The New Black Mask (No 6)

Killer’s Mind Michael Collins

“Killers Mind” is the second appearance by Michael Collins’ detective Dan Fortune in New Black Mask. This story is another in his series of fictional experiments; here he combines the puzzle story and hard-boiled forms. Mr. Collins, who considers himself basically a short-story writer, says that it is his intention to use mystery stories for a purpose uncommon to them.

We had an hour before they brought the woman to Captain Pearce’s office, went over the whole scheme. Pearce himself, Lieutenant Schatz from the precinct, and me. The captain had an open mind, Schatz didn’t. Schatz doesn’t like theories, and he doesn’t like private detectives because they have too many theories.

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?”

“It would, Maxwell. Especially for the boys.”

He nodded, looked serious. “A court battle would be very hard on them at their age.”

“Then you will sign the papers?” Susan said, just a little too quickly. “Give Norman the boys? Let them take his name?”

His name! The rage welled up inside him again. He fought hard to keep it down, hide it. Pretended to consider the impossible idea while inside he boiled. First his contract. Then his wife and his boys. Now his name!

“I’ll consider it, Susan.” He would not consider it. His mind could not even begin to consider it. But he needed time. He needed to have her think he would, in the end, agree.

“Norman can give them much more than you ever will. You must know that by now.”

It was the breaking point. He began to shout in the elegant club, his ale forgotten. The other elite diners turned to look.

“My sons are mine, you hear? I’ll never consent, and no court will take them away from me!”

The maître hurried over. Could he help monsieur? The other diners, monsieur. Max Castro sat pale, his fine, honey-like ale forgotten. Susan drank her martini, looked past him.

“The court will back us, Maxwell,” she said, her voice soft, almost gentle. “Norman has the best lawyers, influence in the city. We’ll prove you’re an unfit father. A child-beater. Even a child molester. We have witnesses. You remember that maid you fired? Josie? Those baby-sitters you threw out of the apartment for smoking pot? There’s my mother, my sister. Then the boys themselves. The way you gave them baths, dressed them. Innocent, but when we coach the boys—”

Max Castro sat in the fine club with its white cloth and crystal glasses, shining silver and dark-green walls, the silent waiters. He had always loved to eat lunch here, the elegance of it, the privilege, the power. Now he barely knew where he was. Her voice soft as a snake gliding into his ears.

“I can do it, Maxwell. You know me. Think how horrible for the boys. For you.”

He would die and his business would go to his boys, and then Roth would have his business too. They would have it all. He had to fight. But would he win? If she told the court he... If witnesses said he... molested... battered...

Susan stood up. “You really have no choice, Maxwell. We’ll get the boys in the end, with or without you.”

Maxwell Castro sat in the lunch club long after his ex-wife had left, a taste of ashes in his mouth. His sons! She was so sure. His stomach was tight, painful. Sure of her lying scheme to steal the boys from him, and of what else? What had happened, or was going to happen, to make Susan so confident?

He went to work, checked all his information sources. It took three days, and then the reports came to him. Roth wasn’t ruined. His campaign had failed. Roth was not only unhurt, he was moving upward again. Bigger and better contracts. Roth would succeed, and Roth would get his sons.

No.

Norman Roth would not get Maxwell Castro’s sons. This time Susan was definitely wrong. He had a choice. A very clear and obvious choice. He would kill Norman Roth.

I heard Max Castro’s inner voice. He would kill Norman Roth as he had redly wanted to from the first moment Roth had stolen the Shea contract and Susan. A voice of hate, of fury, of panic at the loss of everything that belonged to him, that whispered over and over in his mind: Kill Norman Roth! Kill Norman Roth!

We still had half an hour before the woman would be brought into Pearce’s office.

“Castro named his company Castro & Sons as soon as his second boy was born,” I said. “The adoption threat did it. And the failure of his plan to ruin Roth. I located the confidential reports Castro got after Susan Roth’s visit. Roth had been awarded the big Haskins Urban Redevelopment Project contract. General architect, the works. It would save Roth and a lot more. Roth had floated a large loan, had already advanced money to a lot of suppliers. Roth was safe, moving ahead again. With Susan’s lies, witnesses, he would get Castro’s sons.”

