Time to Depart (26 page)

LI

Mentioning Plato's had given me an idea.

Reluctant to work on my own if it proved unnecessary, I did take myself first to the Thirteenth-district patrol house to see if Petro would acknowledge me. Neither he nor any of his team were there. When I tried to go in, a couple of firefighters appeared. They seemed not to know about my job tracing grafters, but someone had ordered them not to admit me. I tried to look unimpressed by their surly behaviour, though I confess it shook me.

I realised afterwards that Petronius and his men would be attending the funeral of Linus. The patrolmen must have thought it odd that I had not gone myself.

Had Petro and I not quarrelled I would have paid my own respects. It seemed better to avoid causing trouble, so I honoured the dead man privately. He was young and had seemed straightforward. He deserved a better fate.

I walked down to the Circus, made my way to Plato's, and with more skill than I had applied at the patrol house, I talked my way inside. An expert informer is not easily thrown. I even managed to get myself taken straight to see Lalage.

It was still early morning and not much seemed to be happening. The brothel was in a lethargic mood. Just a few local clients indulging on their way to their employment, and at the time I arrived, mostly leaving. The corridors were empty; it could have been a lodging house, except that at certain points stood mounds of wilting garlands or neatly stacked empty amphorae waiting to be taken out. There was some general cleaning with mops and sponges going on, but quietly. The night shift needed their sleep, presumably.

Lalage herself must have been snatching a rest between clients. Since a prostitute works on her back - well, often horizontally - Lalage's idea of a rest was not to relax on a reading couch with a Virgilian eclogue, but to climb up steps and replenish the oil in a large icon ceiling light.

'I know,' I grinned. 'You can't trust slaves to do anything.'

'Slaves here have other duties, with my customers.' She swayed slightly, nearly going off balance as she tilted her jug against the last lamp. The effect was decorously erotic, though probably unintentional. I stepped closer and prepared to place a steadying hand on her backside, though when she managed to remain upright modesty stayed my helpful paw. 'You're Falco, aren't you?'

'Fame at last.'

'Notoriety,' she answered. Something in her manner told me this might be the kind of notoriety I could do without.

'In the wrong quarters? I had a visit from the Miller and Little Icarus. Do you know that pair?'

'Nasty. I barred them.'

'I'm not surprised. I've seen your respectable clients...' She did not react. It would take a determined niggler to worry Lalage. 'My two visitors came to threaten me. Obviously my name is being mentioned in rougher circles than I like.' I was trying to obtain some sign that she was in contact with the Balbinus gang; her response was completely negative.

I offered a wrist to lean on as she descended from her perch, oil flask on the drip. She stepped down, brushing against me with a firm body warm through a single layer of finely woven cloth. 'And what does the notorious Marcus Didius want with me?'

'Marcus? That's informal! When I called with Petronius, I don't believe we got on first-name terms. Has someone well informed been talking, or might you and I be old friends?'

Lalage gave me the full benefit of those wonderful eyes. 'Oh hardly!'

'I'm crushed! By the way, you can stop flashing the peepers. They're lovely, but it's too early in the morning for me - or not early enough. I like a roll in the sheets instead of breakfast, but I like it with a woman who has been in my arms all night'

'I'll put that in our scroll of client's preferences.'

'I'm not enrolled as a client.'

'Want to negotiate terms?'

'Sorry, can't afford it. I'm saving up to go to philosophy school.' -

'Don't bother. You ramble on enough, without paying to be taught.'

She was still too close for comfort. I resisted manfully. We fought eye to eye; she must have known I was afraid she would manhandle me. The hairs on my neck were standing as stiff as a badger's bristles. It was hard to look tough when every nerve was screaming to me to protect my assets from assault - but the assault never came. For a brothel queen Lalage was surprisingly delicate.

'I want to negotiate a truce,' I croaked. She received the news with a chortle, but waved me to a couch with her. Breathing more freely, I perched on the far end. She tipped her head back, surveying me. She had a long, smooth neck, - today unadorned by jewellery. Her eyelashes swept down and up again with the strength and fluid grace of trireme oars.

I sighed gently. 'Stop acting up like Thais. Your name's Rillia Gratiana. Your parents used to keep a stationer's shop on the corner of Dogfish Court.'

