Time to Depart (29 page)

LVII

One day might be enough. It could certainly be enough to make me look a fool. If we watched the brothel all day and there was no discernible criminal activity, my name would be bog weed. Whether I wanted to skulk around longer looking for a chance to apprehend Gaius and Phlosis for annoying me at Ostia would be up to me. Martinus would curse me and storm off to tell the entire cohort what incompetent, aggravating blocks of wood informers were, and how he had been taken in.

On the other hand, if there was enough toing and froing of known members of the Balbinus gangs to suggest a link with his empire, I would be justified. Not a hero, but entitled to swank at the bathhouse. It would be a pleasant change.

Martinus and I arrived at dawn. We began by sitting in a doorway like runaway slaves. Later a sad thermopolium was opened by a creaky woman who spent ages dabbling around the floor with a flat-headed broom and a bucket of grey water. We watched her desultory efforts at wiping down counters, then, she fidgeted about with her three shelves of cups and flagons, emptied some blackened pots into her counter holes, and stood a few amphorae crookedly against a wall.

We ambled up. We told her we were foxing - watching the streets for 'opportunities', illegal ones being understood. She seemed neither surprised nor shocked by this notion. Martinus engaged in brief negotiations, coins chinked into her apron pocket, and we were encouraged to park ourselves indoors on tall stools. There we could look as if we were picking at olives while we watched Plato's. We bought a dish of something in cold dark gravy. I left most of mine.

Things were very quiet to begin with. Despite my good intentions I ended up staying in the same bar as my assistant (stalwartly ignoring the fact that he seemed to assume I was helping him). The only other food stall was the one where Petro and I had sat when we first eyed up the brothel before visiting Lalage, a place where we had shown ourselves to be law-and-order men. Today I wanted to pass for ordinary street grime.

I could just about trust Martinus to blend in. He must have been forty, so older than Petronius, the chief he was longing to elbow aside. As far as I knew he had remained unmarried, and though he talked about women his relationships were quiet incidents in a fairly ordered life. He had straight brown hair, cut neatly across the forehead, heavily shaded jowls and a dark mole on one cheek. He seemed too boring to arouse comment.

As the morning passed we started to see typical activity - locals visiting Plato's routinely. It seemed a long time since I had groaned over this with Petro, though when I bothered to work out the time scale (needing mental entertainment) I realised it was only five days ago. In those five days Rome had descended from a city where you were wise to keep your eyes open into one of complete lawlessness.

'Here we go!' Martinu's had spotted suspects. Front the brothel emerged three figures; a thin man in sky-blue tunic with an intelligent face and a scroll dangling from his waist, and two companions, one plump, one pockmarked, both inconspicuous. We had not seen them going in that morning; they must have been at Plato's overnight.

'Know them?' I asked quietly.

'The one in blue is a Cicero.' I lifted an eyebrow. 'A talker, Falco. He engages the attention of men drinking in wine bars, then keeps them laughing at his stories and jokes while the other two rob them.'

Martinus drew out a tablet, and stylus, then began making notes in firm square Latin lettering. As the day progressed, his writing was to shrink as the tablet rapidly filled up. To make us more unobtrusive, he later produced a pocket set of draughts, glass counters in black and red that he kept in a small leather bag. We set out aboard, drawn in gravy on the marble. To look authentic we had to play for real, worse luck. I hate draughts. Martinus was an intelligent player who enjoyed his game. In fact he was so keen it would have been insulting to fake it, so I had to join in properly and attempt to match his standard.

'You should practise, Falco. This is a game of skill. It has parallels with investigation.' Martinus was one of those pretentious board-game philosophers. 'You need mental agility, strength of will, powers of bluff, concentration - '

'And little glass balls,' I remarked.

The morning continued without much incident, though we did see a limping man whom we reckoned must be on the 'wounded soldier' racket and another whom Martinus had once arrested for hooking cups off drink stall shelves. He ignored the Oily Jug, our perch. At lunch time a whole parade of men who appeared to be legitimate customers were crowding to the brothel when my companion stayed his hand just at the moment of capturing my last viable counter. 'Falco! There go a real couple of gangland educators!'

I didn't need him to point out the enforcers. Emerging from Plato's for a midday stroll were the Miller and Little Icarus. 'I know them. Those are the pair who tried acting as rough masseurs to me. They must be living there.'

'Seeing two from the old Balbinus set-up gives us enough to mount a raid, Falco.'

'You sure? We have to be certain we land the big one.' 'If he's there.'

