With a shimmer and tinkle of jewellery, she folded her fine arms and waited.
Petronius and I had deliberately stood at opposite ends of the room so she had to turn her head to face whoever was speaking. In more fragile company it was a tactic to cause alarm. I suspected Lalage had had plenty of practice in dealing with two men at once. Still, we went through the routine, and she let us play.
`We need to ask you some questions,' Petro began.
`Don't you mean more questions? I thought the damned business with the Lycians was all sorted out.' She assumed we had come about the murdered tourist whose death had formed the basis of the Balbinus trial.
`This is not about the Lycians.'
`Afraid I can't help you then.'
`Afraid you'd better. Do you want a raid?' Petronius asked. `I dare say we could find a few kidnapped minors working your cubicles. Or unlicensed freeborns. Are you absolutely certain you comply scrupulously with the hygiene regulations? Is any food being supplied on the premises? If so, are you licensed for hot meals? Who exactly were those shady characters Falco and I saw huddled downstairs?'
Petronius tended to stick stolidly to his remit, but this could take poking with a fancier baton. `How about a scandal?' I chimed in. `Senior magistrate named; society divorce ensues; shocked officials say they have seen nothing like it since Caligula's excesses. That should make a few entries in the Daily Gazette!'
`Good for trade,' Lalage shrugged. Annoyingly, she was right. Such a story might limit her upper-class clients for a while but others would flock. She decided to defy Petro. `Anyway, you work in the Thirteenth. This is the Eleventh; it's out of your jurisdiction. I'm not going to be raided,' she assured him serenely. `The Bower of Venus has an excellent relationship with the local boys.'
Petro's voice grated. `Excellent as tar!'
`They look after us very prettily.'
`I'm not the Sixth Cohort. I don't take oily handshakes, and I don't want half an hour with a dubious haybag on one of your flea-ridden blankets-'
`Of course you don't. You're a hero and your cohort's incorruptible! Something more select?' Lalage then rasped at Petro, with an affected attitude. `Does the most excellent sir have interesting tastes?'
`Shut it, Lalage!'
`Juno! Have I just met the one and only member of the vigiles who's not on the take?'
Petro ignored it. We were not investigating graft. If anyone tackled that problem, it would need more than two agents, and they would want to be wearing Scythian chain mail. `Hear my words. I'm not touting for a free tickle, and you're in danger of finding the brothel closed down and yourself back as a paviour again.'
`I was never a streetwalker!' the madam exclaimed with true horror.
I took a turn in the conversation. `This is the real business,' I warned her. `Unless we get co-operation, you'll find yourself making an appearance before the eagle's beak!'
`Nice oratory. So what's the catch?'
`Be clever. My colleague's easily upset.'
She turned lustrous eyes on me. Her manner altered. She had had fifteen years of practice and I felt my breath falter. `So what about you?' she murmured.
`He has a very respectable girlfriend,' Petronius shot in rapidly.
`Oh I see! Why keep a pig and honk yourself?' Her eyes never left me. If I looked at her, the pressure was serious, and if I stared back, I could no longer see Petro. This was where separating ourselves at two ends of the room could leave one of us vulnerable. Lalage knew how to make feeling vulnerable seem exciting. She was still relaying the promising smile, and I was freely admiring the act. She had once been a genuine looker. She was soiled, but still attractive. Well-worn glory has its own allure. Virginity's a bland commodity.
The skirmish was brief, however. `You seem to be a man of taste,' she said.
`I like to bask at my own fire.' I liked rather more than that, and what suited my taste was not sold by the hour. My girl could never be bought.
Lalage dropped the subject, though not without a sneer. `Well thanks for making it sound like an apology!'
`Aventine etiquette.'
She gave me a sharper look, but I chose to pretend I had said nothing significant. She still did not know what I was hinting; she had seen too many men to remember who I was. I felt her lose interest – leaving me with a strong sense of unfinished business.
Unexpectedly she spun back to Petro: `I haven't got all day! What do you want?'
She was using our own separation routine; letting one relax, then trying to catch him off guard. Petro managed to avoid being thrown. His chin came up, but he turned it into a surly gesture by sweeping back his straight hair with one hand, like a dandy who didn't reckon on letting a mere woman make him jump. `To discuss the Emporium heist.'
`Oh that was a loud one!'. She rolled her eyes. They were still very beautifuclass="underline" wide-set, large, dark as a winter evening, and melting with suggestiveness. Personally, I liked eyes with a more subtle challenge. But Lalage had nice eyes.
Petronius had noticed them, though only a close friend would know it. `Yes, they're talking about it everywhere – but nobody's whispering who did the dirty deed.'
`Who do you think did it?' Lalage asked, pretending to flatter him.
`I haven't time to waste thinking. I want names.'
She tried the innocent-little-woman trick: `Well what makes you believe I might know anything about thieves?'
Petro's temper was running short now. His teeth had locked. `You mean, apart from the fact that your downstairs parlour is full of sneaks who follow funerals to rob the mourners, door-knock thieves who work the rush-the-porter game, balcony-crawlers, basement rats, and that little runt who hangs the fake fly in peoples' faces, then slits their purse thongs while they're brushing it away?'
I was impressed. We had only glimpsed the trading room for a moment. Petro must have sharp eyes. He certainly knew the streets. And I knew him. I recognised the signs: he felt uneasy with the location and was working up to dragging Lalage over to his. station house. If she had been a well-bred schoolgirl who had never spoken to a public official he might have stood a chance. But he ought to realise what a fool he would look, trying to put an arm lock on a glittering saffron butterfly who would shriek abuse at him all the way to the Aventine. Arresting a brothel madam is never discreet.
`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. In 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?'