LITMIR.BIZ

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who had so disgracefully laid a finger on Agatha’s bag.

      “Really Enzo, how was I supposed to know that she was a client of yours?” he protested, while rubbing his stomach, which was still hurting. “I thought the Capitoline was your patch.”

      “When business is going badly on the Capitoline, I am then entitled to come down to the Forum,” growled Enzo and looked at the other one with a malevolent gaze of his slanting eyes. Among Rome’s criminals he was somewhat feared and could afford sometimes to encroach on other criminals’ territories, because in his line of work he was able to combine Italian cunning with English thoroughness and directness.

      “Yes,” said the other thief thoughtfully, “there’s no place that’s always good all of the time. For example, earlier I made the most money in San Pietro in Vincoli. Michelangelo’s Moses there has done a lot for me! Too bad he’s not a saint. I would have offered a big thick candle to him, because he’s done me many a good service!”

      The specialist thief of San Pietro in Vincoli leaned closer to Enzo: “Do you know, when those Stranieri look so closely at Moses’s beard...yes they are mad for that beard of his! It’s a classy beard, a beard like a waterfall...and then they forget everything, those Stranieri! What beautiful wallets I have already managed to take there, crocodile leather, pigskin, all well stocked ...on two occasions even a wristwatch…you undo it gently, cautiously, and avanti! A good little patch, by the blood of St Gennaro!” The ladro chuckled and finished his cappuccino: “God bless the beard of Moses. What a magnificent beard!”

      But Enzo wasn’t listening anymore: the other thief’s exploits only made him annoyed. He was weighing something up in his head and thinking about the Via Appia: a small down payment on his great Venice coup – yes that would be just right and proper. Eventually he would get his expenses back on it, saddled as he was with Luigi and the dog Dante, who always wants to eat. Yes, a down payment but he had to get the ball rolling pretty smartly. The fat one with the glasses mustn’t smell a rat. Enzo's brain worked, made plans and then rejected them again, while the other one just talked and talked. If he wanted the benefits of Moses’s beard, he could have them!

      Enzo could hear the ladro complaining from afar, that the foreigners lately had forfeited their fine breeding and their way of life, that they weren’t able to immerse themselves unreservedly like they did before in contemplating great works of art, like Michelangelo’s Moses. Yes, humanity was getting steadily worse, more superficial and more motivated by profit alone. At this rate Enzo did not even bother answering. He threw the coins for the cappuccino on the table, and walked away without another word, his hands thrust deep in his pockets.

      Agatha sat gloomily in her bed in her room at the hotel by Santa Maria Maggiore and stared at the brown wooden blinds that she hadn’t opened for two days. She threw the covers back, placed her feet carefully on the floor, tried to stand up and groaned. This damn rheumatism! It had to be the sirocco..

      The day before yesterday she had wanted to get out of bed, full of the joys of spring and ready for action with the Via Appia in her sights, when she noticed with horror that her spine, which tended to be a little bit stiff, had now changed into a hypersensitive broomstick, emitting major sharp pains. Agatha had to stay in bed, and Emily rubbed the small of her back with ointment. She did it puffing and continually pausing, because Emily herself was by no means fit and well and could feel her heart thumping, this too doubtless because of the sirocco.

      Enzo had called once before and had been put off. He had swallowed down his rage with some difficulty, or rather he displaced it on to the unfortunate Luigi. And Dante the dog in turn collected a hefty kick, which persuaded him once more to frequent the dustbins of Rome, and for the time being he stopped begging for food from his masters. Dante was lean and cheerful - a dog of a measured and philosophical disposition - who took each day as it came. He found that he had a happy life, compared to the many abandoned dogs of Rome who didn’t have masters. A bad master was better than none at all.

      And sometimes - Dante didn’t know why but accepted the inexplicable phenomenon like manna from heaven - sometimes quite unexpectedly his master would come and would play with him and laugh and bring him meat: proper good meat - not just leftovers - or half a bread roll or chocolate. Dante would then devour these hastily in a frenzy of enjoyment and he would stockpile them for times of emergency, when there was nothing going but the dustbin and Dante’s ribs would increasingly start emerging day by day from his seedy, colourless coat.

      Agatha groaned again, but then she placed her feet down decisively on the floor and limped around the room with great lamentations. She’d got started and she had to keep going, because in the end she hadn’t come to Rome to stare for days on end at the patterns on the ceiling of a Roman hotel room that was last painted a long time ago. It was also not fair on Emily.

      She looked across at her friend, who was breathing heavily and quietly measuring out drops of heart medicine into a glass. Poor Emily! Her heart would surely profit from her losing just a few pounds. The committee chair of her weight watchers’ club had seriously reproached her about it. But in Emily’s case a Scottish oatcake could transmute itself into a cushion of fat, that would craftily take up residence on her hips, and that’s not something that would ever change; it was as if it imposed itself on Emily, despite her heroic days of fasting.

      In that very moment the telephone rang and it was Enzo enquiring whether perhaps, on this giornata bellisima, they might consider making their trip to the Via Appia. Agatha, who was just then massaging her aching back, heard Emily make a resolute pledge. Yes they would like to go out today and it should be in an hour. Agatha looked at her friend with admiration: Emily was so heroic, because she took no notice of her infirmities. She had not done so in all her long decades of teaching service, where she had been a model of self-discipline and of fulfillment of duty to her students and to the faculty. And Emily wouldn’t let life squirm out of her hands so easily: she dragged it back under her own control and with a strength and vitality that belied her ageing body.

      Agatha wasn’t going to lag behind her. Suppressing all sounds of suffering, she got dressed quickly, and as a finale she put on the long golden amethyst necklace, which she had got for her twenty-first birthday. The Via Appia trip would be like a party and she wanted to celebrate it appropriately.

      Emily got in touch with Hertz, and a handsome, clean, sparkling hire care was soon standing outside the hotel entrance. A man from the firm explained a few technicalities to Emily, while Agatha listened in dutifully, even though she hadn’t been allowed behind the wheel of a car for a long time because of her absent-mindedness.

      Emily said her thanks and squeezed behind the steering wheel with a groan. She in turn didn’t drive in England very often and was somewhat out of practice. On top of that she was of course used to driving on the left. But neither of them were going to be put off by such small details. Beaming with joy they drove off and met Enzo on the corner, where he regarded the vehicle with some scepticism. Emily and Agatha let him in; then the car, which already had a tough day ahead, made a sudden lurch forward because Emily had let the clutch up too quickly. That was something she did often.

      Enzo struck himself on the forehead and stifled a curse. Perhaps he would be better off taking up an honest trade. But proper work really went against the grain with Enzo, and most honest trades were connected with proper work - this was the sort of realization which always put a stop to every attempt of Enzo to start a better life. Instead he now started to contemplate Agatha’s long gold necklace pensively, with so many beautiful amethysts hanging from it. There was the down payment! Yes, he would manage that easily. And while Emily lurched through the Roman traffic and the poor car leapt over every crossroads like a grasshopper in the countryside, Enzo watched the necklace reflectively from the back seat. It did have a safety lock fitted on it; however Agatha had forgotten to close the small gold bar, and so you could pull open the chain without any resistance.

      Enzo smiled with pursed lips and the corners of his mouth turned downwards slightly, expressing his contempt. He let his slanting blue eyes, which coexisted in delightful contrast to his dark curly hair, stray idly out the window. Outside the Temple of Vesta slipped quickly by, its round fluted columns shimmering in

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