Fetch the Treasure Hunter

by Phillip Gwynne

  By the time I got back to Rome there was less than two hours before the concert started.

  In the taxi from the airport I tried to buy a Stones ticket online, but with no luck – apparently it had been esaurito – sold out – for weeks already. If I couldn’t get in legally, I’d have to resort to other, less legal methods. I was a pretty resourceful sort of kid, after all.

  A quick reconnoitre, that’s what I needed.

  ‘Can we go past the Colosseum?’ I asked the taxi driver.

  ‘Many, many roadblock,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, but I’d still like to go.’

  He sighed heavily and said, ‘You’re paying the meter, amico.’

  He was right: there were many, many roadblock with many many security guard manning these many, many roadblock. Security guards so big and hairy they made the gorillas we had working on the Gold Coast look like lesser primates.

  Can’t go through it.

  But what about under it?

  I remembered what Dr Chakrabarty had said about the hypogeum being connected to different parts of Rome by underground tunnels.

  ‘Where to now, boss?’ asked the taxi driver.

  ‘The Olympic Village,’ I said.

  The taxi driver seemed to think that we were now on familiar enough terms for him to offer me a whole lot of his opinions about a whole lot of different subjects.

  ‘This pop concert, it is disrespectful of il Colosseo,’ he said.

  Would that be the same Colosseo where men used to get their heads chopped off?

  ‘The Rolling Stones are more rock than pop,’ I said.

  ‘Rock. Pop. Same thing. Disrespectful.’

  After he’d dropped me off, I hurried through the entrance, keen to find the doctor and take advantage of all the awesome stuff he knew about the subterranean Colosseum.

  I didn’t have to look very far.

  Dr Chakrabarty was waiting for me. Along with Mr. Ryan. And Mrs Jenkins. Coach Sheeds. In fact, a whole gaggle of officials.

  And I could tell from the collective looks on their faces that, again, I was in more trouble than Maximus.

  Behind them, sitting on one of the couches in the foyer, I could see Seb.

  I looked at Dr Chakrabarty, repository of all that information, and I knew it was no longer available to me.

  ‘Dominic, a word,’ said Mrs Jenkins, chins wobbling in all directions like some mad physics experiment.

  Really, would one word be enough to tell me what a disappointment I was? How I’d let the team down and myself as well? How their hands were tied, how rules were rules and they had no option but to suspend me from the team?

  All that, in one word?

  It would have to be a big one, something along the lines of antidisestablishmentarianism or pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism.

  Right then I had two choices.

  My first choice was to let them have that word, to take in that word, to promise them I would knuckle down, and maybe, perhaps, possibly, perchance, they would let me stay on the team.

  But if I did this I didn’t like my chances of getting out of the Olympic Village tonight.

  My other choice?

  ‘I have to go,’ I said, making what I hoped was a serious I-have-to-go face.

  Obviously not serious enough, because Mrs Jenkins said, ‘Go where?’

  ‘To the toilet. But I’ll be right back.’

  ‘If you have to,’ said Mrs Jenkins, who obviously had memories of me on the plane.

  I ran inside the toilet, into a cubicle, my mind racing.

  How in the hell to get out of here without them seeing me?

  A door opened and I figured it was Mr Ryan or maybe even Mrs Jenkins come to check on me.

  ‘I haven’t finished,’ I said, making a wet farting noise with my mouth.

  ‘Not very convincing,’ said Seb

  ‘Crap!’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘No, I meant crap crap, not poo crap,’ I said.

  ‘So what’s happening with you, dude?’ said Seb.

  ‘I totally need to get to the Rolling Stones concert,’ I said.

  ‘Totally?’ he said.

  ‘To-tal-ly,’ I said.

  ‘Okay, I dig that,’ said Seb. ‘They’re, like, my favourite heritage band.’

  ‘You actually like the Rolling Stones?’

  ‘“Like” is a bit puny for how I feel about them,’ he said.

