Food for the Fishes

11

For one of the richest men in Baiae he didn’t look much.

Five foot nothing in his sandals, face like a squashed overripe plum, wearing a battered freedman’s cap and a tunic that looked like he’d used it to dust the floor with and then slept in it. Plus military-grade halitosis which was already making my eyes water and a set of vowels that would’ve disgraced an adenoidal parrot.

On the other hand, either of the two heavies who were standing behind him could’ve ripped my arms off and beaten me senseless with them without breaking sweat. Little details like that tend to stifle criticism.

‘Ah…right,’ I said. ‘Right.’

He grunted. ‘If it’s about what I think it is then we’d best go up to my office.’

Without another word or having acknowledged Nerva and Florus in any way, he moved off in the direction of the stairs. On top of everything else, I noticed he had a bad limp. All in all, not an odds-on contender for the Charismatic Freedman of the Year title.

I took a hefty swig from my goblet, almost emptying it — I reckoned I was going to need all the fortification I could get here — and stood up. Nerva was staring at me like any moment I’d do a Democritus in reverse and disappear in a scattering cloud of atoms.

‘See you later, lads,’ I said.

The heavies fell in behind as I followed Philippus towards the stairs and up them to the mezzanine. Presumably they opened this part up when things got busy in the evenings, because there were more tables and couches. Philippus carried on past them down a short corridor to a door at the end. He took a key from his belt, opened the door and went in. All this without a glance back to see if I was following. Mind you, with the heavies in tow I didn’t have much of a choice.

I’d expected — seeing the state of Philippus — that the office would be a mess. It wasn’t; quite the opposite. The big desk was clear apart from an inkwell and a clutch of pens in a rough unglazed-clay holder. One long wall of the room was lined, side to side and floor to ceiling, with cubby holes, each with two or three docketed tablets poking out; the other was the same, only with half the cubbies empty. The wall opposite the door had a barred window in it, probably — from the lack of traffic noise — overlooking the porticoed garden below. There was a chair behind the desk and another two facing it: plain wood, with no cushions. That was it. No ornaments, no decoration, nothing. The place would’ve shocked a Spartan.

‘Sit down,’ Philippus growled. ‘You two’ — to the heavies — ‘push off downstairs. I’ll call if I need you.’ He parked himself behind the desk. ‘All right, Corvinus. Never mind the formalities because I’m busy enough without this. Let’s get down to brass tacks. It’s about Licinius Murena being eaten by his namesakes, yes?’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘More or less.’

‘So talk And spit it out, I’m not interested in pussyfooting around.’

Gods! This was Priscus’s ‘charming gentleman’? Either the dozy old bugger had been coming the uncooked Minturnan prawn again for unfathomable reasons of his own or his ability to sum up character would’ve disgraced a brick. Or, of course — and I didn’t discount this explanation — Philippus had been putting on charm with Priscus that he wasn’t bothering to waste on me.

Not that I had to take it lying down, mind.

‘Fair enough, pal,’ I said. ‘Very laudable. Although I’m just a bit curious to know how you square that attitude with bushwhacking my stepfather.’

He looked at me. Just…looked. I had the distinct feeling that making that little comment had not been a wise move. Finally, he said: ‘You want to talk to me or not?’

‘Uh…sure.’

‘Go ahead, then. I’m all ears. And remember what I said about the pussyfooting.’

Shit! We had a real touchy bugger here, didn’t we? Unfortunately, he was a touchy bugger with a pair of attendant trolls downstairs who’d come when he whistled, so maybe I’d better make a few allowances. ‘You, ah, didn’t see eye to eye with Murena over his plans to build a hotel, I understand?’ I said.

‘Damn right I didn’t. Hotels were none of his business.’

‘Why not? It’s a free country.’

He leaned forward and I got the full benefit of his ongoing breath problems. I sat back quickly. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Baiae’s a small place and you don’t get far in it by poaching on another man’s preserve. Me, my niche is accommodation, girls and gambling, full stop. I don’t touch restaurants, cookshops and wineshops — that’s Publius Callion’s patch — and I don’t own carriage or boat hire outlets either, because that’s Mamma Gylippe. The same goes for a dozen other types of enterprise that’re big here and getting bigger year by year. I could, sure, I’ve got the money to invest, but I don’t because that’s the way things work locally, I’ve got to live in this town like everybody else, and in business one hand washes the other. There’s unwritten rules and we all know them. Murena’s bag was fish farming. He was doing okay, and if he’d wanted to expand in that direction I’d’ve had no quarrel with him. As it was, when he bought the Juventius estate to build a hotel it was war to the knife. Now have I made myself clear?’