Lieutenant Schatz wasn’t convinced, paced the office behind its drawn shades. “Okay, he had a motive. But he had to have known he’d be the first man we’d suspect. We’d be down on him before Roth got cold, Fortune. He’d have to have been crazy.”

“Most killers are crazy,” I said. “But Castro knew he’d be the first suspect. He planned it with that in mind.”

I tried to plan it exactly as Maxwell Castro had, our minds a single mind. The pattern was clear as I thought it out with Castro. Alone in his office, smoking cigarette after cigarette, he worked it all out as he would have worked out some delicate problem in architecture. Careful. Logical...

Max Castro knew that damn few premeditated murderers went uncaught. It was a fact, and it was why murderers were caught — because they knew that murderers were almost always caught!

The killer planned, complicated, made an intricate scheme to turn away any shadow of guilt. All possible dangers prevented, all possible suspicion diverted.

Attempted to hide his homicide by disguising it as something else. An accident. A senseless killing by some insane night prowler. The panic murder of a startled burglar. Sometimes he worked out a crazy plan to make the murder look like death from natural causes, relied on a shaky verdict of suicide.

He beat his brains out to hide his motive. He planned on an unsolved murder! The police would give up in the face of his cleverness, file the crime away to gather dust and be forgotten.

Or, the most certain of all to fail, the killer laid false trails that would be sure to lead the police to someone else, but that, in the end, always led to him.

The killer, aware of danger, planned a crime so intricate and complicated, it was all but inevitable he would be caught.

He, Castro, would not do that.

What a killer could devise, the police could detect. What one man could hide, another man could find. Max Castro would hide nothing.

The answer was simplicity. Exactly like the clean, simple lines of a modern building. A simple line for a building, a simple plan for a murder. An obvious murder. A murder that pointed straight to only one murderer. Himself.

Because it isn’t enough for the police to know that a man committed murder. They have to prove it. Not that he had wanted to commit murder, but that he had committed murder.

He, Castro, would be the logical suspect. He would have no alibi. Definitely no alibi.

The stupid, iron-clad alibi. Stupid, because no alibi could be iron-clad since it was, in fact, an alibi, and not the truth. It was a lie, something that had not happened. The smallest unexpected accident, and the alibi was broken. And once broken, the alibi itself, the carefully constructed lie, became the most damning evidence against the killer.

No, when Norman Roth was dead, the police would come straight to him, Castro. He would say, “Yes, officer, I often thought of killing him myself. I’m glad he’s dead. As a matter of fact, I was very near where he was killed at just the time it happened. It’s my normal routine to walk past there at that time. I certainly could have killed him, but I didn’t. Can you prove that I did?”

Finally, he would not confess. That last and most fatal flaw in any killer’s plan. The weakness of guilt that made a man break down under pressure.

Castro would feel no guilt at all. Not for killing one thieving son-of-bitch young stud.

He would not break under questioning.

He was a man of position and wealth.

He could protect himself.

And he would not be forced to confess to save an innocent person. He would be the only real suspect. Susan would have an alibi, a real alibi, and the scene would be completely deserted.

Castro, thought, planned...

In Castro’s mind I felt his excitement as his plan took its find, utterly simple shape. The last little thought — the old criminal adage: If you are innocent, always take a judge done for your trial. If you are guilty, take a jury. A carefully selected jury, a reasonable doubt, no proof, and a good lawyer.

Captain Pearce chewed on his lip. “So he just walked up to Roth as bold as you please?”

“It has to be,” I said. “I’ve studied his actions, put myself into his mind. There’s no other answer.”

Lieutenant Schatz swore in the smoky office. “No fingerprints, no usable footprints, no bloodstains, no hair or skin under the fingernails, nothing dropped, no physical evidence at all. A thousand other bricks just like the murder weapon all over that building site. Castro walked past the place at that time every Monday, Thursday, and Friday for months.”

