Three Hands In The Fountain

Surprisingly, there was more talking. Then the four dimwits decided to come our way. We waited for them patiently.

`You Falco and Petronius?'

`Who's asking?'

`We're telling you to answer.'

`Our answer is: who we are is our business.'

A typical chat between strangers, the kind that happened frequently on the Aventine. For one of the parties the outcome was usually short, sharp, and painful.

The four, none of whom had been taught by their mothers to keep their mouths closed properly or to stop scratching their privates, wondered what they could do now.

`We're looking for two bastards called Petronius and Falco.' The leader thought that if he repeated himself often enough we would cave in and confess. Maybe nobody had told him we had been in the army once. We knew how to obey orders – and how to ignore them.

`This is a good game.' Petronius grinned at me.

`I could play it all day.'

There was a pause. Over the ranks of dark apartments rose the ferocious noonday sun. Shadows had shrunk to nothing. Balcony plants lay down fainting with hollow stems. Peace

had descended on the dirty streets as everyone crept indoors and braced themselves for several hours of unbearable summer, heat. It was time for sleep and unstrenuous fornication. Only the ants still laboured. The swallows still circled, sometimes letting out their faint high-pitched cries as they, swooped endlessly over the Aventine and Capitol against the

breathtaking blue, of a Roman sky. Even the endless clack of an abacus from a high-up room where somebody's landlord usually sat counting his money seemed to falter a little.

It was too hot for causing trouble, and certainly too hot for receiving it. Even so, one of the dummies had the bright idea of grabbing me.

FOURTEEN

I hit him hard in the stomach before he made contact. At the same, time Petro swung to his feet, in one easy movement. Neither of us wasted time shrieking, `Oh dear, what's, happening'' We knew – and we knew what we would be doing about it.

I grabbed the first; man by the hair, since there was not enough cloth in his tunic to allow a grip. These fellows were stunted and sleepy. None had any, will to resist. With one arm round his waist I was soon using him as a sweeper to shoo the others back down the steps. Petro still thought he was seventeen; he had shown off by clambering over the handrail and dropping to the street. Wincing ruefully, he was then in position to field the crowd as they rushed down. Rounding them up in a pincer movement; we were able to give them a thrashing without too much loss of breath. Then we piled them up in a heap.

Holding them down with his boot on the top one, Petro shook my hand formally. He had hardly raised a sweat. `Two each: nice odds.'

We looked at them. `Pitiful, opposition,' I decided regretfully.

We stood back and let them pull themselves upright. In a few seconds a surprising crowd had gathered to watch; Lenia must have warned everyone in the laundry; all her washer-girls and tub-boys had come out. Somebody cheered us. Fountain Court has its sophisticated side; I

detected a hint of irony. Anyone would think Petronius and I were a pair of octogenarian gladiators who had jumped out of retirement to capture a group of six-year-old apple thieves.

`Now you tell us,' Petro commanded, in the voice of an officer of the vigiles, `who you are, who sent you, and what you want.'

`Never mind that,' dared the leader, so we grabbed him and threw him between us like a beanbag until he grasped our importance in these streets.

`Hold off, the melon's getting squashed!'

`I'll pulp him if he doesn't stop acting up

`Going to be a good boy now?'

He was gasping too much to' answer but we stood him up again anyway. Petronius, who was really enjoying himself, pointed to Lenia's, girls. They were sweethearts as singletons, but together they turned into a hooting, foul-mouthed, obscene little clutch. If you saw them coming you wouldn't just cross to the other pavement, you'd dive into a different street. Even if it meant getting mugged and your money pinched… `Any more trouble and you're all tossed to those lovelies: Believe me, you don't want to be dragged off into their steam room. The last man the washtub Harpies got hold of was missing for three weeks. We found him hung up on a pole with his privates dangling and he's been gibbering in a corner, ever since.'

The girls made lewd gestures and waggled their skirts offensively. They were a cheerful and appreciative audience.

Petro had done the threats so the interrogation was mine. These pieces of flotsam would faint if I tried sophisticated rhetoric so I kept it simple. `What's the story?'

The leader hung his head. `You've got to stop making a fuss about blockages in the fountains.'

`Who gave out that dramatic edict?'

`Never mind.',

`We do mind. Is that it?'

`Yes.'

`You could have said it without starting a scrum.'` `You jumped one of my boys.' `Your wormy sidekick threatened me.' `You've hurt his neck!''