‘Yeah. Yeah, more or less.’

‘Good.’ He sat back again. ‘Then we talk on that basis. If you expect me to shed any tears for Lucius Licinius Murena, boy, then you’ll wait until hell freezes.’

‘Not even as your patron?’

That got me another long look that could’ve been pickled for a year in acid. Then he said: ‘I’ll only tell you this once, Corvinus, so I suggest you listen very, very carefully. Murena owned me when I was a kid, sure, I don’t deny it. But that bastard was never my patron. Not ever.’

‘Why not? It’s the usual arrangement, isn’t it?’

‘Maybe so, but it wasn’t in my case, boy. I made my own way, pulled myself up by my own fucking bootstraps, with no help from him. He didn’t offer it, I didn’t want it. I don’t owe him nothing, and never have. Clear?’

‘Uh-huh.’ Point taken. ‘So why did he free you in the first place? You mind telling me that?’

‘He didn’t. I bought myself off him, fair and square.’

‘You what?’

His eyes challenged me. ‘Sure. For hard cash, paid upfront. All Murena did was agree to take the money.’

I must’ve been goggling. Jupiter alive, this didn’t add up, no way! Slaves, even the bargain-basement type, which Philippus wouldn’t’ve been, don’t come cheap. And no slave, the age he must’ve been then, could’ve had anywhere near what it’d cost to buy himself out, not even if he was moonlighting behind the master’s back, which is the usual slave trick to build up a nest-egg.

‘Uh…how did you manage that, pal?’ I said.

‘That’s my business. But it’s the plain truth, I’m telling you to your face, and you just remember it. Where Murena and me was concerned the account was cleared long ago.’

‘Fine.’ It wasn’t, not by a long chalk. Still, I wasn’t going to argue the point. Not with this venomous dwarf ready to jump down my throat and rip my liver out at the first objection. ‘Ah…care to tell me how you got your original stake?’

The glare hadn’t shifted. ‘Sure. Gladly. I found a fucking pixie’s hat and got my three wishes. And you might as well believe me, Corvinus, because that’s all I’m saying.’

‘Okay, okay!’ No change out of that one either, then, and the topic not so much closed as nailed shut, barred and padlocked and with a bloody great warning notice pinned on it. Well, on present showing I hadn’t really expected anything else. Touchy wasn’t the word. Time to back off. ‘So let’s change the subject,’ I said. ‘You know the family? Murena’s family? I mean currently, as it were?’

I could feel him relax slightly, but he still looked about as friendly as a rhino with piles. ‘No. Except by reputation and report. Barring Aulus Nerva, of course.’

The way he said it suggested he didn’t have much time for them, Nerva included. ‘You mind giving me a thumbnail sketch? Just for the record?’

‘Of Nerva? The bastard’s got some business sense, more than you’d think to look at him. He’s more of a nose for it than his father, anyway. He’d do better if he’d cut down on the gambling, but that’s his affair, and I’m not crying.’

Yeah, Gellia had mentioned Nerva’s gambling debts. Apropos of which: ‘He comes in here pretty often, doesn’t he?’

‘He’s a regular customer of mine, sure.’

‘He play privately or against the house?’

Philippus shifted in his chair. ‘A bit of both,’ he said. ‘Most of the punters do. But then I’d say that was none of your concern either.’

‘Was he here four nights ago? The night of the murder?’

He frowned. ‘Think he did it, do you?’ I didn’t answer. ‘Well, it wouldn’t surprise me. Either him or that cold bugger of a brother of his. They’re both bastards and always were. But that I can’t tell you, not from personal knowledge because I wasn’t in that night myself.’ His eyes challenged me to make something of it, but I kept my mouth shut. ‘He claim he was?’

‘There, uh, seems to be a bit of disagreement on that score,’ I said.

‘It’s easy to check. Ask any of the girls on your way out. They’ll remember. They know all the regular customers.’

‘Yeah. Thanks. I’ll do that.’ I shifted ground again. ‘With Murena dead he’d take over on the business side of things, would he?’

Philippus was suddenly tense again. ‘Him and Titus Chlorus, sure,’ he said. ‘Plus the partner, Tattius.’

‘Equal shares, three ways? I don’t mean money, I mean deciding policy.’

He shrugged. ‘That’s their concern. They’d have to work it out among them.’

The guy was obfuscating; that was plain as the nose on his face. Still, he hadn’t told me to piss off yet, so I pushed things. ‘I’ve met Tattius already. He’s not the policy-deciding type.’

‘Fine. Then it’d be just the two of them.’