“All part of his plan,” I said. “Those were the days Susan Roth had her alibi. Thursday, the day it happened, was her usual Junior League meeting.”

Pearce shook his head. “And Castro planned it all, Dan?”

“Every detail,” I said. “As simple as he could make it. Just walked onto that deserted building site and straight up to Norman Roth inside the shell of the unfinished building where no one could see them together.”

The perfect place — I heard Castro thinking it. I walked with Castro past the building site of Roth’s new job. He couldn’t have selected a better site if he had gone to Roth and told the bastard just what he needed for a simple murder. And Roth, good at his work, made a point of visiting his various building sites after the day’s work was finished. As Castro knew he did. After all, it was Castro who had taught the younger man always to do just that. You never knew what would pay off in the end.

He watched and waited. The building site was in a downtown business area deserted after six o’clock. It was hidden from view on three sides. The foundation was already in, the walls just rising.

He began to walk from his office to his own site by way of Roth’s building. He bought a newspaper at the same stand each day. People would remember him, yet would not really notice him.

Who really notices a plainly dressed man on a city street in the evening twilight day after day? Who actually remembers the precise time they saw the man if he strolls often along that same city street? They would remember that he walked that way regularly, but would forget the exact day or time when they had last seen him. Was it Wednesday or Thursday? Perhaps Friday?

He chose a drugstore not far from Roth’s building site and stopped there regularly for a soda. The same each time, and talked to the boy behind the counter.

“You make a very good cherry soda, son.”

The boy grinned. “Thank you, sir.”

“Castro,” he smiled. “Max Castro. You look like a smart kid. Too smart to be working behind a soda fountain. You should better yourself. Ever consider architecture?”

“Yessir, I sure have!” the boy said eagerly. “Architecture’s what I want to study in college when I get enough money.”

Every murderer needs a little luck.

“Good,” he said. “It happens to be my profession. I’m on my way to one of my buildings now. An ex-partner of mine, Norman Roth, has a building going up only a few blocks away. I stop there too, to see how I’d do it better.”

He laughed at his own joke, hinted some help might be arranged for the boy, and tipped too much.

“Thank you, sir!”

He made small purchases, browsed among the paperback books and magazines. The browsing was so that the owner of the store would also remember him, and the small purchases did two things. First, they involved him more in the store, increased the chance of being recalled as a regular by customers. Second, they helped his innocent appearance. Who buys a bottle of aspirin or a tube of toothpaste on his way to commit murder?

He talked to the boy about Norman Roth. “You go and look at Roth’s building, son. Three blocks straight up on this side of the street. His name is on the sign. He’s not much of an architect, but he’s a publicity whiz.”

He talked a lot about Norman Roth. That would look good. Why would a man who planned to kill talk so much about his intended victim to a stranger who would be sure to remember?

He even brought the boy some books. “Read them, they’ll help you with the mathematics, help you understand architects and architecture, feel the pull.”

“I was always real good at math,” the boy said.

“That’ll help a lot,” he encouraged.

At the actual building site he stopped whenever Roth himself was there. The workmen and Roth’s associates noticed him. He made sure they saw him and Roth together, talking.

“Go away, Castro,” Roth said. “Anything you have to say to me you can say in court.”

“I like to study your cheap work.” Castro smiled.

“Stay away from me, you hear? You can’t hurt me. You’re a loser, Castro. Work and women.”

“I walk where I please,” Castro said, but inside his teeth clenched, and he could barely hold himself from attacking Roth then and there in front of everyone.

He continued his routine, made sure he passed the site just at twilight. Sometimes Roth was there, sometimes he wasn’t. Usually he had to wait for Roth to drive up from one of his other sites. Roth wasn’t always alone. But most of the time he was.

Twice in July Roth was alone at the site in the late twilight. The first time a group of young boys would not leave the site even when Roth himself tried to chase them away, swore at them in fury as they defied him.