'If he isn't there all the time, I reckon he comes visiting.' Before we did anything rash I wanted to watch for an evening and night at least. Martinus made no attempt to demur. He was not stupid - far from it. The bastard was a champion draughts player.

In the afternoon three more seedy characters caught our attention as they emerged. We decided they were low-life. There was a flash type in punched sandals and a niello belt, a broken-nosed hearty who kept kicking kerbstones, and a weed who came out scratching his head as if a whole herd of little lodgers were bothering him, I felt itchy just looking.

'Fancy stretching your legs?' I asked. Martinus swept up his glass counters in an instant and we set off to trail the trio. We both had to go. One man can't follow three.

For a nicely brought-up Aventine boy it was a real eye- opener. First two of them joined the squash in an elbow joint, pretending to buy a stuffed-vine-leaf lunch while they worked through the customers with a skill that left me gasping. When someone went to pay for a flagon too early, found his purse gone and caught on to them, out they ran like eels. The third man was loafing on the doorstep as if unconnected; he misdirected the robbed man, who pelted down the wrong street while our friends met up together and mooched off the other way. We never saw them cleaning out the purses they had lifted, but we noticed the empty pouches flipped into a cart.

We split up to walk on either side of the street for a while, still tailing the three. They were now heading for the Forum. It was at its busiest, all the temple steps crowded with moneychangers and salesmen, and the spaces around the rostra packed. Our mark with the overactive lice paused to kick and rob a drunk near the House of the Vestals. The crunch of his boot going in symbolised all that was vicious in the Balbinus gangs.

They moved on through the press of fishwives and bread-sellers, 'sampling' rolls, sausages and fruit as the fancy took them, never paying for any of it. One was a real reacher, adept at leaning across shop counters to grab money or goods. In the end we could bear to watch no longer, not without arresting them. That might alarm the brothel; we had to hold back. They were tackling the Basilica Aemilia, the main centre of commerce in Rome, which was cluttered with itinerant sellers and tacky stalls; plenty of scope for our boys to spend a lucrative hour.

Incensed, Martinus and I walked back into the Forum. We took a breather in the shade of the Temple of the Divine Julius, reflecting on our researches so far.

'Those three were sharp little movers. What you've uncovered has Balbinus' seal stamped all over it,' Martinus commented. He seemed depressed.

'What's up? Do you think we're wasting our time taking on the gangs?'

'You never wipe out thieves, Falco. If we put those three in a cell, someone else will be along, aiming to relieve diners of their purses while they're licking out their bowls.'

'If you think that, why do this job at all?'

'Why indeed!' He sighed bitterly. I said nothing. I knew this mood was a hazard of life in the vigiles. I had known Petro long enough.

Sometimes the pressure and danger, and the sheer weight of despair, caused one of them to resign. The others became even more unsettled for a while. But normally they moaned a lot, got paralytic with an amphora, then carried on. Given their lousy pay and harsh conditions, plus the traditional indifference of their superiors, complaint seemed understandable.

Martinus was now watching passers-by. His arms were crossed on his chest and his fat backside was thrust out in his habitual way. His large eyes were taking in everything. I remembered that when we were waiting for Balbinus at Ostia it was Martinus who had stayed twitching at the door of the tavern, and how timely had been his warning of the escort's approach. Here in the Forum, although his thoughts seemed to be upon disheartened philosophy, he had spotted the vagrant who was drunk as a vintner's carthorse weaving a determined course towards two highly snooty types in togas outside the Julian courts. He had noted the slaves fooling about, including the one who had pinched another's inkpot and hidden it in his tunic with a genuine intent to steal. He had seen the old woman crying and the girl who did not realise she was being followed home. His gaze had finally settled on the group of young boys loitering on the steps of the Temple of Castor and Pollux, youths who were dearly looking for trouble though probably not yet committed to a life of crime.

'Of course it's a job,' he mused. 'Fresh air and mental challenges. At least when you get hit on the head it's no surprise. There's a routine, if you like that, but scope to use your initiative. You have wonderful colleagues to insult you day and night. Plus the joy of knowing everyone else thinks you're just a fireman and despises you. I haven't doused a flame in fifteen years.'

'You've been on enquiries most of your career?'

'Must be thought to have the knack,' he replied dryly.

He had the cynical tone of a man who knew all superiors were incapable of judgement or man management. This could have made him vulnerable. But somehow I felt that Martinus was too easy-going to complicate his existence by taking bribes. He was too lazy to bother, Petro would say.

