JUPITER MYTH Read online

  Popillius knew he had lost vital ground, but he had kept his big throw to the last shake of the canister: "My clients are free Roman citizens."

  "Matter of security!" Frontinus rasped. I had not seen him in full cry before. He seemed to be enjoying it. "Don't make an ass of yourself These men stay in custody."

  "Governor, they have the right of appeal to the Emperor."

  "Correct." Frontinus would not budge. "If you assert the right, they go to Rome. But they go after I have interviewed them-and if I find a case to answer, then they go in chains."

  When Popillius had left, Hilaris broke his silence. He offered thoughtfully, "He is inexperienced in these matters-but he will learn fast."

  "Do we think he is behind all this?" asked Frontinus.

  "No, he seems to lack the depth to be running things alone."

  "There are two main operators, in partnership," I put in. "Though Popillius seems to have made himself too obvious to be one."

  Hilaris smiled. "I take it you have conferred about the gang leaders with Lucius Petronius?" So Petro's cover had been blown.

  "He is just the man you want for this," I said loyally Neither of the senior officials seemed upset. They both had the sense to see he was an asset. Pettiness about whether the vigiles had the right to send him here would be taken up later, if at all. If he made a significant contribution to the action, there would be no reprisal. Of course, if we failed to make headway, Petro's secret interference would be blamed.

  Frontinus looked at me. "Find out who hired Popillius, if you can."

  I hurried off to tail him as he left.

  I kept my distance, following Popillius all the way back to his rented house near the forum. It had struck me that associates might have been waiting to meet up with him outside the residence, but he was not approached. On foot, walking steadily, he returned straight home. I strolled twice around the block, to give him time to relax, then I went in.

  He was sitting alone in the courtyard at the same table as yesterday morning, busily writing on a scroll. "Falco!"

  I hauled a bench over to him, though he had not invited me to sit. "We need to talk," I said informally like a barrister colleague who had come to bargain pleas. Popillius leaned his chin on one hand and listened. He was no young fool. I had yet to decide if Hilaris was right, that Popillius lacked presence. Looking lightweight could be a cover; he could be thoroughly corrupt.

  I gazed at him. "This is a new kind of venture for you. Am I right?" No acknowledgment. "You're getting in deep. But do you know what the mire is?"

  Popillius feigned mild surprise. "Two clients, held in custody, without charge."

  "Shocking," I answered. Then I stiffened. "It's a routine situation. What's unusual is the speed with which you popped up screeching outrage. A pair of crooks have been pulled in. That's all. Anyone would think this was a grand political show trial involving famous men with big careers and full coffers." Popillius opened his mouth to speak. "Don't give me the sweet line," I said, "about all free Romans being entitled to the best representation they can afford. Your clients are two professional enforcers preying on society, in the pay of an organized gang."

  The lawyer's expression did not change. However, he moved his hand down from his chin.

  "I don't exaggerate, Popillius. If you want a distressing view of their handiwork, there is a smashed-up corpse on the ferry jetty. Go and have a look. Find out what kind of people are employing you." I kept my voice level. "What I want to know is: when you took on Splice and Pyro, did you know their game?"

  Popillius glanced down at his documents. Pyro and Splice must have proper formal names. He would be using those.

  "Are you a salary hack, working full-time for mobsters?" I demanded.

  "That's a sick question, Falco!"

  "You're in a sick situation. Let's suppose you really did come out to Britain to do harmless commercial case law," I chivvied him. "Today somebody hired you, and you accepted the fee. This is a simple extrication from custody. Justice for the freeborn. Exemplary legal point; their morals don't come into it. Yours perhaps should. Because next time you are used by your principals-as you will be-the job will be more murky. After that, you will belong to them. I don't suggest they will have you working on perjury, perversion of justice, and suborning witnesses in your very first month, but believe me, that will come."

  "These are wild accusations, Falco."

  "No. We have at least two really filthy murders here. Your banged-up clients are intimately linked to one killing; our witness saw them do the deed. I myself can place them at the premises of the second victim-a baker who had been harried by extortionists-just after he disappeared and while his building was being torched."