She did not deny it. Nor did she encourage me. Appealing to old memories would be no help. 'I keep this brothel, Falco. I do it well. I rim the girls, I control the clients, I organise salty entertainments; I keep the ledgers and I obtain the necessary licences; I pay the rent, and I pay the grocery bills; when I have to I even sweep the stairs and lance the doorman's boils. This is my life.'

'And the past is irrelevant?'

'Not at all. My parents gave me all my local knowledge and commercial acumen.'

'Do you still see them?'

'They died years ago.'

'Want to know how I know all about you?'

'Don't bother. You're an informer. Even if you tell me some sob story, I won't be impressed.'

'I thought a brothel was the place men told the truth about themselves?'

'Men never tell the truth, Falco.'

'Ah no, we don't know what truth is... So can I call on fellow feeling?'

'No,' she said. That was even before she remembered how she came by her wounded ear. She was clearly not thinking about it, though seeing the scar again, I felt a warm sense of nostalgia.

We were both professionals. For different reasons we were attuned to the surges of communication - in my case talk, in hers the other thing. A cycle in this conversation had exhausted itself. By mutual agreement we gave up and relaxed.

I would have said neither of us had given any ground in the repartee stage, but then Lalage started playing with the clasp of a bracelet fretfully. Maybe she was weakening. (Maybe the arm decoration just had a tricky hook and loop.) 'So what do you want' she asked again.

'To give you a word from a friend.'

'Oh?

'You're driving me mad with that thing. Take it off and I'll mend it.' Surprised, she gave up trying to fix the bracelet and tossed it in my lap. It was a gorgeous bauble: fine gold scrollwork in sections, holding pale emeralds. Expensive, but ruined by the usual trashy clasp. 'Got some tweezers?' She provided me with a handsome set, six or seven assorted toiletry tools on a ring. 'Jewellers are stupid bastards.' I was working on a bent piece of gold wire that needed to be reshaped. 'They spend hours of labour on the fancy parts, but begrudge a decent hook. That should hold. If you like the piece, get a new fastener.' I held out my hand for her arm. When I had replaced the bracelet on her scented wrist, I kept hold of her. My grip was friendly, but inescapable. She made no attempt to break away; prostitutes know when to avoid hurting themselves. I looked straight at her. 'Balbinus is in Rome.'

Her fine eyes narrowed. It was impossible to tell whether she was hearing this for the first time, or merely wished me to think so. Her mouth pursed. 'That's bad news.'

'For everyone. Have any vigiles been to see you?'

'Not since you and your long friend.' I felt I could believe her when she was being factual. That could be a trick, of course.

'You can see the implications?

'Not exactly. Balbinus is condemned. What can he do, Falco?'

'Quite a lot, it seems. The Fourth Cohort have been busting themselves trying to work out who was trying to replace him - when all the time nobody was. Everything that's happened lately could be down to him.'

'Like what?'

'The Emporium raid, and the one at the Saepta. The deaths. You have presumably heard about the deaths?'

'Whose deaths are these?' she murmured, deliberately provoking me.

'Don't come it.'

There was no visible hardening; she remained the polite courtesan. But she said, without any change of tone, 'If you don't want to pay for mauling me, would you mind letting go of my wrist?'

I gave her a stare, then opened my hand abruptly, fingets splayed. She waited a beat, then took back her arm.

'I want to talk about Balbinus,' I said.

'And I don't.'

I looked at her carefully, seeing past the elegant attire, the fine paintwork on her eyelids and lashes, the allure of the gorgeous body. There were tiny lines and dark patches - around those languorous, limpid brown eyes. 'You're tired. The brothel's very quiet this morning too. What's up, Lalage? Having to work overtime at nights? Why's this? Someone squeezing you? Can it be that the profit margins of the Bower of Venus are being reduced by having to pay a managing director's fee again?'

'Take a jump in the river, Falco.'

'I'm surprised. I thought you enjoyed your independence, lass. I must admit, I respected you for it. I can't believe Balbinus just turned up and asked for a cut, and you gave it to him!'

'Don't even think it. I wouldn't give him half an as if he was bunting for the lavatory. Balbinus can't pressure me these days. He's condemned. If he's in Rome he'll have to stay in hiding, or he's for it.'

