Maigret, Lognon and the Gangsters

by Georges Simenon

  ‘When did you see him again?’

  Pozzo remained almost ostentatiously silent.

  ‘I suppose you can’t tell me the name of the two customers who you were playing poker dice with yesterday either?’

  A look of astonishment crossed Pozzo’s face.

  ‘Am I meant to know my customers’ names, addresses and marital statuses?’

  Maigret had got to his feet as Pozzo had done earlier and, with the same distracted air, gone over to the bar. He went round behind it and bent down to the shelves under the counter.

  Pozzo followed him with his eyes, apparently indifferent.

  ‘You see, when I find one of those customers, I’ve a feeling that things will start to go badly for you.’

  Maigret held up a notepad and pencil he had just found.

  ‘Now I know how you warned Charlie, or Bill Larner, or Cicero – it doesn’t matter which, as they’re working together. My mistake was to think you did it after I left. But it was before. When you saw the inspector and me come in, you knew what it was about. You had time while we ordered to scribble a few words on the pad and pass the note to one of the two customers. What do you say to that?’

  ‘I say it’s very interesting.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘That’s all.’

  The telephone rang in the booth. Frowning, Pozzo went to answer it.

  ‘It’s for you!’ he announced.

  It was the Police Judiciaire, Maigret having said where he would be when he left. Lucas was on the other end of the line.

  ‘We’ve found him, chief.’

  Something in Lucas’ voice suggested that events had taken an unpleasant turn.

  ‘Dead?’

  ‘No. About an hour ago, a fish wholesaler from Honfleur driving along the Nationale 13 in his van picked up a man lying unconscious by the side of the road between Poissy and Le Pecq, in the Saint-Germain forest.’

  ‘Lognon?’

  ‘Yes. Apparently he’s in a bad way. The wholesaler took him to a Doctor Grenier, in Saint-Germain, and the doctor has just telephoned.’

  ‘Is he injured?’

  ‘His face is swollen, probably from being punched, but it is the head wound that is the most serious. According to the doctor, he’s apparently been badly pistol-whipped. As a precaution I’ve asked for him to be taken straight to Beaujon by ambulance. He’ll be there in three-quarters of an hour.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘The Hotel Agency have picked up the two men’s trail.’

  ‘Charlie and Cicero?’

  ‘Yes. Ten days ago, when they came in from Le Havre, they stayed at the Hôtel de l’Étoile in Rue Brey. They were out last Monday night. On Tuesday morning they came to pay their bill and pick up their luggage.’

  It all revolved around the same part of town: Rue Brey, the Hôtel Wagram, Pozzo’s restaurant, Rue des Acacias, the garage where the car had been hired.

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘A car that had been stolen from Avenue de la Grande-Armée yesterday evening at around nine was found this morning at Porte Maillot. It belongs to an engineer who was playing bridge at a friend’s house. He says the car had been cleaned yesterday afternoon. When it was found it was covered with mud, as if it had been driven on country lanes.’

  Always the same part of town.

  ‘What do I do, chief?’

  ‘Go to Beaujon and wait for me.’

  ‘Shall I tell Madame Lognon?’

  Maigret heaved a sigh.

  ‘That would be best, of course. Don’t go into details. Tell her he’s not dead. Best not do it over the telephone. You could stop off at Place Constantin-Pecqueur before going to Beaujon.’

  ‘That’ll be fun.’

  ‘Just say there was a fist fight.’

  ‘OK.’

  Maigret almost smiled. For once the lugubrious Lognon actually seemed to have luck on his side. If he was seriously wounded, he was going to become a sort of hero, probably get a medal!

  ‘See you soon, chief.’

  ‘See you then.’

  While he was on the telephone, Pozzo had stacked the chairs on the tables and was now sweeping his restaurant.

  ‘My inspector has been given a beating,’ Maigret said, looking him in the eye.

  No reaction.

  ‘Just a beating?’

  ‘Are you surprised?’

  ‘Not particularly. It’s probably a warning. That happens a lot over there.’

  ‘Still determined to keep your trap shut?’