  Popillius gazed at me quietly, though I reckon he was thinking hard. My guess was, the killings were news to him.

  He had had the full training. He was inscrutable. I would have liked to grab that scroll off him, to see what he had been writing. Notes on how Frontinus had rebuffed him? Suggestions of how the formal examination might turn out? Or simply listing his hourly charges to whatever cash-rich bastard would be paying for his time?

  So was Popillius an amateur whom they had had to hire in a hurry, the best Britain could offer to a gangster who encountered an unexpected problem? Or had they brought him here and positioned him as their legal representative? Worst of all-and looking at the quiet swine, it still seemed an open question-was he one of the gang leaders himself?

  "I have heard you out, Falco," declared Popillius, his tone as steady as my own had been.

  I stood up. "Who is paying you to act for Pyro and Splice?" His eyes, hazel behind light lashes, flickered slightly "Confidential, I'm afraid."

  "Criminals."

  "That is slander."

  "Only if it is untrue. There are more cells waiting for associates, remember."

  "Only if they have done something wrong, surely?" he sneered. "I leave you to your conscience, then."

  I did as I said. It presupposed he had a conscience. I saw no sign of it.

  XXXIV

  Organized crime lords have most things working in their favor. In the cynical world that Petro and I inhabited, we knew that the crime lords would always win. They had money on their side. In Rome, the vigiles and the Urban Cohorts struggled constantly to maintain an uneasy peace. Without their aid, even in the provinces, the governor did have one way to fight back. He used it. Right at the start, Frontinus decided to bring in the official torturer.

  I knew these craftsmen existed on the staff of overseas embassies. I had imagined they were a last resort. The speed with which the decision was made here did shock me.

  "Amicus!" Hilaris named him to me, in a hollow tone. Frontinus had formally approved using this man, but we had been charged with briefing him.

  "The Befriender? A nickname, I take it?"

  "I never like to ask." Hilaris chuckled briefly, though he seemed serious. "I always feel that involving him is like taking a wagon with a broken spoke to the wheelwright. I expect Amicus to look at the job-the suspects, I mean-then to shake his head and tell me, 'Procurator, you have a real problem here.'"

  "Don't tell me he inspects the bugger waiting for him in the cell, then vanishes for an hour, gone to collect materials'…?"

  Hilaris shuddered. "I leave him to it, at that stage." He was a kindly man. "I always hope the mere threat of Amicus will make them gasp and give in."

  "And do they?"

  "Rarely. He is rather good."

  We needed him, then.

  As soon as Amicus appeared, I saw exactly what Helena's tender-conscienced uncle meant. The torturer looked as if he had forced himself to leave another job-a more interesting job, one that had been properly booked into his schedule, unlike our last-minute, problematic one. His sleeves were rolled up and there were stains down his tunic (what from?). He heard our request with the tired, slightly put-upon air of a man dealing with idiots. Had there been a fee, he would have overcharged. Since he
was on the governor's payroll, that did not apply.

  "Professional criminals can be difficult," he remarked, wanting us to know how lucky we were to have his skills.

  "Are you saying it cannot be done?" worried Hilaris, just as if he had a dodgy axle.

  "Oh, it can be done!" Amicus assured him, chillingly.

  He had a long, thin, uncouth assistant who never spoke. This young man stared about with open curiosity and somehow gave the impression he might be extremely bright. Amicus himself was bound to be intelligent. Professional torture experts are among the Empire's men of subtlety. Their job requires them to be experienced in the world, and if possible Well-read. Trust me. I had worked with them before, during my time as an army scout. "I bet he studies cosmography in his spare time," I had suggested to Hilaris earlier.

  "Nothing so frivolous as planets. I had a long conversation with him once about Democritean principles and whether deities experience pain or pleasure. He soon lost me!"