'Execution,' I agreed Then I challenged her: 'So you're not concealing him on the premises?'

She laughed.

I decided to accept her version. I had believed her when she talked of running the brothel without a protector. 'You still ought to take an interest,' I warned. 'Someone must be helping him, but if it's not you, you fall into the other category.'

'And what's that, Falco?'

'His enemies.'

There was a pause. Lalage had always been intelligent, top of the class when she went to school; I happened to know that: Finally she rasped, 'You're talking about deaths again.'

'Nonnius Alblus,' I confirmed. She must have known about his killing. 'And the doctor who convinced Nonnius he was dying, the one who frightened him so much he felt prepared to turn Balbinus in. That was wrong, incidentally. The vigiles had set him up.'

I was hoping to shock her into making revelations but it was Lalage who surprised me. She laughed again, though somewhat bitterly. 'Not entirely,' she said. Enjoying the thrill of seeing me startled, she stretched as gracefully as a panther; the action was automatic, not meant to be enticing, but I had to control myself. She smiled wryly. 'It would only have been a set-up if Nonnius hadn't known about it.'

'What do you mean?'

'Nonnius realised all along that the Fourth Cohort had sent that doctor to lie to him.'

Luckily Petronius Longus was no longer speaking to me, so I would be spared having to tell him this depressing news.

LII

'It's old history,' Lalage confessed. 'What's the difference now Nonnius is dead? Who cares?'

'Balbinus cares!' I rapped back tersely. 'And so should you.' 

'I don't see it.'

'You will when a gang of killers bursts in one night, and drags you off by the hair.'

'I'll wear a wig for a few days...' Flippancy was not her style. She knew her limits and it did not last. "This is a brothel. I thought you would have noticed that! We have a system to keep out hooligans.'

'Jupiter, I've seen your security! Matta busy counting the - money, and a half-asleep hangdog who dies if you raise your voice to him? Nonnius had an armoured door. They broke in with artillery; it was a military raid.'

'Well thanks. Now I know what we have to be ready for.' She was unimpressed. She stretched her leg, dangling her sandal from a lithe instep. The footgear had a light sole but a substantial upper, the kind that is completely cut out in one piece of leather, then its myriad thongs tied up on top. Not a walking shoe, but that would not have troubled her. What troubled me, was that it was being dangled from a very pretty foot.

Her lassitude heated me more, but in a different way. 'What's the matter with you, Lalage? Balbinus has perpetrated revenge killings on at least two people who brought him to trial. I was abroad at the time, but I understood Nonnius was not his only old associate to help the prosecution. You also gave evidence.'

'I was pressurised.'

'By Petronius Longus.'

'That's the bastard's name.'

'Call me simple, but it seems to me that helping to convict him puts you next on Balbinus' shopping list of corpses, Lalage.'

'You're simple.' She knew exactly what she was saying when she returned slyly, 'I can think of one person who may be ahead of me.' She meant Petronius. I hoped she could not see me going cold.

'He's a big lad, and avoiding villains is his job. He can take his chance. There is still a serious risk to you.'

'I can deal with it.'

"The oldest lie in the world, Lalage! History is littered with the corpses of fools who gurgled, "I'm different. I can keep out of the way!" Or have you bought him off?' I was angry as the thought struck me. 'One of the vigiles has been murdered too. Are you responsible for that? Did you betray Linus?'

'I've never even heard of him.' She spoke calmly. I yearned to believe her.

'Have you seen Balbinus recently?'

'No.'

'He must need a bolt hole. Has he asked to hide up here?' 

'That again! Don't make me laugh, Falco.'

'What about his men? Little Icarus and the Miller? Do you let them come here?'

'I told you, they're barred, the lot of them.'

'And none of the old gang have been in touch with you? What about Balbinus himself?'

'No.' It sounded like a lie. I watched her notice me thinking that. 'Balbinus is a shark.' Her voice was hard. 'Believe me, Falco, he knows that he's met his match in me. I'm stronger than him, and if he wants to survive in Rome he'd better leave me alone. What - an exile who has returned in secret? He's a fool. He doesn't stand a chance.' She was talking too much now. This was not like Lalage. She still had the wide-open gaze of a whore who was lying. The trouble with whores is they look like that all the time, even when spouting truths like vestal virgins.