  ‘I told you that I never get involved in other people’s business.’

  ‘We’ll be seeing each other.’

  ‘It will be a pleasure.’

  As he was leaving, Maigret turned and went and picked up the notepad he had left on a table. Finally he glimpsed a hint of anxiety on the restaurateur’s face.

  ‘Wait a minute! That’s mine.’

  ‘I’ll give it back to you.’

  He found the car from the Préfecture waiting for him outside.

  ‘Beaujon.’

  In Faubourg Saint-Honoré, at the dark hospital gates, he gave the notepad to the policeman who was driving.

  ‘Go back to Quai des Orfèvres. Go up to the laboratory and give this to Moers. Handle it with care.’

  ‘What shall I tell him?’

  ‘Nothing. He’ll know what it’s about.’

  Confident that he still had plenty of time before the ambulance got there, he went into a bistro, ordered a calvados and shut himself away in the telephone booth.

  ‘Moers? Maigret here. A notepad is on its way to you from me. There’s a good chance someone wrote a few words in pencil on it yesterday evening, then tore out the page.’

  ‘Understood. You want to know if it left an impression on the page below?’

  ‘Exactly. The pad may not have been used since, but I can’t say for certain. Be quick about it. I’ll be at the office around noon.’

  ‘All right, chief.’

  When it came down to it, Maigret couldn’t help but be affected by Pozzo’s self-assurance. There was a grain of truth, more in fact, in what the restaurateur had said. You often heard people at the Police Judiciaire saying that most, if not all, murderers were idiots.

  ‘Amateurs!’ Pozzo had claimed.

  He wasn’t entirely wrong. On this side of the Atlantic ten per cent, at most, of all murderers eluded the police, whereas over there known killers like Cinaglia were free to go where they pleased, because nothing could be proved against them.

  They were professionals who, to use another of Pozzo’s idioms, played hardball. Maigret couldn’t remember anyone ever saying, ‘Drop it!’ in that fatherly way before.

  Of course he had no intention of doing so, but he couldn’t help thinking that MacDonald hadn’t been exactly encouraging on the telephone yesterday.

  He was in unfamiliar territory. He was up against people whose methods he only knew by hearsay and whose ways of thinking and reacting were new to him.

  Why had Charlie and Tony Cicero come to Paris? They seemed to have crossed the ocean with a specific end in mind and not wasted any time.

  Eight days after they got here they were dumping a body on the pavement by Notre-Dame-de-Lorette church.

  That body, whether dead or alive, had disappeared a few minutes later, almost before Lognon’s very eyes.

  ‘Same again!’

  He knocked back a second calvados, feeling as if he were coming down with a cold, then crossed the street and went under the arch as an ambulance was pulling in.

  It was Lognon, whom they had brought from Saint-Germain and who was insisting on walking. When he saw Maigret, they could no longer keep him on the stretcher.

  ‘I’m telling you I can still stand.’

  Maigret had to look away for a moment. Despite everything he couldn’t help smiling when he saw Inspector Hard-Done-By’s face. One eye was swollen and completely closed, and the Saint-Germain doctor had covered one of
his nostrils and the corner of his mouth with a shocking pink plaster.

  ‘I must explain, sir . . .’

  ‘In a minute.’

  Poor Lognon was unsteady on his feet, and a nurse had to support him as he was steered to the room that had been got ready for him. The house doctor went in after him.

  ‘Call me when you’ve seen to him. Make sure that he can talk.’

  Maigret paced up and down the corridor, where he was joined ten minutes later by Lucas.

  ‘How was Madame Lognon? Was it hard?’

  Lucas’ look was eloquent.

  ‘She is outraged that he hasn’t been taken home. She says we have no right to keep him in hospital and keep the two of them apart like this.’

  ‘How does she propose to look after him?’

  ‘I pointed that out to her. She wants to see you and is talking about going to the prefect of police. According to her, we are leaving her on her own, sick and unprotected, at the mercy of gangsters.’

  ‘Did you tell her their building was being watched?’