'So what do you reckon we do now?' I asked. Naturally I had my own ideas. I was convinced the brothel had been made the new centre of the Balbinus organisation.

'We need to know if Balbinus is inside Plato's.'

I agreed so far. 'Or if not, when they are expecting him.' 

'So we need an inside man,' Martinus said.

I glanced at him uneasily. 'You mean one of us?'

'Jupiter, no! Unless,' he grinned, 'you fancy volunteering?' 

'If that's the plan, I fancy a long vacation on a pig farm in Bruttium!'

Martinus shook his head. 'We need a single-handed worker. One who looks bent enough to be accepted without comment, but who has no real allegiance to the Balbinus mob.' He pointed a long finger at a pickpocket who for the past half-hour had been patiently working the crowds. "There's one I know. He'll do.'

We walked across to the unobtrusive pouch-snatcher and waited until he bumped into his next victim. Martinus instantly laid a hand on his shoulder, and just as quickly the man darted off. 'Drop him, Falco!'

I knocked the snatcher's legs from under him, and Martinus sat down hard on his ribs. We tossed the purse back to the victim, who blinked in surprise, then looked at us as if he feared we were setting him up for some really complicated con. Sighing, Martinus waved him away.

We stood the pickpocket upright and pinned at him.

LVIII

'Listen, Claudius - '

'Me name's Igullius!'

He was a runt. I myself would never have let him nick my purse; I would not have let this ill-favoured, pathetic creature stand near enough to me to finger it. 'His name's Igullius. Write it down, Martinus!' Martinus fetched out his note tablet and wrote it down. First, however, he courteously checked the spelling.

This pickpocket had a greasy face and oily hair. His breath was coming in short, frightened pants. It informed us that his breakfast had included hard-boiled eggs; his lunch was a garlic stew. The flavouring had been generous and was now pervading all the pores of his unhealthy skin.

Martinus and I stepped back. Igullius wondered if he dared make a run for it. We glared. He stayed put. Martinus explained like a kindly uncle that it was necessary for him to submit to a search.

Igullius was wearing a natural wool toga which Martinus lifted off him, using the tips of his fingers as if he thought he might catch plague. Somewhat to our surprise we found nothing in its folds. Igullius looked self-righteous. We surveyed what was left of him: battered boots and a rather wide-necked tunic, fastened tightly round his midriff by a nipped-in belt that was nearly bisecting him.

'Take off your belt,' I commanded.

'What for?'

'So I can thrash you with it, if you don't get a move on.' I sounded like a watch captain. Sometimes you have to lower yourself to obtain a result.

With a filthy look, Igullius hoicked in his rib-gripper and let the clincher off its notch. Purses tumbled from beneath his tunic with a melodious clink. One bounced on his kneecap, causing his leg to kick. 'Ooh look, Falco, it's snowing denarii!'

'I'll see you,' the pickpocket replied defiantly as Martians tweaked at the tunic in case there was more.

'I don't take.' The answer from Martiaus came out sweetly and calmly. Igullius probably failed to realise this was the Forum Romanum district, whereas we were from the Aventine. The First Cohort ought to be in charge here, though typically none had been visible anywhere for the past hour. Martinus stooped, gathering the booty. 'The game's up, Igullius. You're going to climb the tree; we'll crucify you.'

'I never did nothing.'

Martians shook a couple of purses in his face. 'We'll have to discuss that. Falco, let's take him to a private room somewhere.'

'Oh no!' Sheer terror now gripped our captive. 'I'm not going in any cell with you!' Martinus had never intended taking him to the Fourth's patrol house; apart from the fact we did not want to involve Petronius, we were too far away. But the mere hint caused an extreme reaction. Somebody somewhere in the cohorts had a formidable reputation.

In fright Igullius made a sudden break. I grabbed him and wrapped his arms around his back, holding him fast. Martinus was stuck with the flavoursome breath, but carried on bravely. 'You stink and you steal. Give me one good reason to go easy on you, Igullius!'

The pickpocket had been in the streets long enough to know what was required. 'Oh Jupiter! Well what have I got to do?'

'Co-operate. But you'll like it,' we told him. 'We're going to give you the money to go with a prostitute!' We turned the pickpocket round, took an arm each, lifted him over a screever who was begging on the pavement with a piteous message, then marched him down the Sacred Way.

As we crossed the Via Nova into the shadow of the Palatine I noticed Tibullinus, the centurion of the Sixth. We had seen him at Ostia, and he had turned up when we were looking at the corpse of Nonnius. Tibullinus was too closely involved in events to let him notice us here. I gave Martians the nod. Alert, he took the point. But Tibullinus was patrolling the Palatine in a style that seemed to suit him - laughing and joking with fellows he recognised. He did not see us.

