The idea had come to him when he was thinking about the photographs covering Chez Pozzo’s walls. The Manhattan had a similar selection of portraits of boxers and actors on its walls. Its clientele was the same as Rue des Acacias. For over twenty years Luigi had watched the American colony in Paris and the cream of the tourists visiting from the States file through his bar. It wasn’t yet midday, and the place was virtually deserted. Luigi in person was behind the bar, shelving bottles.
‘Good morning, detective chief inspector. What can I get you?’
He was Italian by birth, like Pozzo, and the word was that he lost more or less all his takings at the races. Not just at the races either, but on every sort of bet. Boxing matches, tennis tournaments, swimming meets – everything, even the following day’s weather, was an excuse for a bet as far as he was concerned.
In the slack hours of the afternoon, between three and five, he and a friend who had some vague connection to the embassy would sometimes bet on cars in the street.
‘Five thousand francs there’ll be a Citroën in the next ten minutes.’
‘Done!’
Maigret ordered a whiskey for local colour and let his gaze wander over the rows of photographs on the walls. He soon found Charlie Cinaglia in boxing gear. It was exactly the same photograph as at Chez Pozzo’s, only this one wasn’t signed.
4.
In which the implication of kindergarten persists and Maigret begins to lose his patience
When they came out of the Manhattan in matching black overcoats and hats, with Maigret looking twice as tall and bulky as Lucas, they vaguely resembled a pair of widowers who had stopped off at a string of bistros on their way back from the graveyard.
Had Luigi done it on purpose? Possibly. But if so, it hadn’t been malicious. He was honest, no one ever had a bad word to say about him, and the embassy’s upper echelons had no qualms about propping up his bar.
He had given them generous measures, that was all, especially Maigret, who hadn’t drunk whiskey for a long time. And that was on top of the two calvados he had just had in Faubourg Saint-Honoré.
He wasn’t drunk, nor was Lucas. But did Lucas think his boss was drunk? He had a strange way of glancing up at him as they threaded their way through the crowd thronging the pavements.
Lucas hadn’t gone to Rue des Acacias that morning. He hadn’t heard Pozzo’s speech, or rather, lecture, so he couldn’t really understand Maigret’s frame of mind.
There had been Luigi’s little lesson about boxers first – almost immediately, in fact. Maigret had looked at the photograph of Charlie and casually inquired, as if it didn’t matter either way:
‘Do you know him?’
‘A kid who might have got the world talking about him. He was probably the best at his weight, and he had put in a lot of work to get there. Then one fine day the idiot gets mixed up in some shady scheme or other, and the Boxing Federation revokes his licence.’
‘What happened to him?’
‘What do you think happens to guys like that? There are thousands of kids walking into boxing gyms every year in Chicago, in Detroit, in New York, in all the big cities, thinking they’re going to become champions. And how many champions do you think there are in a generation, inspector?’
‘I don’t know. Not many, obviously.’
‘And even for them success doesn’t last. The ones who haven’t spent all their money on platinum blondes and Cadillacs start a restaurant or a sports shop. But what about all the others, all those kids who thought they’d made it and end up with their brains turned to mush? All they’ve learned to do is fight, and there’ll always be people who need them, as bodyguards or muscle. That’s what happened to Charlie.’
‘I was told he’d become a killer.’
As if it was the most natural thing in the world, Luigi replied:
‘Could be.’
‘Have you seen him recently?’
Maigret had asked the question with his most innocent air, glass in hand, looking off in another direction. He knew Luigi and Luigi knew him. The two men liked each other. But the atmosphere had changed in a split second.
‘Is he in Paris?’
‘I think so.’
‘How come you’re interested in him?’
‘Oh, just by the by . . .’
‘I’ve never seen Charlie Cinaglia in the flesh, because I’d left the States before he made a name for himself. I haven’t heard anything about him coming to Europe.’
‘I was thinking someone might have mentioned him to you. He’s been to Pozzo’s a few times. And you’re both Italian by birth.’
