I could play that game. `Whether it's you who masterminded the Emporium heist.'
It failed to nettle him. `I heard about that,' he said softly. So had most of Rome, so I couldn't accuse him of unnatural inside knowledge. Not yet anyway. I was starting to feel that if he had been involved, handing him over to justice would give me great pleasure. I had a distinct feeling that he knew more than he ought. But crooks enjoy making you feel that.
`Somebody could hardly wait for Balbinus to leave town,' I told him. `They snatched the inside lane of the racecourse – and they want everyone to know who's driving to win.'
`Looks that way,' he agreed, like a convivial friend humouring me.
`Was it you?'
`I'm a sick man.'
`As I said earlier,' I smiled, `I'm very sorry to hear that, Nonnius Albius… I've been away. I missed your famous court appearance, so let's run over a few things.'
He looked sulky. 'I said my piece and I'm finished.'
`Oh yes. I heard you're quite an orator -'
At this point Fusculus, who had been watching with amused patience, suddenly cracked with anger and had to butt in: `Get a grindstone and sharpen up, Nonnius! You're a committed songbird now. Tell the man what he needs to know!'
`Or what?' jeered the patient, showing us the ugly glower that must have been forced on countless debtors. `I'm dying. You can't frighten me.'
'We all die,' Fusculus replied. He was a quiet, calm philosopher. `Some of us try to avoid being hung up in chains in the Banqueting Chamber first, while Sergius gives his whip an airing.'
Nonnius was hard to terrify. He had probably devised and carried out more excruciating tortures than we two innocents could even imagine. `Forget it, shave-tail! That's the frightener you use for schoolboys filching oysters off barrows.' He glared at Fusculus suddenly. `I know you!'
`I've been involved in the Balbinus case.'
`Oh yes, one of the Fourth Cohort's brave esparto-grass boys!' This was the traditional rude nickname for the foot patrols, after the mats they were issued with for smothering blazes. Used of Petro's team, who thought themselves above firefighting, it was doubly rude. (All the worse because the esparto mats were regarded as useless anyway.)
I managed to break in before things got too hot. `Tell me about how the Balbinus empire worked.'
`A pleasure,. young man!' Nonnius decided to treat me as the reasonable person in our party in order to show up Fusculus. The latter settled back again, quite content to simmer down. `What do you want, Falco?'
`I know Balbinus was the uncrowned king of rat thieves and porch-crawlers. He ran small-time crime as an industry and had drop shops on every street corner to process the loot. I haven't even mentioned the brothels or the illicit gaming houses yet -'
`He could run an estate,' Nonnius conceded, with visible pride at being an associate.
`With your help'. He accepted the smarm. I choked back my disgust. `It was more than stealing scarves from washing lines, however.'
`Balbinus was big enough to have carried off the Emporium raid,' Nonnius agreed. `Were he still in Rome!'
`But sadly he's travelling… So who might have inherited his talent? We'll take it that you personally have retired to lead a blameless life.' Nonnius allowed that lie too. `Were there any other big boys in the gang who could be showing a flash presence now?'
`Your sidekick ought to know names,' Nonnius sneered nastily. `He helped close down the show!'
Fusculus acknowledged it with his normal grace, refusing to lose his temper this time. `They all had cheap nicknames,' he said quietly to me, before running off one of his competent lists: `The Miller was the most sordid; he did the killings. The more brutal, the more he liked it. Little Icarus thought he could fly above the rest, the joke being that he was a complete no-hoper: Same for Julius Caesar. He was one of those madmen who think they're an emperor. Laurels would get the blight pretty quickly on his greasy head. The others I knew were called Verdigris and the Fly.'
We looked at Nonnius for confirmation; he shrugged, pretending at last to be impressed. `Clever boy!'
`And where are they all now?' I asked.
`All gone to the country when the trial came off.'
`Quiet holidays in Latium? You reckon that's true?' I put to Fusculus.
He nodded. `Minding goats.'
Petro would have kept tabs on them as far as possible. `So, Nonnius, those were the centurions, and now they're living in rural retirement like a legion's colony of veterans Who were the big rivals to your dirty group?'
`We did not allow rivals!'
I could believe that.
There was no need to press the point. Better to think about the other criminal gangs after we left him. I sensed that Nonnius was taking a gloating delight in my interest in the rivals – who undoubtedly existed, even though Balbinus Pius must have done his best to strong-arm them out of his territory. I saw no need to gratify the rent-collector's pernicious taste for making trouble.
`We'll be in touch,' I said, trying to make it sound worrying.
`Don't wait too long,' leered Nonnius. `I'm a sick man!'
`If the Fourth want you, we'll find you in Hades,' Fusculus chortled. A pleasant threat, which somehow carried a darker tone than his mild, cheery nature led one to expect. Petronius knew how to pick his men.
Fusculus and I left then, without bothering to make contact with the Temple of Saturn auditor.
XVIII
WHEN WE RETURNED to the station house Petronius had just come in. At the same time his deputy, Martinus, had gone off duty, so Petro was in an affable mood. In our absence the day patrol had brought in two suspected lodging-house thieves, and a man who kept an unleashed dog that had bitten a woman and a child (the suspected wolf' from the Temple of Luna). Petro told Fusculus to do the interrogations on these.
`What, all of them, chief?'
`Even the dog.'
Fusculus and I exchanged a grin. It was his punishment for palling up with me. Petronius wanted to keep me on a very tight rein – one that could be personally jerked by him.
`And you can stop smirking!' he snarled at me. `I've seen Rubella. I know you're setting up special little escapades that I haven't agreed to!'
Looking innocent, I made sure I told him how friendly my chat with his tribune had been, and how I had been given a free hand to interview Nonnius.
`Bastard,' Petro commented, though it was fairly automatic. `You're welcome to the rent-collector. I warn you, he's a snake nesting in a midden heap, be careful where you shove your garden fork.' He relaxed. `What did you think of Rubella?'
Assessing the tribune seemed to be a cohort obsession. It's the same anywhere that has a hierarchy. Everyone spends a lot of time debating whether their supervisor is just an ineffectual layabout who needs a diagram in triplicate before he can wipe his backside clean – or whether he's so poisonous he's actually corrupt.
`Snide,' 1 said. `Could be more dangerous than he looks. He can make a sharp judgement. It was like being interviewed by a crap fortune-teller. Rubella chewed some magic seeds, then informed me that as a legionary I didn't like my centurion.'
Petro feigned an admiring look. `Well he was right there!' We both laughed. Our centurion in the Second Augusta had been a brutal lag named Stollicus; both Petro and I were constantly at loggerheads with him. Stollicus reckoned we were a pair of unkempt, unreliable troublemakers who were deliberately ruining his own chances of
