153. Chapter 153

After Hedge Fund Homeboys

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: You should hedge your bets…No! It's too easy! Let's just say I don't own Castle, okay? Rating: K Time: See above.

"You really didn't like those kids, did you?" Beckett asked.

Castle stopped playing with his phone and looked across her desk at the woman he was starting to consider as his partner. "Is there some reason I should like a cold blooded killer and his accomplices?"

"His accomplices?" Beckett asked. "They had no idea what Brandon was doing."

"No, they were just willing to throw that drug dealer under the bus. They were willing to lie about what happened, which was manslaughter the way I see it. If they run true to form, they'll probably be character witnesses at Brandon's trial."

"No. Before that. You didn't like then from the beginning. Why? Aren't they your kind of people?"

"My kind of people?" Castle asked, sounding a little upset at her characterization of the students.

"Um, rich kids?" Kate had the feeling she'd made a mistake. But she was interested in seeing where this went.

Castle stretched and then smiled at her. "So, I'm rich now and that means I've always been rich. Detective Beckett? "It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data." Didn't Sherlock Holmes say that?"

Kate nodded. "And I've obviously theorized before I have all my data. Will you correct me?"

He laughed. "I wouldn't dream of correcting you, Beckett. You'd never forgive me. But I will provide you with data. I was raised by a single mother, you know."

She nodded. "You've always been very reticent about your father. I know that."

"Ah, yes! You're not a fan, of course. Just some random data you picked up in the course of your life?"

"I read your books, Castle. You know that."

"And you've done a bit of research." He moved on before Kate could protest that she hadn't researched him. "My mom says that they packed a life time of love into one night. And that's about all I know about my father."

"Martha is an actress, of course. So, things were always feast or famine with us. When I was ten, or so, she landed the second lead in a Broadway play. Something translated from the Swedish, if I recall. It was successful and she made about fifteen hundred dollars a month. That was very good money in those days. But, after a year, the play closed. In the next two years she played a dead body on a cop show, she played a receptionist in some sort of lawyer show, and if I remember correctly, she was a crazy homeless lady in something."

"Things must have been tight for you." Kate said.

"Yeah, there for a while we were sneaking down the fire escape to get out of our apartment so the landlord couldn't serve us with the eviction papers. We'd draw quite a crowd when mom would be wearing a miniskirt." Castle smiled at the memory. "Then, just as the landlord cornered us, the cavalry arrived in the shape of Happy Harry, of Happy Harry's Used Cars. Martha became Miss Happy Harry's Used Cars, complete with miniskirt. She did commercials, both live and on film. We weren't exactly on Easy Street, but we could go out the front door."

"And this explains your distaste for Brandon and his friends how?"

"Mom always put a very high value on education. She made sure that I got the best education that New York's finest private schools could provide."

"And you didn't quite fit in." Kate guessed.

"Bingo. Detective Beckett theorizes with data. No, all the other kids' fathers were lawyers, bankers, doctors, whatever. None of them ever snuck down a fire escape. Perhaps if Martha had been a big Broadway star, it would have made a difference. But she was a competent working actress, not at all famous. Unless you watched late night movies on TV and saw Miss Happy Harry's Used Cars, which a surprising number of my classmates did."

"Did you get in fights in school?" Kate really couldn't see little Rick Castle slugging it out in the playground, but she asked anyway.

"Respectable little boys don't get in fights. They have much more civilized ways of making their enemies feel terrible."

"I'm sorry, Castle. Kids can be cruel."

"Oh, it wasn't all that bad. There are always outcasts at schools, so I did make friends. And eventually I became known as that handsome, young Rick Castle, the guy who wrote. I wrote my first novel in college." Castle chuckled to himself. "I went through every penny in no time at all. I should have known better, but I didn't. So, I sat right down and wrote another best seller. And then another and another. Things really changed when Alexis was born. All of a sudden I was responsible for this tiny person and I knew I couldn't screw that up."

"That's why you disliked Brandon and the rest of his little crew. They remind you of the people who made you an outcast. That's why you dislike them?"

"I suppose. In another way, it's like A Boy Named Sue. "

"Pardon?" Kate said, frowning.

"A Boy Named Sue? It's a Johnny Cash song, 1969? Before your time, I guess. Before mine as well, but the song is about a boy whose father names him Sue. The kid grows up to be tough and mean because he's always being teased about his girls' name. In another universe where Martha was a high powered attorney and not an actress, I'm Brandon. I become a hedge fund manager, go to jail for insider trading, find Jesus and become a fixture on self-help talk shows. But I became me. And I'm happy about that."

Kate thought back to her life as the daughter of two Manhattan lawyers. She'd had a good childhood, right up until she was nineteen. She'd been lucky. She shook her head. "I can't see you ever becoming a Brandon, Castle."

"We'll never know, will we, Beckett?"

"Perhaps not." No, Castle. I know you'd never become one of the Brandons of the world.