‘I am Neapolitan,’ Luigi corrected him.
‘And Pozzo?’
‘Sicilian. It’s a bit like confusing someone from Marseille with a Corsican.’
‘I wonder who Charlie has been in touch with besides Pozzo since he got to Paris. He didn’t come on his own. Tony Cicero’s with him.’
This was when Luigi filled his glass for the second time. Maigret seemed a little vague, talked listlessly, without conviction. As Lucas, who knew him well, put it, he was going fishing. Sometimes he managed to seem so innocuous that even his right-hand men were taken in.
‘It all seems damn complicated,’ he sighed. ‘Not to mention that there’s another American mixed up in the whole thing, Bill Larner.’
‘Bill hasn’t got anything to do with the others,’ Luigi said quickly. ‘Bill is a gentleman.’
‘One of your customers?’
‘He comes from time to time.’
‘Supposing Bill Larner needed to hide, where do you think he’d go?’
‘Supposing, as you say, because I don’t think it would ever happen, Bill would hide out somewhere he couldn’t be found. But take it from me, Bill has nothing to do with those other two.’
‘Do you know Cicero?’
‘His name sometimes appears in the American papers.’
‘A gangster?’
‘Are you really interested in these people?’
Luigi was already cooler. He might have been Neapolitan rather than Sicilian, but his tone and the way he was looking at Maigret were starting to recall Pozzo.
‘You’ve been to the United States, haven’t you? Then you should understand that these aren’t matters for the French police. The Americans themselves, apart from a few in the FBI, are out of their depth with these organizations. I don’t know why the people you’re talking about have come to Paris, if they have. I mean, you say they have, so I’m quite happy to believe you, but I’m surprised all the same. In any case what they’re up to is no concern of yours.’
‘What if they’d killed a man?’
‘A Frenchman?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘If they’ve killed someone, then they were contracted to do so, and you’ll never be able to prove anything against them. Not that I know either of them. The first two you told me about are Sicilians. As for Bill Larner, I still say that he has nothing in common with them.’
‘When Cicero’s in the American papers, what’s it in connection with?’
‘Extortion rackets, generally. You wouldn’t understand. There aren’t any genuine criminal organizations here like the ones they’ve got over there. You don’t even have real killers here. Suppose a guy in Paris goes round the shopkeepers in his neighbourhood telling them they need protection against hoodlums and that he’s going to take care of it from now on for so many thousand francs a week. The shopkeepers would just go to the police, wouldn’t they? Or they’d burst out laughing. Well, no one laughs in America, and only fools go to the police. Because if they do, or if they don’t pay up, a bomb goes off in their shop, if they’re not machine-gunned on their way home, that is.’
Luigi was growing animated. Like Pozzo, you would have sworn that he was proud of his fellow countrymen.
‘That’s not all. Suppose one of these guys is arrested. There’ll almost always be a judge or high-ranking politician to get him released. But let’
s say for the sake of argument that the sheriff or district attorney digs his heels in. Ten witnesses will immediately come forward to swear on oath that the poor lad was at the other end of town at the time. And if an honest witness claims the opposite, if he is crazy enough to stand by his statement, he’ll have an accident before the day of the trial. Got it?’
A tall man with blond hair had just come in and was leaning on the bar a few metres away from Maigret and Lucas. Luigi winked at him.
‘Martini?’
‘Martini,’ repeated the customer, looking at the two Frenchmen with an amused expression.
Maigret had already blown his nose a couple of times. His nose tickled. His eyelids felt hot. Had he caught Lognon’s cold?
Lucas, meanwhile, decent soul that he was, was waiting for a reaction from his boss. But Maigret let Luigi hold forth as if he had nothing to say.
The truth is he was starting to lose patience. For Pozzo to advise him to drop it was one thing. But for Luigi to say pretty much the same thing here, in this elegant bar, was getting a bit much.
‘Suppose, inspector, an American shows up in Marseille and tries to go after the underworld there. Eh? What would happen to him? Well, they’re kids in Marseille compared to . . .’