We took our new acquaintance back to the Oily Jug. This time we were more brisk with the woman. She had two choices - either to spend the next couple of days with a friend somewhere, or to pass them in a cell. Once again this threat worked miracles. She decided she had a sister who was longing to see her, and fled from our watching post.

Training Igullius was tiresome. We used the kind method, only thumping him when his eyes glazed. 'That building over there is called the Bower of Venus - '

'That's Plato's.'

'Have you been there?'

'Of course.' He was possibly bluffing, but he wanted to appear a smart man about town.

'Well Plato's may be under new management, but we're not interested in the brothel itself. There's a phoenix in Rome. A person who is supposed to be banished has come home again.' Maybe Igullius knew. He was already pale. 'His name is Balbinus Pius. Some of his men are hanging out in Plato's. Maybe he's there too. Maybe he's just hiring rooms for them. But if he visits his troops, we want to know. You see how it is, Igullius. You're going in, you're going to recognise a friend, or make a new one if you have to, but however you do it you're going to sit in a corner keeping quiet until you can come out and tell us a date and time when Balbinus will be available for interview.'

'Oh give me a chance, Falco! I'm dead if I try that.' 

'You're dead if you don't,' smiled Martinus. He enjoyed playing the cruel executioner.

I took a hand again. 'Now settle down, Igullius. We know you're not entirely bad, so we're giving you this fine job opportunity. You're going to be our undercover man. And to compensate your loss of earnings from your regular work, we'll find you a big ex-gratia at the end of the day.'

'How about paying some in advance?'

'Don't be stupid,' said Martinus. 'We're in the vigiles. We have to remember public accountability.'

Igullius tried one last desperate wriggle. 'That place is full of hard men. They'll spot a weed in the garden straight away.' 

'You've been there before, according to you. You'll have to make sure you blend in,' I said callously. 'You're perfectly capable. Anyone who can slide up and sneak purses even though he has breath that can be smelled at twenty paces can merge into a nest of mostly stupid criminals.'

We gave him the price of a whore to start him off convincingly, then pushed him on his way.

Success came fast. Igullius was back in a couple of hours, nipping across the street like a startled cat. Whatever he learnt had left him panic-stricken. He fell into the thermopolium, then threw himself behind the counter with his head in his hands.

'Oh you bastards! Don't make me go back again.'

'That depends,' sneered Martinus. 'What have you got for us?'

'I've got what you asked for, and I'm not getting any more!'

I found him a drink to calm his hysteria. He gulped down the wine, which I knew was disgusting, as if he had just crawled out of a six-day sandstorm in an arid zone. 'Control yourself. You're safe now. What was your girl like?'

'All right...' Easily sidetracked! Martinus and I leaned on the counter watching him. Crouching at our feet, he managed to slow his breath.

'I think he's there! I'm sure he is!'

'Not visible, presumably?' Martinus asked.

'I didn't see him. I mean, I didn't see anyone who looked that big a character.'

'Big? Don't believe it,' I snarled. 'Balbinus is just a flea.'

Igullius continued, talking fast as if he wanted to get this over. 'The place is humming. I've never been in a barn with such a live atmosphere. I saw half a dozen faces, I mean serious faces. There's one big room - ' He shook, unable to spit it out. That sounded like the cavernous hall Petro and I had glimpsed. It had been full of small-timers then, but when I pressed the trembling Igullius for details he described a real thieves' kitchen with mobsters nesting openly.

I stared at Martinus. 'Something's changed. It sounds as though Balbinus has taken over and made the place his own. Igullius, was there any mention of Lalage?' He shook his head. 'Well if you've been there before, is the brothel business being run the same as usual?' This time he nodded.

While I was pondering, Martinus tried screwing more useful facts from our eavesdropper, though to little effect. I sat in silence. We certainly could not send him straight back into Plato's this afternoon or it would arouse the suspicions of the girl on the door. Martinus decided that Igullius could be let off and dismissed.

'I want my money then.'

Martinus was looking at me unhappily. I realised he lacked the authority to pay over the kind of reward we had promised, and he was even too straight to hand back the purses Igullius had stolen in the Forum (which is what I would have done, given this was a crisis). Instead, Martinus was forced to remove the back block from his note tablet and write out a chit. 'Take this to the patrol house - tomorrow!' he said sternly. That would give him some grace before Petronius found out.