  ‘Yes. That calmed her down a little. I had to take her over to the window and show her the man on duty outside.’

  ‘It’s always the same, some people get all the credit while others do all the dirty work!’ she said finally.

  When the house doctor came out of the room, he was worried.

  ‘Fracture of the skull?’ Maigret asked in a low voice.

  ‘I don’t think so. We’re going to x-ray him in a moment, but it’s unlikely. But he was knocked out. What’s more, he has been out in the woods all night and he may have got pneumonia. You can talk to him. That will make him feel better. He’s asking for you, won’t let us do anything to him until he’s seen you. I had a terrible job giving him a penicillin injection. I had to show him the name of the medicine on the phial because he was afraid I was trying to put him to sleep.’

  ‘Better if I see him alone,’ Maigret said to Lucas.

  Lognon was lying in a white bed, while a nurse bustled around the room. His face was burning hot now, as if the fever was building.

  Maigret sat down by his bed.

  ‘Well, my friend?’

  ‘They got me.’

  A tear spurted from his uncovered eye.

  ‘The doctor says you shouldn’t get worked up. Just give me the essentials.’

  ‘When you left me, I stayed at the corner, where I could watch the door of the restaurant. I was standing right by the wall, some way away from the streetlight.’

  ‘Did anyone leave Pozzo’s?’

  ‘No, no one. After about ten minutes a car came down Avenue MacMahon, turned the corner and stopped directly in front of me.’

  ‘Charlie Cinaglia?’

  ‘There were three of them. The tall one, Cicero, was doing the driving, with Bill Larner next to him. Charlie was in the back. I didn’t have time to take my gun out of my pocket. Charlie had already opened the door and was pointing his automatic at me. He didn’t say anything, just signalled for me to get in. The other two didn’t even look at me. What was I supposed to do?’

  ‘Get in,’ sighed Maigret.

  ‘The car drove off immediately while I was being frisked, and my gun was taken away. No one spoke. I saw we were leaving Paris by Porte Maillot, then I recognized the Saint-Germain road.’

  ‘Did the car stop in the forest?’

  ‘Yes. Larner gestured to his companion which road to take. We turned off into a little lane and when we were a long way from the main road, the car pulled up. Then they made me get out.’

  Pozzo had been right to say they weren’t amateurs.

  ‘Charlie kept his mouth shut virtually the whole time. It was the tall one, Cicero, who stood there with his hands in his pockets, chain-smoking, telling Larner in English what to ask me.’

  ‘So they’d taken Larner along as an interpreter?’

  ‘I got the feeling he wasn’t that thrilled with his role in the whole thing. Several times he seemed to be telling them to let me go. Before they started questioning me, Charlie, the short one, smashed his fist into my face, and my nose started bleeding.

  ‘“I think you’d better be nice,” Larner said with a slight accent, “and tell these gentlemen what they want to know.”

  ‘They basically asked me the same question over and over, “What have you done with the body?”

  ‘At first I didn’t want to do them the honour of answering and just gave them a hard look. Then Cicero said something in English to Charlie, who punched me again.

  ‘“You’re making a mistake,” said Larner with a bored expression. “You see, everyone always talks in the end.”

  ‘After the third or fourth punch, I can’t remember how many now, I swore to them that I didn’t know what had happened to the body, that I didn’t even know whose it was. They didn’t believe me. Cicero carried on smoking his cigarette and pacing up and down every now and then to stretch his legs.

  ‘“Who told the police?”

  ‘What was I supposed to say? That I just happened to be there on another matter that had nothing to do with them?’

  ‘Each time I replied, Cicero signalled to Charlie, who couldn’t wait to punch me in the face again. They emptied my pockets, examined the contents of my wallet in the car headlights.’

  ‘Did it go on for long?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe half an hour, maybe more. I hurt all over. One of the punches had given me a black eye, and I felt the blood running down my face.

  ‘“I swear to you,” I said to them, “I don’t know anything.”

  ‘Cicero wasn’t satisfied and began talking to Larner again, who then started a new line of questioning. He asked me if I’d seen another car stop on Rue Fléchier. I said I had.