  Now Amicus sniffed-his one expression of emotion, even that possibly caused by some summer allergy. "I'll knock off the waiters; I'll get through them this afternoon." I had intended to question the waiters myself, but deferred to him meekly. "The barber may stick. I hate barbers. Measly runts, and they're grizzlers, once they crack… or your two enforcers, I would like them kept in solitary for a second night, if possible with little sleep. And no food, obviously. Then leave them with me. I'll send up Titus to let you know when it's time to come and watch." Hilaris and I tried to look appreciative.

  "What do you want to know?" Amicus then asked as an afterthought. "The truth," said Hilaris, with a hint of a smile. "Oh, you're a case, Procurator!"

  "Someone has to have values," I chided. "Here's the list: we want to know about protection rackets; two murders-a Briton drowned in a well for unknown reasons and a baker beaten to death for resisting the rackets; and gang leaders."

  "There are thought to be two," stated the procurator. "Even one name would help."

  Amicus nodded. These trite tasks seemed to intrigue him much less than Democritean principles. He led off his assistant, the lank Titus, with the deathly catchphrase, "Bring the bag, Titus!"

  I should have mentioned the bag. It was enormous. Titus could hardly heave it up onto his shoulder as he swaggered after Amicus. It caught the doorframe a glancing blow as they went out, removing a chunk of architrave and emitting a resounding clank from heavy metal implements within.

  Amicus popped his head back around the door. Flavius Hilaris, who had been inspecting the crunched joinery, dropped a fragment of architrave and stepped back, looking ashamed of himself for being annoyed at the damage.

  "Do you want it done without leaving any marks?" inquired Amicus.

  I thought Hilaris went pale. He found the right thing to say: "The enforcers have a lawyer."

  "Oh!" replied the torturer, impressed. He looked pleased to hear of this challenge. "I'll be very careful, then!"

  He went out again. Hilaris resumed his seat. Neither of us said anything. We were both subdued.

  XXXV

  Helena discovered me studying a street map. She leaned over my shoulder, inspecting a note table on which I had written down a list of names. "Shower of Gold, Ganymede, Swan-Swan must be as in Leda, seduced by Jupiter in the form of a big white birdie. Shower of Gold would be I his other conquest, Dana?. Ganymede is Jove's cupbearer-"

  "You follow my thinking," I agreed.

  "The wine shops your gangsters prey on all now have names linked to Jupiter? It's a theme! How thrilling," Helena exclaimed, with her own brand of well-bred mockery. "Some man thinks well of himself for dreaming up this."

  "As an antique dealer's son, I do like things that come in sets," I confirmed dryly. "So helpful for their accountants too-bound to be accountants plural, of course: 'File all signed-up cauponae under Jove!' Then again, proprietors who want to resist the pressure will see just how powerful the enforcers are, as they notice more and more Jupiter bars."

  "We could go for a walk," Helena decided. "We have time before dinner. We could take the map and mark up places. See how far the enforcement area extends."

  Nux was already chasing around us excitedly.

  We spent a couple of hours crisscrossing the street grid from near the river to the forum. It made us both depressed. The permissive god's adulterous girlfriends were all featured: Io, Europa, Dana?, Alcmene, Leda, Niobe, and Semele. What a boy! The ever-jealous Queen of Heaven, Hera, would not like to spend a festival break in Londinium seeing all these rivals given prominence. For the safety of this town, I was myself wishing the Celestial King had kept his divine prick under wraps more. The beauteous bedmates were just the start. Thunderbolts adorned innocuous-looking pot-of-pulse parlors, and scepters ruled over British beer gardens. Painters who could do attractive bolts of lightning must have been in heaven. Or rather, they were using up their fees swigging Lower German red at the Olympus Winery on the corner of downtown Fish Street. With hot or cold ambrosia served in gritty flatbread every lunchtime, no doubt.

  Prices were very expensive. Well, they had to be. The people who ran these Jovian snack-counters needed to subsidize their payments to the heavy squad. Somebody somewhere was raking in money from this dead-end shantytown, hot money in huge quantities. This walk really brought it home to me that the gang leaders would be furious that Pyro and Splice, who collected the cash, had been locked up by the governor-at my suggestion.