The pickpocket snatched the warrant, then found his feet and scurried off.

I continued thinking. It looked as if Lalage had lied to me - no surprise at all.

I did not believe she was running the crime empire from Plato's herself. Lalage was not so stupid as to do that openly.

They were still working for the old regime. After all Lalage's claims about seizing her independence, it was hard to accept that she had caved in and allowed Balbinus Pius to take over her premises. That he might even be hiding up there seemed incredible.

She would not do it. Either he had removed her - in which case I doubted that the brothel would be running as smoothly as usual -or Lalage had some ploy in hand. That boded ill for Balbinus. But it might help us.

As Martinus and I continued our vigil we abandoned casual chat - and draughts. That suited me. It also stopped his overblown raving about men who played board games being suitable to pit their wits against major criminals. Removing Balbinus from Rome called for a sudden rush with a sharp weapon, not cerebral guile.

It already felt like a long day and I reckoned we were heading for a big night exercise. We found some stale bread to gnaw on. We had a drink. Indigestion set in cruelly.

Towards the evening we started feeling tense. Something was going on. Men, singly or in twos or threes, walked up to the brothel. They appeared in the street as quietly as bats. Making their way inside, they might-have been bound for a party with their workplace dining club. If so, they were dressed less smartly than most colleages going out for a bash. Also, they were being asked to pay a hefty ticket price: 'That's boodle, or I'm a baby!' Martinus had identified our first definite sack of swag - a bedcover knotted at the corners, from within which came the charming chink of stolen silverware.

We both knew what we were watching. I had discussed this when I first tried to involve the deputy, and now as the early dusk fell I was being proved right. The starlings were roosting. All the day shifts were closing and their operators were reporting in with their take. Cashing up: making their way here with their takings from all the corners of the Aventine, the waterfront and the Forum. The snatchers and grabbers, the confidence tricksters and bluffers, the strangling muggers, the dirty alley girls with thugs for minders, the robbers of drunks and schoolchildren, the mobs who held up ladies' litters, the thieves who beat up slaves. It was mainly money that was pouring in. Saleable goods would be passed to receiving shops or metal furnaces. I had to slip out to a stationer's to buy more wax tablets as Martinus had run out of space to note down all the criminals he knew. There were many more we could not identify - or not yet. Most of them left again shortly after arrival, clearly lighter of baggage.

We had to decide what to do. 'Balbinus could have an accountant working at Plato's. A sidekick who just keeps the ledgers and pays off the workmen.'

'What would you do, Martinus, if your most trusted collector had been Nonnius Albinus, and he put you away?' 

'I'd do the reckoning myself after that.'

'I bet he agrees! If so, then he's in there.'

'He's in there, Falco. Now he is. But if I was him, I'd move about.'

'So you're saying let's nab him before he hops?'

'Don't you agree?'

Of course I agreed - but I wanted to go in there in strength. In particular I wanted Petronius among us. It was partly old loyalty. But more than that, if I was going into Plato's knowing it was full of evil men and hoping to find the worst of all calmly sitting there with a glass in his hand and an abacus, then I wanted someone at my back I could trust.

'So is it a jump?' Martinus demanded impatiently. From his tone it was clear that if I declined tonight, he would not continue to work with me. I could live without his draughts game, but not with whatever chaos he might wreak if he started working on his own.

'It's a go if Rubella will give us some backup.'

Even Martinus, with his high opinion of his own quality, could not consider a raid at Plato's with just the two of us. He went off to consult his tribune. I had to stay on watch. Things were so lively we no longer dared to leave together in case we missed something.

I sat there for some time. I had taken one of the spare noteblocks, and was drawing a map of the brothel based on what I remembered from my two visits. One thing I knew was that the place was very large. It occupied at least three storeys, each with numerous corridors. It had probably grown from a single house, taking in those either side as success enabled expansion. Although there was one main door, we had noticed that some of the gangsters knocked and were admitted to a more innocent-looking hole in the wall: they had a family entrance for criminals. In the other direction was a similar house door, much less used. Women occasionally slipped in and out. Once one emerged with two small children: it must be the prostitutes' private exit. Not many had freedom to come and go. I wondered where that would place them in a fracas with the law.

Sometimes the prostitutes received their own visitors. All were women. I made up some pretty reasons for these intriguing social calls. Some involved special entertainers who lived elsewhere but were hired in: Some involved the sort of tales adolescents tell each other about high-class ladies working in brothels for high-spending favoured clients.