  ‘“What was the licence number?”

  ‘“I didn’t have time to see it.”

  ‘“You’re lying!”

  ‘“I’m not lying.”

  ‘They wanted to know who you were, because they had seen you going into my apartment on Place Constantin-Pecqueur. I told them. Then they asked if you had been in touch with the FBI and I said that I didn’t know, that in France inspectors don’t ask their superiors questions. Larner laughed. He seemed to know you.

  ‘Eventually Cicero shrugged and headed off to the car. Larner seemed relieved and went after him, but Charlie stayed behind. He shouted something to them, from a distance. Then he took his automatic out of his pocket, and I thought he was going to kill me, I . . . .’

  Lognon fell silent, tears of rage in his eyes. Maigret didn’t want to know what he had done, if he had fallen to his knees, begged. Probably not. Lognon could have just stood there, sombre and bitter to the end.

  ‘He only hit me over the head with the butt of his pistol, and I passed out. When I came to, they weren’t there any more. I tried to stand up. I called for help.’

  ‘Did you wander around in the forest all night?’

  ‘I suppose I must have gone round in circles. I blacked out several times. Sometimes I dragged myself along with my hands. I heard cars passing, and each time I tried to shout. In the morning I found myself by the side of the road, and a van stopped.’

  Without any transition, he asked, ‘Does my wife know?’

  ‘Yes. Lucas went there.’

  ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She insisted that you be taken back to Place Constantin-Pecqueur.’

  A flash of anxiety crossed Lognon’s one good eye.

  ‘Am I going to be moved?’

  ‘No. You need treatment and you’ll be better off here.’

  ‘I did what I could.’

  ‘Of course you did.’

  A sudden thought seemed to be worrying Lognon. He hesitated before speaking, then finally mumbled, turning his face away:

  ‘I don’t deserve to be in the police.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because if I had known where the body was I would have ended up telling them.’

  ‘So would I,’ s
aid Maigret, although it wasn’t clear whether he was just trying to make the inspector feel better.

  ‘Am I going to have to stay in hospital long?’

  ‘A few days, at any rate.’

  ‘Am I off the investigation now?’

  ‘No, of course you’ll be kept informed.’

  ‘Do you promise? You’re not angry with me?’

  ‘About what, my friend?’

  ‘You know very well it’s my fault.’

  He was really laying it on thick. Maigret had no choice but to deny it, say over and over that he had done his duty, that if he had acted differently on Monday night they might never have discovered Charlie and Cicero’s trail.

  Besides, it was almost true.

  ‘What is my wife doing for shopping?’

  To be on the safe side, Maigret replied, ‘Lucas has taken care of it.’

  ‘I’m ashamed to put you to all this trouble.’

  Oh come on! He hadn’t changed! Still humble to a fault. One way or another, he couldn’t help overdoing it.

  Luckily someone knocked on the door just at that moment, because Maigret didn’t know how to get out of there. The nurse announced:

  ‘It’s time to go down to radiology.’

  This time Lognon had to sit on a gurney, and when he passed, Lucas, who was waiting in the corridor, gave him a friendly little wave.

  ‘Come on!’

  ‘What did they do to him?’

  Without replying directly, Maigret muttered, ‘Pozzo’s right. They’re hard men.’

  Then he said pensively:

  ‘I’m surprised that someone like Bill Larner is working with them. Crooks of his calibre don’t normally get their hands dirty.’

  ‘Do you think the other two have forced him to help them?’

  ‘In any case I’d like to have a chat with him.’

  Larner was a professional as well, but of another kind and class, one of those international criminals who only do the occasional job, a serious, meticulously organized heist that nets them twenty or thirty thousand dollars and then they can take things easy. For the two years he had been in Paris he had apparently been able to live on his capital without any trouble.

  Maigret and Lucas flagged down a taxi, and Maigret gave the Préfecture’s address first. Then, as they were crossing Rue Royale, he changed his mind.

  ‘Rue des Capucines,’ he told the driver. ‘The Manhattan Bar.’