The second time Castro was sure it was the moment. As he walked up the empty street, Roth was alone. The younger man went inside the unfinished shell out of sight from the street. Castro moved quickly to the opening without a door. He bent to pick up the brick. Roth suddenly came out of the building again.

Roth was too young, too big. Castro couldn’t attack when Roth was facing him. So he smiled, talked to Roth casually as he had done before, then walked away along the street as usual.

His heart pounded, and his head throbbed. But he calmed himself again. He had to wait, be sure...

I felt the blood pound in Max Castro’s head, heard his voice tell himself he had to wait. In his killer’s mind I heard him say it over and over: Wait... be patient. Haste, that was the greatest danger. Impatience. I heard his mind tell himself day after day: Slow, careful; don’t panic, don’t rush it; slow and careful and wait and there’ll be no mistakes...

All the weeks I’d spent digging, checking Castro’s routine and route past Norman Roth’s building, were on Captain Pearce’s desk.

“He could have gone along other streets,” I said. “He could have driven. But he was a known walker, and the route was logical enough. Stopping at that drugstore became a routine. He talked to Roth whenever Roth was at the site, casual and hiding nothing.”

Pearce nodded. “They all remember seeing him often.”

“But not one damned person is sure they saw him the day of the killing,” Schatz said.

“He planned it just that way,” I said.

“He walked right onto that building site and straight up to Roth,” Pearce said. “And no one saw anything.”

Schatz swore again. “A reasonable doubt all the way. Any jury would buy it.”

I felt Castro’s mind that last day. Eager, the adrenaline pumping. Time pressed in on him. The day had to come soon. Would it be that day? He couldn’t hold himself back much longer, the adoption proceedings would be before the judge soon. I felt the thin thread of tension, his mind fighting... go slow... follow the routine...

He dressed for the twentieth, thirtieth, nth time in the cheap suit, checked the buttons again to be sure they were on tight. His fingernails had been cut and filed to the quick for months. He left all his jewelry in his office once more. His hair had been washed every day, all the labels had been removed from his clothes long ago. He carried nothing on his walk past Roth’s site that could be dropped, not even his cigarettes or matches.

In the drugstore he browsed, bought a new razor, had his cherry ice-cream soda. He talked to the counter boy about the books he had lent the boy. That, he thought, was an especially good touch. A smart lawyer could make a lot of the books, with his nameplate in the front, as a sure sign that he couldn’t have been planning a murder that day.

A noisy group of juveniles slouched into the store and engaged the counter boy with multiple orders. He was held up a few minutes, with dusk settling outside. He didn’t think it would be serious, Roth always remained at the site at least five minutes to make his inspection, usually longer, but he decided not to stop and talk to the owner this time as he paid his check.

On the street he walked a little bit faster. He bought his newspaper, spoke briefly to the newsstand man, and continued briskly on to the site. Fast, but not so fast as to attract any attention, and it was just dusk as he reached Roth’s building.

The street was deserted as usual, the other buildings dark, the twilight gloomy, the site itself silent. He stood back in the shadows and waited. His plan had always been rigid: Walk away instantly if even possibly seen by anyone, and, if unseen, five minutes’ wait and not a second more.

He had one minute to go when the car drove up. Norman Roth stepped out, seemed to search the twilight for a moment. Castro tensed, ready to follow the younger man into the empty building shell. Roth leaned back into the car to speak to someone.

The car was Susan’s car! She was dropping Roth off on her way to her Thursday Junior League meeting. Not even Roth’s car would be on the street to attract anyone’s attention!

Roth leaned in for a kiss, turned and walked across the sidewalk and the dirt to his partly finished building.

Susan drove off around the next corner.

The street was empty.

It was at just that stage of dusk when it is harder to see than in full night, and no one was in sight anywhere.

Castro hurried across the debris of the building site. As he neared his enemy he slowed, became casual. He made a small smile play across his face. Roth heard him, turned.

“Don’t you ever give up?” Roth said.

“No, Norman, never,” Max Castro said.