All right! All right! Who knows? If Maigret had looked up the American consul or ambassador, maybe those gentlemen would also have chorused, ‘Don’t get involved, Maigret. It’s not for you.’
Not for the kindergarten, eh! He almost felt like saying, which would obviously have been pretty ridiculous, ‘What about Landru, was that kindergarten games too?’
He had drained his drink in sullen silence, well aware that a disappointed Lucas was wondering why he wasn’t putting Luigi in his place.
Now that they were out on the street, Lucas still hadn’t dared ask him anything. Maigret made no mention of taking a taxi or a bus. He just walked grimly along with his hands in his pockets. They had already gone a long way when, turning to his colleague, Maigret said in all seriousness, as if he had doubted himself up until that moment:
‘What do you bet I’ll get them?’
‘I’m sure of it,’ Lucas replied hastily.
‘And I’m positive! You understand? Positive! Those . . .’
It was rare for Maigret to use a truly offensive word, but he uttered that one with relief.
Nothing might come of it, but he had sent Lucas over to Rue des Acacias to keep an eye on Pozzo’s restaurant all the same.
‘There’s no point hiding, our friend is smart enough to spot you. He won’t have telephoned, because he knows the line is tapped, but if he’s had the chance he’s bound to have told the two guys who were in his bar yesterday evening and who warned Charlie and Cicero. There’s still a slight possibility, though, that he hasn’t been able to get in touch with them. In that case, one of the two will come to Rue des Acacias.’
He had described them to Lucas, given him detailed instructions. Back at Quai des Orfèvres, he went straight up to the laboratory without looking in at his office.
Moers was waiting for him, eating a sandwich. He immediately turned on a slide projector that looked like a huge magic lantern, and an image showed up on the screen.
It was the marks Pozzo’s pencil had left on the notepad. The first letters were relatively clear: G A L. After that came some numbers.
‘As you thought, chief, it’s a telephone number. The exchange is Galvani. The first number is a 2, the second a 7, the third’s impossible to make out, so is the fourth: it might be a 0, but I’m not sure, or a 9, or a 6.’
Moers was giving Maigret odd looks as well, not because he smelled of alcohol but because he seemed vague. And as he left he came out with a word he hardly ever used except at moments like this, ‘Thanks, son!’
He went to his office, took off his overcoat, opened the door to the inspectors’ office.
‘Janvier, Lapointe . . .’
Before giving them instructions, he telephoned the Brasserie Dauphine.
‘Have you eaten, you two?’
‘Yes, chief.’
He ordered sandwiches for himself and beer for the three of them.
‘Each of you take a list of telephone numbers. Look under Galvani.’
It was a massive job. Unless they were incredibly lucky, it would take the two men hours to find the right number.
The customers who were playing poker dice at Pozzo’s had left just after they had started eating – in other words, three-quarters of an hour, or even an hour, before Maigret and Lognon had themselves left. Pozzo had told them to telephone a Galvani number. That covered the area around Avenue de la Grande-Armée. And wasn’t Avenue de la Grande-Armée exactly where the car had been stolen that had taken Lognon to Saint-Germain forest?
It all connected. Either the three Americans were together when they had been warned, or else they had been able to meet up quickly, because an hour later they were on the lookout near the restaurant.
‘Are we after a hotel, chief?’
‘I’ve no idea. Maybe. At any rate they won’t have stayed in a hotel under their real names. If they’re in one, they’ve managed to get fake identity cards or passports.’
It wasn’t out of the question. Someone like Pozzo was bound to know the ropes.
‘I don’t think they’re in a hotel or a boarding house, though, because they’ll know we put those under surveillance first.’
How about with a friend of Larner’s, because Larner had been in Paris for two years and must have contacts? In that case they were most likely to be with a woman.
‘Try all the numbers that seem to fit. Compile a list of single women with Italian or American names.’
