David Wishart - Last Rites

‘Fair enough.’ He got up and went to the door. ‘Hey, Faustus! Chilo! In here a minute!’

The two guys who had been propping up the outside desk when I’d arrived shooting the breeze with the clerk looked up and lumbered over. Yeah; that would just about do it where back-up was concerned. Either one of them could’ve punched out a rhino.

Lippillus made the introductions and explained the situation – standing, he came up to about the shorter guy’s chest – and we set off for the Crocodile.

The place was a real dive, I could see that from the outside: a ramshackle two-storey building in a rubbish-strewn street of tenements backing on to the old wall itself. Some hack with more imagination than talent had painted the eponymous reptile on the wall beside the door, but the paint had flaked away over time until even the least critical of art lovers – who probably didn’t feature much anyway as a class among the club’s clientèle – wouldn’t’ve recognised it for what it was unless they’d known in advance. Still, it showed we were dealing with an old-established firm here. That was nice; longevity always inspires confidence.

Lippillus pushed open the door and we went in. There were three customers drinking at the counter, but they took one look at us and suddenly decided they had pressing business elsewhere. I noticed they gave Faustus and Chilo a wide berth, walking very carefully like they were tiptoeing on eggs. I didn’t blame them.

That left a trio of hard-eyed girls, obviously employees taking an early lunch break, and behind the bar the fattest guy I’d ever seen who just had to be the Hippo.

‘Hi, Hippo,’ Lippillus said. He hadn’t even glanced at the punters while they made their exit. ‘How are things?’

The fat guy smiled. Or at least rearranged the mounds of flab that made up his face. Jupiter, he was gross: three hundred pounds, at least, and every ounce of it blubber. ‘Watch Commander!’ he said. ‘A delight to see you! A jug of our best wine, a few pieces of cheese and an olive or two. On the house, of course.’

Lippillus looked at me. I shrugged, he nodded and we went up to the counter with the two squaddies in close attendance.

The Hippo was filling a jug from a flask. He glanced over his shoulder at me. ‘We don’t see many purple-stripers in this part of the Aventine, sir,’ he said. ‘If you don’t mind my saying so.’

‘This is Marcus Valerius Corvinus, Hippo.’ Lippillus took four cups from the pile on the counter, inspected them, swapped one for a fifth and set them out. ‘He’s a good friend of mine and he wants to ask you some questions.’

‘Any friend of yours is always most welcome at the Crocodile, Commander. You know that.’ The fat guy poured for us then cut a huge wedge from the cheese on the bar counter. I noticed, though, that the phoney bonhomie had gone up a notch, if that was possible: ‘questions’ was obviously a word that made our cheery pal nervous.

I tasted the wine. Considering the place, I’d been expecting rotgut, but it wasn’t bad. Not top-of-the-range stuff, sure, nor even second – either would’ve been pushing things – but good for its class. Very good. ‘Corfinian?’ I said.

The Hippo was ladling olives. He straightened and gave me a look that could’ve been respect but was probably wind. ‘Close, sir,’ he said. ‘Very close indeed. It’s from Sulmo. My cousin’s farm.’

‘Nice.’

He put the plates of cheese and olives in front of us. I tried a bit of the cheese, and it wasn’t bad, either. Just goes to show, you can’t trust first impressions. I could get to like this place.

Maybe it was telepathy. The girls along the bar had been giving me the eye over their bread and pickles since we’d come in. Now one of them – a stacked Mauretanian with shoulders that could’ve been smoothed ebony – called out, ‘Hey! Purple-striper!’

I turned. ‘Yeah?’

The Hippo was glaring at her but the other girls were sniggering.

‘You want some dessert after that, you just say, okay? Real genuine purple-stripe dessert.’

‘Maybe another time,’ I said. ‘I’ve got dinner to think of.’

Trite, sure, but I’d got her range. The girl laughed.

‘Just remember I’ve had practice and I’m a good cook,’ she said. ‘The best.’

‘Cut it out, Phoebe!’ the Hippo snapped. The sniggering stopped like magic and the girls got suddenly interested in their plates. A mound of blubber the guy might be, but he clearly had the edge on his staff.

I turned away. Okay, fun over, time for business. ‘You know a woman called Myrrhine, Hippo?’ I said.

It was like throwing a stone into a pool: I could feel the silence spreading. If the girls had been quiet before they were like mice now. Mice with large ears. You could’ve heard a pickle drop.

‘Who?’ the Hippo said finally.

‘Come off it.’ Lippillus hadn’t so much as looked up from his wine and his voice was quiet, but the fat guy flinched.

‘Yeah. Yeah, okay, I know Myrrhine,’ he said quickly. He picked up a cloth and ran it over the counter, just to show how calm he wasn’t. ‘So?’

‘Don’t get smart,’ Lippillus murmured. ‘Please. Now really is not the time.’

The Hippo was beginning to sweat; not a pleasant sight. ‘That lady’s bad news, Commander,’ he said. ‘Crispa here’ll tell you.’

The girl on the far end of the trio shook her long hair away from her face – if she was a natural blonde I’d eat my sandals – and lifted her top lip. Two front teeth were missing. ‘That was Myrrhine did that,’ she said. ‘The woman’s a maniac.’

‘She was only in here a couple of times.’ The Hippo put the cloth down. ‘First with a girl we don’t have any more, but there was no problem. The second was with Crispa.’

‘She wanted me to-’ Crispa explained in detail just exactly what Myrrhine’s requirements had been. Big Faustus, drinking quietly at the other end of the counter, choked on his wine. ‘I told her to fuck off, I wasn’t doing anything like that, not for nobody. So she hit me.’

‘We got her out of the room,’ the Hippo said. ‘Then she pulled a knife. Luckily we’d a couple of regulars in here drinking. I had them throw her out and told her not to come back.’

‘When was this?’ I asked.

‘Two months ago, maybe three.’

Bugger. ‘And you haven’t seen her since, right?’

The Hippo chuckled. It was like seeing a mound of jelly hit by an earthquake.

‘Sure I’ve seen her,’ he said. ‘Practically every day. She has a room in one of the tenements up the road.’

Well, well, well.

‘I want her alive, okay?’ I said. ‘That isn’t negotiable.’

Chilo, the smaller of the two squaddies – meaning he was only half a head taller than me and twice the width – hefted his watchman’s club. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘No problems.’

‘Don’t get cocky.’ Lippillus was looking across the street at the tenement building the Hippo had directed us to. ‘She’s armed, she’s dangerous, and woman or not she’s no pushover. Only just remember we end up with a stiff and you two will be eligible for the Great Mother’s priesthood yourselves. Right?’

Chilo grinned. ‘Right, Commander,’ he said.

‘I’m not joking.’

The grin disappeared. The other guy, Faustus, nodded quickly. ‘Got you, sir,’ he said.

‘Fine.’ Lippillus turned to me. ‘Okay, Corvinus. She’s your find. You have the shout. How do you want to play it?’

I’d been wondering that myself. We knew the flat number – top floor, first door on the left – but not whether the lady was in or out. Or, if she was in, if she’d spotted us already from the window. There were too many dodgy factors to risk playing smart.