“Go away, Castro. You’re beaten,” Norman Roth said. “I’m getting the boys, there isn’t a fucking thing you can do.”

With a gesture of contempt, Roth turned his back and walked into the interior of the unfinished building.

The hate surged through Max Castro. He looked around once more. He was totally alone in the dusk, all but invisible.

He bent, picked up the brick, stepped through the open doorway into the hidden interior of the unfinished building. He looked for Norman Roth, the brick raised.

Norman Roth struck viciously.

Pain hammered through Max Castro’s head.

Something dusty, smothering, covered Castro.

The brick in Norman Roth’s hand smashed... smashed...

I felt the crushing pain as Norman Roth bludgeoned Max Castro with the brick. The shock, and the fear, and the horror, and the final agony of all — the moment of realization that he, Maxwell Castro, had, after all, lost. A loser. A dead man. The horrible agony as Castro realized he was not the hunter but the hunted. Not the predator but the prey. Outwitted. Dead...

I sat in Captain Pearce’s dim, silent office behind its drawn shades that seemed to make the city outside light-years away.

“It was the only way they could have gotten Castro to that building site under those conditions at that time. He would never have gone there alone, at dusk, unarmed, unprotected, unless he was planning to kill Roth.”

“Theory, Fortune,” Schatz said. “That’s all you’ve got.”

“It’s the only answer,” I said. “Castro set up the conditions, and Roth and his wife used them to murder him. They manipulated him like Pavlov’s dog, goaded him until they were sure he would decide to kill Roth. That was their plan, and Castro walked into the trap like a sheep to the slaughter.”

Pearce said, “Roth waited inside that building shell.” His voice had a tone of wonder. “He hit Castro once with the brick, covered him with a canvas tarpaulin, and hit him four more times. No blood except under the canvas. No witnesses. No fingerprints on the brick or canvas. No clues. The debris on Roth from the building site is useless, he went there every day. Only not that day, he says, and we can’t prove he did. No evidence at all.”

“Except,” I said, “Castro’s little mistake.”

Schatz shook his head in even more wonder. “Both of them, Castro and Roth, stripped of everything. No labels, no jewelry, no hair or skin under fingernails, nothing. Zero.”

“Yeah,” I said, “that’s what got me thinking. Castro had nothing in his pockets — not even cigarettes, and he was a smoker. No labels. A cheap suit. Fingernails cut to the quick. With Castro the victim, those things made no sense. But if Castro had been the killer, then it made a lot of sense. So I put myself in his mind, dug into what had made him decide to commit murder. Then I did the same for Roth and the woman, imagined how they planned to make Castro try to kill Roth, how they rigged it.”

I had been inside one killer’s mind, Castro’s, and now I put myself inside the minds of two killers. Saw the scene between them, Norman Roth and his wife. Susan Roth, once Susan Castro.

Norman Roth lay naked in the giant circular bed of the luxury condominium high above the city. Tall and muscular, lean in the hips, he looked up at himself in the mirrored ceiling of the bedroom. “He’s going to beat me, Susan. He’s a fucking devil in business. He’s taking losses, cutting corners, mining me.”

“I like a winner, Norman,” Susan Roth said.

“Susan!” Roth stared at her.

She was still slim, curved, her breasts reflected full in the ceiling mirror. She touched Roth in the bed. Her fingers played with his belly, stroked his chest.

“If he beats you, I’ll go back to him,” she said. “I can’t live without what success brings, Norman. Big success. I never lied about that I’m a practical woman, Norman.”

“I’ll never let him take you back!”

“Then stop him,” Susan said.

“I’ve tried. I’m almost to the wall. The only way I can stop him now is to kill him.”

“All right,” Susan said. “Kill him.”

Roth blinked at her. “Kill—?”

She kissed his neck, his throat. Her tongue flicked over his chest as she slid softly against his body.

“He’d kill you,” Susan said. “But we’ll kill him first.”

“How can we kill him? The police would guess at once it was me. Or you. The way he’s ruining me, ruining us.”

