Lindsey Davis - Time to Depart

'Are you talking raids again?' Lalage laughed. She knew he had lost his grip enough to give her the upper hand.

'He knows better,' I assured her. 'By the time we can bring the espartos in, the joint will be clean. Macra probably gave the word straight after she finished massaging your magistrate.'

'Well I do hope she was thorough,' grinned the madam shamelessly. 'A person of his status doesn't expect to be hustled!'

It seemed to me it was time the man was hustled out of office. Rome would never be cleaned up if every time Petronius brought a mugger to court the bad character could smile at a judge who had shared the ewer where he washed his privates after his Tuesday-afternoon binge. The fellowship of Plato's had insidious tentacles. A fact that was only one aspect of our visit today that had an aura of ambidextrous ethics. The smack of sticky payments seemed to be lurking everywhere.

Lalage's diversion failed. Petronius Longus was strictly unamused. 'Who's your landlord now?' he sprang on her. 'Who runs this place since Nonnius did his singing from the high twig and Balbinus Pius took a sail?'

'What sort of a question's that?'

'Well it's not about who has decorating rights under your building tenancy. Who's the mighty man behind you, Lalage?'

'I don't go in for boys' stuff.'

'Stifle the innuendo! Who's giving Plato protection? We proved in court that Balbinus used to cream off his percentage, so who skims Plato's now?'

'Nobody. Who needs it? I'm running everything myself.'

It was what we already suspected. Petronius screwed the corner of his mouth. "This had better be honest then.'

'Who needs a man?' scoffed Lalage lightly. 'I had it up to here with the old system. Balbinus demanded an exorbitant cut, then I was constantly giving presents to Nonnius to stop him breaking up the furniture – all ln return for a supposed service we never saw. Any trouble had to be sorted out by my own staff. What happened when the Lycian blew away was typical – we tried to clear up ourselves. I was doing the herd work, and Balbinus was just milking the business. That's over. The only commerce I'm interested in now is when men are paying me!'

'Someone will try to take over his position,' Petronius insisted.

'Let them try!'

'If it hasn't happened yet, now Balbinus has left Rome you'll meet with pressure eventually. When it happens, I want to know.'

'Sorry,' she answered acidly. 'You're in the same bumboat as all my customers: you'll get what you pay for – and no more!'

'That's closer to what I call a bargain,' Petronius responded, in his normal, level tone. 'For the big item, I'll be buying.'

She heaved her bosom, setting up ripples of light from the jewellery. The effect was less worrying than the eye trick, but highly professional. 'How much?'

'What it's worth. But I don't want shoddy goods or fakes.'

'You don't want much.' The last comment was amiable bluster. They had reached the real centre of the discussion; the terms were understood and more or less accepted by both sides. Whether that meant Lalage would ever produce any information was another matter.

'Bring me the name I need, and you won't regret it. You'll find me at the station house in the Thirteenth,' Petro announced politely.

'Oh go away,' she sneered, addressing me as if her patience with him had run out. 'And take the Big Unsusceptible with you!'

We were leaving. I turned back at the last moment to add a courtesy of my own. Giving the famous whore a generous smile, I said, 'I'm glad to see your ear healed up!'

While she and Petronius were thinking about it, I grabbed him by the elbow and we fled.

We emerged unscathed, though I for one wanted to head for the nearest respectable bathhouse.

'What was the crack about the lug, Falco?'

I just grinned and looked mysterious.

The place seemed much emptier than when we arrived. News spreads.

The girl Matra was standing back at the outside door. She looked edgy, but when she saw we were leaving peacefully she relaxed. As we passed her I heard a young child's cry. Macra noticed my surprise. 'Things happen, Falco!'

'I thought you were organised in places like this.' Some brothels were so organised, their expertise had led to them operating as neighbourhood abortists.

'Losing a baby's illegal, isn't it, officer?' Macra gurgled at Petronius. He looked tense. We all knew it would be a long time before anyone bothered to take a prostitute to court for this. The unborn are protected if there's a legacy in it; the unborn with shameless mothers have few rights.

'Like to see around the nursery?' the girl then offered Petro. There was a distinct undertone of offering him a prepubertal titbit. He declined in silence, and she giggled. 'You're a hard man to tempt! Maybe I'll have to come and see you in your station house.'

'Maybe I'll show you the cell!' Petro growled in annoyance. A mistake.

'It's a promise!' Macra shrieked. 'We know a client in the vigiles who does amazing things with chains during "interviews".'

Petronius had had enough. He took out his note tablet formally: 'And who would that be?'

'Well do you believe,' she leered at him, 'his name seems to just escape me..'

'You're a lying little flirt,' Petronius told her, fairly pleasantly. He put away the note tablet. We stepped out into the street with her jibes ringing along the narrow passage at our backs.

'So that's a brothel!' Petro said, and we both nudged each other, grinning at an old joke from the past.

We had hesitated, lacking plans. We should not have laughed. Laughing on a brothel doorstep can lead to disaster. Never do it before you have taken a careful look in both directions down the street.

Somebody we knew was coming towards us. Petro and I were already helpless. It was too late to make off discreetly; far too late to look less like guilty men.

Approaching down the narrow lane, crying loudly, was a little girl with big feet and a dirty face. She was seven years old, in a tunic she had outgrown months ago; with it she wore a cheap glass bracelet that a kind uncle had brought her from abroad, and an extravagant amulet against the evil eye. The evil eye had not been averted; the child was being dragged along by a small, fierce-old lady with a pinched mouth who had an expression of moral outrage even before she spotted us. Spot us she did, of course, just as we two emerged like utter layabouts from Plato's Academy.

The little girl was in deep trouble for playing truant. She was glad to see anyone else she could drag down to Hades with her. She knew we were exactly the distraction she needed.

'There's Uncle Marcus!' She stopped crying at once.

Her jailer stopped walking. Petro and I had been reprobates in our youth, but nobody in Rome knew that. Petro and I had not been stupid. We were reprobates abroad.

We had just blown our cover. My niece Tertulla stared at us. She knew that even bunking off school after her grand na had pinched and scraped to pay for it failed to match our disgrace. We knew it too.

'Petronius Longus!' cried the old lady in frank amazement, too horrified even to mention me. Petro was renowned as a good husband and family man, so this disaster would be blamed on me.

'Good afternoon,' murmured Petro shyly, trying to pretend he had not been chortling, or if he had it was only because he had just heard a very funny but perfectly tasteful story about an aspect of local politics. With great presence of mind he embarked upon explaining that we could not make ourselves available to escort people to a safer neighbourhood, owing to a message he'd just received about a crisis over at the station house.

At the same moment a flying figure whom I recognised as my fraught sister Galla came hurrying down the lane crying, 'Oh you've found the little honor!' Galla spent half her life oblivious to what her children might be getting up to, and the rest in guilty hysterics after somebody stupid had told her.