  A fifteen-year-old kid liking the Rolling Stones that much was pretty whacko, but Seb was a pretty whacko fifteen-year-old kid.

  ‘So maybe you’d be keen on getting into the gig, too?’ I ventured.

  ‘“Keen” is a bit puny for how –’

  ‘Okay, I get it.’

  ‘And I got knocked out in my heat, so it is getting a bit boring around here,’ he said.

  ‘The question is: how in the hell do we get out of here without being sprung?’ I said.

  ‘That’s easy,’ said Seb, pointing to a high-set window.

  ‘You think we could squeeze through that?’

  ‘I know we could squeeze through that.’

  I gave Seb a quizzical look – how could he be so certain?

  ‘I’ve done a fair bit of caving, and caving is all about squeezing through tight spaces,’ he said. ‘You just need to make sure you get one arm and one shoulder through to begin with.’

  ‘Me first?’

  By way of an answer Seb linked his fingers to make a step with his two hands.

  ‘Here, I’ll give you a hoist.’

  With Seb’s help I was easily able to get on top of the partition.

  The window still looked too small, though, and I wondered whether Seb had misjudged it.

  ‘Are you sure?’ I said.

  ‘You want me to go first?’

  ‘No, I’ve got it,’ I said.

  Taking his advice, I put my left arm through first, followed by my left shoulder.

  And then, by tucking my head under my left arm, I was able to get the top of my body through.

  The problem was that now I was facing downwards and there was probably a three-metre drop to the ground.

  On my present trajectory I was going to end up with a broken neck.

  I twisted myself around so I was facing up, my hands feeling for holds on the smooth brick.

  Bingo!

  A slightly protruding brick provided just the purchase I needed. Using this to steady myself, I was able to shuffle my bum out through the window. Then, somehow, I was able to get my feet under me and stand up. Now all I had to do was turn around. Doing this necessitated letting go of my brick and then gripping either side of the window frame.

  I had no choice.

  One. Two. Three.

  I let go of the brick and shuffled around, hands finding the frame.

  I’d made it!

  Sort of.

  There didn’t see any way to clamber down from where I was. I had to jump. Fortunately there was a flowerbed just to my right. But if I missed that and hit the stone, I’d probably break something. Like an ankle. Or a leg.

  One. Two. Three!

  I jumped, both feet landing in the soft soil. I rolled to the left, squashing a bed of flowers. By this time Seb had appeared at the window.

  What had been so difficult for me, he seemed to do easily, and quickly. He jumped, he landed, and was immediately up on his feet like a cat. I wondered about the caving explanation. Not for long, though. Because we were both running, giggling as we did.

  It’d been a pretty excellent escape.

  And it also felt a bit like old times, when we used to run together, before The Debt had come into my life, into our lives.

  I hailed a taxi.

  This driver also spoke pretty good English, but unlike the other one he thought that the Rolling Stones concert was a good idea.

  ‘It will put Rome on the map,’ he said.

  Actually, I thought Rome was already on most maps.

  He dropped us as close as he cou
ld get to the Colosseum.

  Already a big crowd had gathered.

  There were the usual tourists doing the usual rubbernecking, but other people as well. Maybe they had tickets, maybe they didn’t, but it certainly had the sense of a big event.

  But I guessed the Colosseum had been doing big events for a while now – since at least 107 AD when Trajan and his 10,000 gladiators had totally rocked it.

  Amongst them I saw a bald man standing on a milk crate, with what looked like a sheaf of tickets in his hand.

  As we got closer I could hear him say, his accent like something out of that film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, ‘Tickets to the Stones. Who wants tickets to the Stones?’

  ‘I need two,’ I said as I came up to him. I didn’t have much cash on me but I figured that if the price was right I could go get some out of the ATM.

  He looked me up and down and said, ‘It’s not Justin Bieber on tonight.’

  ‘No kidding,’ I said. ‘How much is a ticket?’

  ‘Seven fifty,’ he said.