“But they would have to prove it, Norman,” Susan said, licked his belly. “We’ll make it simple. We’ll make Max come to you where there’ll be only the two of you alone, and no evidence afterward, and they can’t prove you were there when it happened.”

“What in God’s name would make Castro come to me like that?”

“To kill you,” Susan Roth said simply.

Roth looked at her and at her naked body touching him in the big bed. “Why would he kill me? He’s already got me ruined.”

Her tongue was in his ear now, her breath. “We make him think you’re not anywhere near ruined. We convince him you’re growing bigger and richer every day, and then we make him have to murder you fast or lose something very important to him.”

“Lose what?”

She kissed him, smiled down into his eyes. “The boys, Norman. We start proceedings to legally adopt the boys. His boys. We threaten to take his sons from him.”

Roth stared, then began to laugh. “Castro & Sons!”

“It’s the one thing that would make Max commit murder — the loss of Castro & Sons.” Susan Roth smiled. “His sons with your name. His business with your name.”

Roth laughed aloud. He grabbed her, rolled her over on the bed, kissed her breasts, kissed her mound, kissed... Stopped.

“The business! It won’t work if he thinks he’s ruining me, and he is ruining me.”

Susan Roth stretched and looked up at their naked bodies in the mirrored ceiling. “You’ve been invited to bid on the Haskins Project. Make your bid so low they must give it to you. They don’t reveal details of the bids.”

Roth shook his head. “A bid low enough to be sure would lose me a fortune. We’d really be ruined, and for keeps.”

“Not with Max dead,” Susan said. “A calculated risk, Norman. With Max gone we would get his insurance, his money, and his business. Or the boys would, and that means me. We’d have it all, and you could absorb the Haskins loss.”

“I’d need money up front to start the work, make it look good, and no one would give me a loan the way things are now.”

“I have my jewels, some securities. We’ll get a loan with them as collateral. Maxwell won’t know how we got the loan. He’ll find you have the contract and the money, are going ahead bigger and better. He’ll have to kill you. He’s wanted to from the start. You took his contract, his wife, and his male ego. I’ve known that all along. Now we can use it to save ourselves.”

“Will the courts let us adopt the boys without his consent?”

“They will if we can prove Max is an unfit father, a child molester, and we can. Or we’ll make Max think we can, and that’s all it will take. He wants to kill you, Norman. We’ll give him a good excuse, make him tell himself there’s no other way.”

Roth stared at her, perhaps suddenly a little bit afraid of her. Afraid and excited too. They stared at each other in the giant bed high above the city, Maxwell Castro’s ex-wife and his most hated enemy. They looked at each other with the excitement of victory and even of death, and that brought another kind of excitement. An excitement that isn’t all that different.

Afterward they began to plan.

They set the business wheels in motion, Susan had her lunch with Max Castro. Then they made Castro wait and wait until he was on the verge of exploding with his hate. When they were ready, they decided on a Thursday, the night of Susan Roth’s Junior League meeting.

“I’ve timed it, Norman,” Susan said. “If I drive from the apartment to the Junior League faster than usual, or slower than usual, there is only a difference of five minutes in total time.”

Roth nodded. “No jury would convict anyone on a matter of five minutes in city traffic. Not without a lot of evidence.”

“And there won’t be any. As long as no one sees you with Maxwell at the site, we’re safe, and Maxwell himself will make sure no one sees you, eh?”

They both laughed.

“Even if someone notices the car,” Susan went on, “it will be just an unidentified car on a dark street for a few moments. It will be far too dark to read the license plate. They’ll know we killed him, but they won’t be able to prove it.”

That Thursday, Roth volunteered to work at the Junior League himself. He told his men that he would not visit the site that night. He told them to knock off at the regular time.

Roth and Susan went to the empty site. She dropped him off. Castro waited. Roth killed him. Susan came back two minutes after Castro had arrived. A minute later Roth walked from the deserted building. Susan held the door open for him, he slipped into the car. Susan ran back around the car to the driver’s seat, drove off. Roth looked at his watch.

