company. It detailed Maxwell Castro’s actions over the last two-plus years.

“So Castro took hold of himself,” I said, “began his fight to destroy Roth. A good architect and a super businessman, he worked hard, took big financial risks. He worked for almost no profit just to get contracts. For a time he actually lost money, but he almost had Roth beaten, on the ropes.”

Schatz said, “So why suddenly switch to murder? It doesn’t make any damn sense, Fortune.”

“His sons,” I said. “About three months ago his ex-wife called him, suggested he take her out to lunch. She had a real surprise for Castro.”

I saw her, too, the woman. Susan Roth, once Susan Castro. She was young, beautiful. Sat there across the white linen and silver of Max Castro’s table in the exclusive lunch club after almost three years. Castro looked at the woman he still wanted, who had called so unexpectedly, who smiled at him. I imagined Castro smiling back...

“Face it, Susan, you made a mistake. Maybe the first mistake of your life. Admit it, come back where you belong.”

The almost soundless waiter brought their drinks. Her martini with a dash of fino sherry, his beer: Sierra Nevada Ale brought from the Coast just for him. She sipped her martini.

“I don’t make mistakes, Maxwell,” Susan said. “If you did ruin Norman, I probably would come back to you. I admit it because it won’t happen. I never back a loser, you know that.”

“We all make mistakes, Susan,” Max Castro said.

“I don’t,” Susan said. “You’re a winner, Max, up to a point. Norman’s going to be a bigger winner.” She sipped. “He’s younger, more exciting, a lot better in bed. You’re all you’re ever going to be, Max. It’s not enough. I want more.”

Castro wanted to hit her right there in the hushed club with its immaculate whites and silvers. Tear her clothes off, show her how wrong she was, but his mind became wary. Did she know something that he didn’t know?

She said, “But I didn’t come to talk about me. I came to talk about the boys.”

“The boys?”

“Norman wants them to be ours, Max, you understand?”

He stared at her. Understand? Understand what?

“We’ve started proceedings to legally adopt them. You’ll be notified in a day or so, but I thought perhaps we could agree on it amicably. Why give the lawyers money?”

“Adoption?”

His mind seemed to be a block of ice. The boys?

“They would, of course, take Norman’s name.”

Her voice came from across a vast distance, a glacier, the empty Antarctic. His sons! Named Roth? Roth! The sons of Maxwell Castro to be named Roth!

“Never! You hear! Never!”

“I’d really rather not fight about it, Maxwell. But—?”

The maître turned to look at them. Castro took a deep breath. No court would let a stepfather take children away from the natural father without his consent. It was another trick of hers. He waved for a new bottle of his ale.

“It won’t work, Susan,” Castro said. “I’m going to ruin your playboy genius. You can’t blackmail me with the boys. No court would go against the natural father, and that’s me. In case you don’t remember where the boys came from.”

Max Castro grinned at his ex-wife. She didn’t grin.

“The court will back us up, Max,” Susan said, “but I’d rather stay out of court. The boys are so very young. They’ll probably have half brothers soon. They already wonder why they have one name and we have another. We’d really like your consent.”

Stunned as he was, he smiled and tried to hide his turmoil and fury behind some light sarcasm. “My consent? Yes, I expect you would like that. Make it all a lot easier, eh?”