  Back home, Helena dismissed the slave who came to curl her hair, and instead of primping she crouched beside a window to catch the evening light while she marked up our map with neat blobs of red ink. I came back from a lukewarm bath, then saw how the map looked, and swore. The dots encroached on the commercial quarter to the east of the bridge, running right up across the Decumanus Maximus to the forum.

  I sent the map along to Frontinus, to depress him while he was shaved. I sat in the wraparound chair. Helena had a rapid sponge-wash, tweaked a gown from her clothes chest, clipped on jewelry. She touched my cheek. "You look tired, Marcus."

  "I'm wondering what I have got myself into."

  She came across to me, combing her fine hair. After a vague attempt to pin it up, she let the whole swathe tumble. Knowing the comb would stick in my curls, she neatened them instead with her long fingers. "You know this is vital."

  "I know it's dangerous."

  "You think it's right."

  "They need to be stopped by someone, yes."

  "But you wonder why you?" Helena knew that sometimes I relied on her to reassure me. "Because you have the persistence, Marcus. You have the courage, the intellectual skills, the sheer anger that is needed to face up to such wickedness."

  I put my arms around her, hiding my face against her stomach. She stood, crouching a little over me, one hand running inside the neck of my tunic to massage my spine. I heard myself groan wearily. "I want to go home!"

  "Marcus, we can't go, not until you have finished here."

  "It never ends, though, sweetheart." I leaned back and looked up at her. "Organized crime keeps coming. One success only quells it temporarily and opens possibilities for new rackets."

  "Don't be so disheartened."

  I smiled ruefully. "I'm tired. I didn't sleep two nights ago. My girlfriend had a fight with me… Love me?"

  Her thumb caressed my forehead. "If I didn't love you, I would not have had the fight."

  That was when I chose to tell her-when I had to tell her-we were liable to see Chloris at the residence that night.

  Helena released her hold on me, but when I caught her hands in mine she did not resist. "Don't get this wrong, love. Chloris has to make her deposition for the governor and she has also been asked to look at our dinner guests. Both Norbanus and Popillius have been invited tonight, along with other newcomers who could be the gang leaders. This is business, Helena. I'm not playing about."

  Helena merely said quietly, "What she is doing is perilous." I know." I was terse. "She does not seem to
know that her status makes the witness statement unusable in court."

  "She is doing it for you."

  "She's doing it because she likes stirring!" She always did. Women like that don't change. "I am not sure she sees just what danger she courts."

  "Her career is based on physical risk," Helena pointed out.

  "Yes, but that's her choice. She enjoys the thrills and she earns a great deal of money. She and the other girls have come here to Britain because fighting in the new amphitheater will make them independent for life- if they survive. But tangling with street criminals is different. The odds on survival are far worse. If I were an ethical person I would spell out the truth to her."

  "But you need what she tells you."

  "Well, I could myself report to Frontinus what she said, but he won't act on hearsay."

  "She saw what happened," Helena insisted. "Infamous or not, if Frontinus interviews her in private and he believes her, then she will give his actions validity."

  "Closed-room verdicts are not my favorite scene, Helena."

  "You're a grumpy old republican! Oh, I despise them too, Marcus, but if they have to happen I would rather it was in a cause like this."

  "Bad politics." I hated this situation. The Claudian emperors were fond of it, subjecting their enemies to secret trials at the Palace, rather than facing them in the Senate or open court. I had hoped that with our Flavian dynasty the practice would die out. It was for panicking leaders, to remove imagined rivals after swift closet questioning-often based on trumped-up evidence. Informers, I regret to say, were often the filthy instruments of such private trials. I had never worked like that.

  As we went to dinner, the procurator popped out of an office and signaled me. He had been lying in wait with Amicus. Helena went on ahead, while Hilaris and I held a hurried consultation with the torturer.

  "Titus is just putting things away-" I caught Hilaris looking pale again as Amicus reported. "I got the waiters' stories. They all match; its nice and neat. Apparently, the two men you are holding run a helpful service. They deter troublemakers and sneak-thieves who might grab the takings. All the wine shops appreciate the extra security, and are happy to contribute modest sums to obtain it."