‘How about Chlorus? I know he takes care of the finances — the formal accounts, at least — but how involved is he with the planning?’

Philippus shrugged again. ‘Don’t ask me. Like I say, I keep to my own side of the fence, I don’t know nothing about other people’s arrangements.’

‘But you know Chlorus?’

‘I told you. By reputation. Just by reputation. I haven’t set eyes on him for years. He doesn’t gamble, but he’s a good lawyer and good with figures.’

‘I get the impression the two of them don’t exactly hit it off. As brothers, I mean. And I understand Nerva’s a bit too fond of Chlorus’s wife. That’d spill over onto the business side, wouldn’t it?’

The acid look was back. ‘I don’t deal in smut, Corvinus,’ Philippus said slowly. ‘And like I say I’m not involved with the family, either. Not any more, not personally. You want to talk about the business side of things, where it affects me, that’s fine, but nothing else.’

‘Okay. So with Murena gone what happens to his hotel plans? You think his sons’ll go ahead with them?’

Pause; long pause.

‘That’s up to them,’ he said at last. ‘They know my opinion on that score, at least Nerva does. And you know it yourself now. If you want anything more you’ll have to ask them direct.’

Another door slammed. Well, that was to be expected, although it raised a few interesting questions. Like just how far Philippus was prepared to go to discourage them if they did carry on. And how far he’d gone already. ‘Nerva’s pretty thick with Aquillius Florus, isn’t he?’ I said.

The eyes narrowed. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

I shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe nothing. But I got the impression that they were in business together on their own account as well as being gambling pals. That so?’

‘It’s possible.’ He was cautious. ‘What exactly makes you think that?’

‘Just something Florus said when we were talking downstairs.Something about a grain barge.’ I wouldn’t have mentioned it if I hadn’t caught the look that Nerva had given his less-than-up-to-speed sidekick when he’d dropped the information, but it was worth a passing question. ‘You know anything about that?’

Philippus didn’t answer at once. He sat back, his left hand — I noticed the fingernails were broken and chewed — resting on the desk top. The fingers drummed briefly.

‘No,’ he said carefully. ‘No, I can’t say that I do, boy. I’m obliged to you. They mention any details?’

‘Uh-uh. Just that.’

‘Is that so, now?’ He sucked on a tooth. Then, suddenly, he got up. ‘Okay, Corvinus. I’ve given you all the time I can spare, and I’ve important business to see to. It was nice talking to you. Oh — and if you’re a gambling man yourself you’ll be very welcome any time you care to drop in. I owe you one.’

‘That go for my stepfather as well?’

‘Naturally. Always glad to see someone whose credit’s good. And Helvius Priscus seemed to take to the place.’ He must’ve noticed my expression, because he chuckled. ‘Don’t worry on that score, boy. We run an honest house here, and I’ve a reputation to keep up. My girls’ll cover any bet a customer cares to make if he has the money to back it, sure, but they play fair and they don’t use loaded dice. Or if they do they’re out on their backsides quicker than you can spit, and they know it. Now I’ll see you to the door.’

When we got back downstairs Nerva and Florus had gone. Maybe I was imagining things, but I reckoned Philippus didn’t look too pleased.

I asked the African girl privately whether Nerva had been in the evening of the murder, and she gave me a categorical no. Florus got an equally-categorical yes: he’d played a few games of dice with one of the other girls, but he hadn’t arrived until later, well after sunset. So that was one set of questions answered, anyway.

Which left me with the rest.

Time for a think, and a spot of lunch. There’re plenty of cookshops in the Market Square area. I chose one with tables outside that looked reasonably full, checked what was on offer from the board — seafood dumplings with green beans in a coriander sauce: this is Baiae, remember —, gave the order to the waiter and settled back with a half jug to be going on with.

So. Not a bad morning’s work. The biggie latterly, of course, was the mystery about how Philippus had got his freedom and his start in business. Oh, sure, on the face of it that could have nothing directly to do with Murena’s death, but just the fact that he’d clammed up so spectacularly was more than curious.

Added to which, the events that all seemed to have taken place around the same time — let’s say about thirty years back — were piling up. I laid them out. First, Murena’s move from Rome and his partnership with Tattius. Second, Tattius’s marriage to Penelope. Third, the death of Murena’s first wife. Fourth, Philippus’s manumission…

Not the smidgeon of an explanation or a reason for any of them. Oh, I could theorise, but -

‘May I join you, Corvinus?’

I refocused and looked up. We were doing well for members of the Murena family today. First Nerva, now Chlorus.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah, sure. Help yourself.’

Things were moving.