'And what about Nonnius? How in Hades did you know he saw through Alexander's tale?'

'Alexander is the doctor?'

'Was.'

'Oh, was! Failed to diagnose his own condition, didn't he? Well I know, Falco, because the whole thing was arranged by Nonnius and me. Don't worry your little head with the details, but when Petronius sent his man with the fake story, Nonnius didn't believe him. He wasn't stupid. He could tell he wasn't ill.'

'So he made enquiries and found out that the doctor who was saying he was dying had a brother in the watch?'

'He was a rent-collector, Falco. He could easily add up! He told me about it. He was just laughing at first because the whole idea seemed ridiculous, but I saw how we could use it. We wanted to be rid of Balbinus. I was after sole charge of the brothel, and Nonnius intended to run all the rest. We planned it together.'

'Nonnius called Alexander back?'

'He had a lot of fun pretending to be terrified, and then convinced your friend the way was clear to clean up Rome.' 

'What about the dead Lycian?'

'He was killed here at Plato's.'

'I know that.' I was thinking fast. She had to be telling me that the Lycian's murder was deliberate. 'It was a fix? The weasel who did the stabbing was sent in purposely?'

'No, Castus didn't need encouraging. He was a Balbinus plant. He used to hang around here and report back how things were. I didn't tell him anything; I knew how he would react if we could get a fight going. The girl was in on it, though. I didn't want her telling Castus to calm down when the row flared up.'

'They still work here?'

'Only the girl.'

She was horribly calm. She and Nonnius actually had the Lycian traveller killed so the watch could discover it 'by accident', and so that they could provide evidence which Lalage could be 'coerced' into giving in court.

I realised Lalage would never admit this formally, and hearing it today could prove fatal for me. The mood had become dangerous. I was deep within this place. No one knew I was here. If she decided to have me killed like the Lycian, I would be seriously stuck. I tried changing the subject. 'Once Balbinus was supposed to have sailed away, was it Nonnius who organised the Emporium raid?'

'I've no idea. Once the court case was over, I didn't want to know anything about the street-gang side.'

'Really? I wondered whether you and Nonnius had been scheming together because you were having an affair?'

Genuine amusement rocked her. 'Only a man would imagine women conduct their businesses on the basis of love.'

'You were no admirer of Nonnius?'

'No.' She did not bother to insult him.

'You told me once you hated him - and yet now you say you conspired together over the court case.'

'So? I loathed him, but I could still use him.'

'You've told a lot of lies. Why suddenly start telling the truth about Nonnius?'

'Because he's dead. As soon at I heard that, I guessed Balbinus had returned. You should have known too,' she taunted.

'We thought Flaccida murdered Nonnius.'

'Oh I bet she had a hand in it. The word on the streets is that it happened in her house. They say she was there gloating. They say she herself rammed that pot on his head.'

'A spirited witch!' My lip curled. 'Is Balbinus at the house?'

'I doubt it. He's not stupid. That's the first place the vigiles will look.' She clearly meant they were stupid, or at least predictable.

'Well, thanks for all this. It's good of you to co-operate.' 

'If you hadn't realised Balbinus was here in Rome, I was going to tell you myself.'

She had not done so, though.

I stood up. For a moment I half expected her to prevent me leaving. I was guarding against an attack, and this time not the erotic sort.

'You frightened of something, Falco?' She understood men. It was her trade.

'No, but you should be. Balbinus is back. You helped get him condemned. He'll be looking for you.'

'Oh, I don't think I need to worry!' She definitely meant it. I was wondering why. She rose, graciously acknowledging my departure as she supplied one possible reason in a scornful tone: 'Balbinus won't be in Rome for long.' The smile she gave me was the sweetest available in her wide repertoire - as dangerous as a draught of aconite. 'Balbinus won't even be alive, will he? Not now you're looking for the man!'

I told her there was no need to be sarcastic, then I saluted the lady respectfully and took my leave.

Nonnius had hoped to take over the crime empire, but Nonnius was dead. I wondered who Lalage imagined would step in once Balbinus was settled for good. I wondered who she hoped to see running things then.

She was competent and ambitious. And Lalage, as I knew from many years ago, had always been a very clever girl.