  ‘Very funny,’ I said, thinking he meant seven euros and fifty cents. ‘Really, how much is a ticket?’

  ‘You heard me, seven hundred and fifty euros.’

  Seven hundred and fifty euros was crazy, nobody was going to buy a ticket for that price. And it was much more than I could get out of the ATM.

  But as soon as I had this thought a man in a suit approached the scalper.

  They talked for a while, euros changed hands, and the man in the suit walked off with a ticket.

  I didn’t like Justin Bieber that much, but somebody had to stick up for him.

  ‘Have you thought that the Rolling Stones were just the Justin Bieber of their time?’

  The scalper gave me a look, also from Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and said, ‘Rack off, kid, and stop wasting my effing time.’

  It seemed like pretty sound advice.

  ‘No luck,’ I said to Seb.

  ‘What now?’ he said.

  Couldn’t go through it.

  Couldn’t go under it.

  But hadn’t Antonio hinted that he and some of his friends had once climbed over the Colosseum?

  I rang his number and fortunately he answered straightaway.

  ‘Kangaroo,’ he said.

  I tried to think of an animal that was representative of somebody who was half-English half-Italian, but I couldn’t, so I just said, ‘Antonio, my man!’

  ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘You know how you sort of suggested that you and your mates climbed into the Colosseum?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said, but I detected a note of uncertainty in his voice that hadn’t been there the other day.

  ‘How did you do it?’

  Silence, and that note of uncertainty had become a whole symphony of uncertainty.

  ‘You lied to me,’ I said.

  ‘Yes, I lied to you.’

  ‘You didn’t go over.’

  My heart sank, dropping into the bottom of my chest, where it rolled down one leg, coming to rest in my foot.

  ‘I didn’t, but some people I know did.’

  ‘Do you have any idea where they went over?’

  ‘Give me a minute, okay?’

  I gave him a minute. And another minute. And another minute.

  And just as I was about to start hating him again, a text arrived.

  start from small park opposite oppio cafe be careful

  That was it, Climbing the Colosseum for Dummies?

  Still, I guessed it was better than nothing.

  The crowd had swelled even more. Limos were pulling up, dropping people off.

  Apart from the occasional faded T-shirt from years gone by, there wasn’t anything particularly rock’n’roll about the audience. They could’ve been going to the opera or the theatre. There were a lot of sexy dresses and flashing jewellery.

  Oppio Café was crowded, people getting their last overpriced drink before they hit the gig.

  From here the Colosseum was pretty much intact, the full fifty metres high, equal to a twelve-storey building. My first thought was that Antonio, or his friends at least, were crazy: why would you go over here when there were parts of the wall that weren’t as intact and were therefore much lower? But after another walk around, it was obvious why: this was the least busy area of the Colosseum, the part that was furthest from the entrances. It was also the darkest part; there were plenty of helpful shadows.

  ‘You still game?’ I said to Seb.

  I followed his gaze up and up and up until it came to stop at the very top of the Colosseum. For an agonising second I thought he was going to pull out. And it was agonising because I really didn’t want to tackle this thing by myself. His gaze returned from the skies and a smile appeared on his face.

  ‘Loose as a goose on the juice,’ he said, which I took to be an affirmative.

  ‘I think we should wait until the concert starts,’ I said.

  ‘So do I,’ he said.

  While we waited, both sitting on the ground, I noticed that the security guards patrolled at regular intervals.

  I timed them – three minutes twenty-five seconds.

  So that gave us about three minutes to start climbing and find some cover.

  Oppio Café was emptying now, its customers joining the people streaming towards the entrance. Obviously they couldn’t all fit inside, but I guessed they were going to sit outside. So what if they couldn’t see them, at least they could hear the Stones.

  I had the same feeling I had before a big race: butterflies in my stomach, but not those delicate fluttery types. These were big brutes, and they were smashing into each other.

  We could hear the stage announcer: ‘Ladies and Gentleman, the Rolling Stones!’