“Four minutes flat.”

They arrived at the Junior League exactly at Susan’s usual time. Traffic had been a little lighter than normal. From the numbers, they couldn’t have stopped anywhere.

As they worked at the Junior League, they smiled.

I sensed them still smiling when the police came the next morning. They were shocked, horrified, but admitted quite readily that they had hated Castro and were glad he was dead. They admitted they wanted him dead, but they certainly hadn’t killed him. They defied the police to come up with a shred of evidence. They knew they had made no mistakes, not one.

In his office above the city, Captain Pearce sighed. “Not one mistake, Fortune. They’re right. We’ve got no real evidence.”

“No one else could have done it,” I said.

“Or anyone else,” Schatz said.

Pearce nodded. “A tramp, a drunk, a psycho, a scared kid caught trespassing by Castro. Some enemy of Castro’s we don’t even know exists. Roth’s lawyer will make hash of a jury.”

“Except for Castro’s mistake,” I said, “and the flaw in the Roths’ plan.”

Pearce was doubtful. “It’s pretty thin, Dan.”

“Thin and theory,” Schatz said. “No DA is going to even go to a grand jury with what you’ve got, Fortune.”

“He won’t have to,” I said.

They said nothing. They weren’t exactly convinced. Neither was I, really, but what I had was all I was going to get as far as evidence was concerned. I hoped it would be enough. I was pretty certain it would be, but it had been a long, hard case and you never know for sure.

“It’s funny,” I said. “Castro had a perfect plan without a flaw, but he made a mistake. Roth and Susan Roth didn’t make a single mistake, but their plan had one flaw — the alibi. They had to have an alibi.” I shook my head. “Because their plan had a flaw, and Castro made a small mistake, they’re going over.”

How do you explain one small mistake? Castro’s plan was literally foolproof — if he made no mistakes. What made that one careless moment? I was inside his mind and I didn’t know. The waiting? The anxiety to get it done after all those weeks, months? Maybe it was, in the end, only fate, the roll of the dice, working on three lives that last Thursday...

The boy stood behind the soda fountain counter.

“Dead? Mr. Castro’s dead?”

“Murdered,” I said. “It was in all the newspapers.”

“I don’t read the papers. I’m studying to be an architect. I liked Mr. Castro.”

“Two weeks ago Thursday,” I said.

The boy blinked at me, frowned. “Two weeks? Thursday? Gee, maybe that’s why I couldn’t find him, you know? I mean, it was two weeks ago, sure. Thursday.”

“Find him?” I said. “Two weeks ago?”

“He forgot the razor he bought,” the boy explained. “We had some loud kids, you know, and he had to wait to pay for his cherry soda and the razor. He walked out fast, forgot to take the package. He was gone maybe three, four minutes when I saw it. The package, I mean. I told the boss, and he let me go after Mr. Castro with the razor. I mean — the boss, he liked Mr. Castro too. So the boss took over on the fountain and I went out and tried to catch up with Mr. Castro.”

“You went after him two weeks ago Thursday?”

“I knew which way he always walked ’cause he talked to me a lot about going to visit this building of some guy named Roth about three blocks up. I figured he’d probably stop there and I could catch him. Only, when I got there, no one was around.”

“You went to Roth’s building five minutes after Castro left your store, but you didn’t see anyone?”

“Not when I got there, and I never did see Mr. Castro. But when I was leaving I saw this big guy come out of the building and get into a car. It wasn’t Mr. Castro, and there was only a woman in the car, so I walked back to the store.”

“You saw a big man? Could you identify him?”

The boy shook his head. “It was dark. The car was only there a minute. The woman got out to hold the door open for the guy to get in fast. Then they drove off real quick.”

Damn! “That was all you saw? You’re sure?”

He nodded. “Except the big guy had a gray suit, and the woman had a green dress and real dark hair kind of long, and the car was a blue Mercedes four-door.”

I stared. “You saw all that in the dark?”