He wasn’t under any illusions. Even if they happened on the right number, the birds would already have flown. Pozzo wasn’t an innocent or a novice. He had seen Maigret take the notepad. He would have sounded the alarm again by now.
Maigret telephoned his wife, who was expecting him for dinner, then Madame Lognon, who bemoaned her situation in more detail.
The door between his and the inspectors’ office was open. He could hear Janvier and Lapointe telephoning different numbers, telling a different story each time, as he gradually curled up in his chair, puffing ever more sparingly on his pipe.
He wasn’t asleep, though. He was hot. He felt he had a slight fever. With his eyes half-closed, he was trying to think, but his train of thought was becoming more and more hazy, and he kept coming back to the same rallying cry: ‘I’m going to get them!’
How he would get them was another story. To tell the truth, he didn’t have the slightest idea, but he had rarely been as determined to see a job through in his life. It was almost a matter of national interest, as far as he was concerned, and everything about it, even the word gangster, drove him mad.
‘ . . . Oh absolutely, Monsieur Luigi! Absolutely, Monsieur Pozzo! Absolutely, my American friends! None of you are going to make me change my mind. I’ve always said that killers are idiots, and I will keep saying it. If they weren’t, they wouldn’t kill anyone. Understood? No? You’re not convinced? Well, I, Maigret, will prove it to you. There! That’s all! Now, get out!’
When the office boy knocked at the door and, getting no answer, opened it a crack, Maigret was sleeping with his pipe dangling from his lips.
‘An express letter, inspector.’
It was the photographs and information sent by plane from Washington.
Ten minutes later the laboratory was printing off copies of the photographs. At four o’clock the journalists were assembled in the waiting room, and Maigret was giving each of them a set of proofs.
‘Don’t ask me what they’re wanted for, just help me find them. Run the photographs on the front page. Anyone who has seen one of these men is requested to telephone my office immediately.’
‘Are they armed?’
Maigret hesitated, then decided to reply honestly:
‘They’re not only armed, they’re dangerous.’
> Using the term that was starting to get on his nerves, he went on, ‘They’re killers. Or one of them is, at least.’
The photographs were being wired to all railway stations, border points and police brigades.
All this, as poor Lognon would have said, was the easy part. Lucas was still cooling his heels in Rue des Acacias. Janvier and Lapointe were calling telephone numbers. Whenever they found a vaguely suspicious number, someone would go and check it.
At five o’clock he was told that Washington wanted him on the telephone, and he heard MacDonald greet him with a genial ‘Jules’.
‘Look here, Jules, I’ve been thinking about your call and I’ve managed to have a quick chat about it with the big boss . . .’
Maigret might have been imagining it, but he thought MacDonald sounded more guarded than the day before. There were long pauses.
‘Yes, I’m listening.’
‘Are you sure that Cinaglia and Cicero are in Paris?’
‘Positive. I’ve just had it confirmed from photographs by someone who has seen them close up.’
It was true. He had sent a detective to Madame Lognon’s, and she had been adamant.
‘Hello?’
‘Yes, I’m still here.’
‘Are there only two of them?’
‘They’ve got in touch with Bill Larner.’
‘He’s not important, as I said before. Have they met up with anyone else?’
‘That’s what I’m trying to establish.’
MacDonald seemed to be beating around the bush, as if he were afraid of saying too much.
‘You haven’t heard anything about a third Sicilian?’
‘Called?’
Another hesitation.
‘Mascarelli.’
‘Would he have got here at the same time as the others?’
‘Definitely not. A few weeks earlier.’
‘I’ll have someone look up the name in our hotel records.’
‘Mascarelli probably isn’t registered under his own name.’
‘In that case . . .’
‘Have a look anyway. If you hear of a Mascarelli, known as Sloppy Joe, let me know by telephone. I’ll give you his description. Short and thin, looks fifty although he’s only forty-one, unhealthy looking, with boil scars on his neck. Do you know what the word sloppy means?’
Maigret, Lognon and the Gangsters Page 6