  And then a tremendous roar that seemed to lift the Colosseum off the ground. I wondered if it was the same sort of roar as hundreds of years ago when the gladiators clashed.

  The opening riffs of a song.

  ‘Start me up,’ said Seb.

  ‘Start you up?’ I said.

  ‘That’s the song,’ he said. ‘“Start Me Up”.’

  Now I recognised it, and it seemed pretty appropriate, too. Start me up, and get me over that monster.

  Two security guards walked past. One of them looked our way, so I started doing a bit of heavy-metal head shaking in time to the music. Hey man, we’re here to dig the music, not to break into the Colosseum.

  When I looked up again, his gaze was elsewhere.

  ‘Okay,’ I said to Seb. ‘Let’s go.’

  He didn’t need any more prompting than that, and scampered across the concrete. I followed. But once we’d reached the base of the Colosseum I hesitated.

  Were we crazy?

  This thing was twelve storeys high!

  But Seb was already on his way.

  So I followed his lead.

  Last year, at school, we’d done some indoor rock climbing and, if I do say so myself, I’d been pretty good at it. I have a long reach and a good power-to-weight ratio.

  But climbing in an indoor gym and climbing on an exposed wall: not much comparison, I’m afraid.

  There you have a harness. Make a mistake, fall off, and you dangle around for a while until the instructor makes a dad joke and lets you down.

  Here I had no harness.

  Still, because it was so worn, so damaged, with so many cracks and crevices, there was no shortage of footholds and handholds.

  It was actually pretty straightforward climbing and, harness or not, it didn’t take very long until we’d reached the first level.

  From here we could see through the gaps into the amphitheatre itself.

  At the far end was the purpose-built stage, with four figures on it, three of them moving about, the other’s arms lifting high as he drummed away.

  The skinny figure of Mick Jagger out front.

  And then the crowd, a sea of bodies, all moving to the song.

  The sound seemed to ju
st swell up, like a wave at Surfers when the wind was offshore and the tide was just right.

  Forget the scalper’s seven hundred and fifty euro tickets, right now Seb and I had the best seats in the house.

  There was only one drawback – there was no easy way to get down into the amphitheatre from here.

  It would involve climbing down and I didn’t really like that idea. For a start it would much more dangerous because we wouldn’t be able to see the footholds. And for sure somebody would see us. Probably one of those big hairy security guards.

  But if we kept climbing up to the top, there seemed to be a series of steps that led down from there.

  ‘We need to keep going,’ I said to Seb.

  I couldn’t have blamed him if he’d just stayed where he was. Like I said, there were no better seats in the house.

  But he nodded and said, ‘Let’s go!’

  Technically, the climbing wasn’t very difficult. But we were higher now, much higher.

  Each year during schoolies week when some kid falls off a balcony at Surfers, it doesn’t seem to matter what floor they fall from – sixth, eighth, twentieth – because they always end up dead.

  A wrong move, a fall, and death seemed the most likely outcome for us too.

  I stopped to get my breath, and watched Seb. He was so fluid, each action so economical. Is there anything this kid can’t do?

  And fast on the heels of that question, came another question. Why is he so eager to help me?

  Surely it couldn’t be because he wanted to see a rock band who hadn’t put out a decent album in thirty years?

  No, it was pretty obvious that Seb was involved in The Debt.

  The opening riff to ‘Miss You’ had started – a song even I knew – and the crowd, the mob, was going crazy, Italian-style.

  I started moving again and soon caught up to Seb. We climbed together, hand for hand, foot for foot, until we arrived at the second level.

  The view from here was even more spectacular. The crowd, down below, looked like a sort of heaving protoplasm, undulating in time to the music.

  Lights flashed onstage, lasers sweeping this way and that way. And then suddenly they were on us. But they were gone again.

  ‘That was close,’ I said.

  ‘Let’s keep moving,’ said Seb.

  I didn’t need any more prompting, and once again we headed skywards as the lasers kept sweeping across us.

  The third level now.