“Sure,” the boy said. “When the woman got out of the car I looked close ’cause it might have been Mr. Castro, see? She walked around in front of the headlights and I saw she was a woman. I mean, I saw the guy’s suit and the woman and the color of the car because I was looking hard for Mr. Castro.”

Stood in the dark of that empty street, near that deserted building site, and looked closely at two people for only a few seconds. Because he wanted to give a package to a man who had forgotten it in his store. A man who had been nice to him. A man he had gotten to like. So he looked hard, hoping one of the people was Mr. Castro, but the man was too big and had on a gray suit, and the other was a woman in a green dress, and the car was a dark-blue Mercedes, and...

In the office Pearce looked at his drawn shades as if he were seeing the city invisible on the other side. Schatz looked at the door as if he wished he were on the other side going away.

“Castro didn’t need a razor,” I said. “So when he was delayed that night, he hurried a little and forgot the package.”

“It’s not much, Dan,” Pearce said.

“The boy can’t really identify either of them,” Schatz said. “He didn’t get the license number of the car, and you got any idea how many dark-blue Mercedes there are in the city?”

“It’s enough,” I said. “The woman walked in her own headlight beams. A slim, dark-haired woman in a green dress, and that fits Susan Roth and what she was wearing according to ten witnesses at the Junior League. The man fits Roth and what he was wearing. Susan Roth’s car is a dark-blue Mercedes.”

Pearce shook his head. “I don’t know, Dan.”

“With what I dug up on all their actions, their motives, my reconstruction of what happened, it’ll probably convince a jury.”

“Probably?” Pearce said.

“You want to tell the DA about probably, Fortune?” Schatz said.

I said, “Probably is all we’ll need.”

And the interoffice telephone rang. Pearce answered.

“She’s here,” the captain said.

The door opened and Susan Roth, formerly Susan Castro, stepped into the room. She stood tall and poised, a fine-looking woman. Still young and close to beautiful. Her cool eyes took in each of us in turn.

“Sit down, Mrs. Roth,” Captain Pearce said.

“Am I under arrest, Captain?”

“No,” Pearce said, “not yet. But Mr. Fortune there has a story we think you should hear.”

Her eyes turned to look at me. She looked at my empty sleeve and my old tweed sport jacket and cords. Her lips curled faintly. She did not think much of me, but she sat down, waited, her foot swinging lightly in its two-hundred-dollar pump.

I told my story. From my first hunch about Castro and his murder plan, through what I had pieced together about Roth and her plan, to Castro’s mistake and the soda fountain boy, and her walking through the beams of the headlights. She showed no reaction until the soda fountain boy. At her careless walk through the headlights she blinked. At Roth coming out of the building site in his gray suit, her foot stopped swinging.

“Castro’s company hired me to investigate his murder, Mrs. Roth. They’ll do everything they can to convict you and your husband. They’ve seen my report, they’ve already hired the best lawyers to work with the DA. Since you didn’t kill Castro yourself, the captain there can offer you a deal to turn state witness. Accessory, five-to-ten years. With good behavior, parole in as little as three years. Maybe less. If you stand up in court with Roth, you could get life without parole.”

Her face showed nothing. I was going on my judgment, on everything I had learned, sensed, in the killer’s mind of Susan Roth. With both Castro and Roth out of the way, her sons would be rich boys. She would know how to get her share. In prison for life, what good would the money do her? What I had guessed, uncovered, pieced together might not convince a jury. She might get off. On the other hand, she might not. Say a fifty-fifty chance, maybe a little worse. I figured those odds would be enough for Susan Roth.

“Charge me first” — her voice had no emotion — “then I’ll tell you how Norman killed poor Maxwell.”

It wasn’t what should have happened, but it was something. The murder had been mostly her idea, she should have taken the big fall. It’s an imperfect world; you get what you can.

The case had been all a matter of getting inside their killer minds. Norman Roth would never make the deal, turn her in. Susan Roth, once Susan Castro, would and did. She was a practical woman.