‘All right. I won’t keep you in suspense. You see that jukebox cranking out music? I’ve just put a five-cent piece, a nickel, in the slot, which buys me about a minute and a half of some tune or other. There are a few thousand machines of this kind in the bars, taverns and restaurants of New York. There are tens of thousands in the other cities of America and even way out in the countryside. At this very moment, while we’re talking, at least half of these machines you find rather vulgar are in use, meaning people are all putting in their nickels, which makes thousands and thousands of times five cents, which makes … Well, I’m not real good at math.
‘And do you know to whom all these nickels go? To your friend John Maura, better known in this country as Little John, on account of he’s short.
‘And Little John has installed the same machines, on which he’s basically got a monopoly, in most of the South American republics.
‘Now do you understand why Little John is a very important person?’
Always that barely perceptible sting of irony, so that Maigret, unused to this tone, was still wondering whether O’Brien was naive or poking fun at him.
‘Now we can go have dinner, and you’ll tell me your story.’
Sitting at their table, they were nice and warm, while the wind gusted so fiercely outdoors that passers-by walked leaning forwards, people chased after their hats, and women had to hold their skirts down with both hands. A storm, doubtless the same one Maigret had weathered at sea, had hit the east coast, and New York was taking a beating: storefront signs tore loose from time to time, things fell from high buildings and even the yellow cabs seemed to struggle as they ploughed through the wind.
The bad weather had begun right after lunch, when Maigret and MacGill had left the St Regis.
‘Do you know Maura’s secretary?’ the inspector now asked O’Brien.
‘Not particularly. You see, my dear inspector, our rules here are not exactly the same as yours. I regret this, incidentally, because it would make our job much easier. We have a highly developed sense of personal freedom, and if I were to start asking questions about a man, even discreetly, without any grounds for suspicion, I’d find myself in a very awkward situation.
‘Now, Little John, let me hasten to add, is not a gangster. He is a well-considered and considerable businessman who maintains a sumptuous suite year-round at the St Regis, one of our best hotels.
‘We therefore have no reason to pay attention to him or his secretary.’
Why that vague yet mocking smile that seemed somehow to qualify what he said? Maigret found it a little irritating. He felt like a foreigner and, like every foreigner, he easily imagined that he was a figure of fun.
‘I don’t read detective stories and I don’t expect to find America peopled with gangsters,’ he replied crossly.
‘To get back to this MacGill, who is probably of French origin, I feel, in spite of his name …’
And again, the other man, with his exasperating mildness: ‘It’s difficult, in New York, to untangle people’s roots!’
‘As I was saying: from the aperitif on, he made every effort to appear as attentive as he had been aloof that morning. He informed me that they’d still had no news from young Maura but that his father was not worried yet because he assumed that a woman was behind this flit. MacGill then questioned me about the women aboard.
‘It so happens that during the crossing Jean Maura did seem smitten by one passenger, a young Chilean woman who’ll be leaving for South America tomorrow on a Grace Line ship.’
There were murmurs of French at most of the tables, and the patronne went from one customer to another, chatting in a familiar, slightly cheeky way in the delectable accent of Toulouse.
‘And how are you, my dears? … What do you think of this coq au vin, hmm? And afterwards, if you fancy it, there’s mocha cake, homemade …’
Lunch had been quite different in the main dining room of the St Regis, where MacGill was constantly greeting people while at the same time paying marked attention to Maigret with his constant chitchat. What was it he had said? … That John Maura was a very busy man, rather an eccentric, someone who had a horror of new faces and distrusted everyone.
Why wouldn’t he have been surprised that morning when someone like Maigret arrived on his doorstep?
‘He doesn’t like anyone nosing around his affairs, you understand? Especially where his family’s concerned. Listen! I’m sure that he adores his son, and yet he never says a word about him to me, although I am his closest collaborator …’
What was he getting at? It was easy to guess. He was clearly trying to discover why Maigret had sailed across the Atlantic with Jean Maura.
‘I had a long conversation with him,’ continued MacGill. ‘He’s instructed me to find out what’s happening with his son. I have an appointment soon right here in the hotel with a private detective we’ve previously employed for minor matters, a top-notch man who knows New York almost as well as you know Paris … You can come with us, if you want, and I’d be surprised if we haven’t found our boy by this evening.’
All this Maigret was now relating to O’Brien, who listened while enjoying his dinner with somewhat maddening slowness.
‘When we left the dining room, a man was indeed waiting for us in the lobby.’
‘Do you know his name?’
‘He was introduced to me, but I can remember only the first name, Bill … Yes, that’s it, Bill. I’ve seen so many people today, whom MacGill all calls by their first names, that I confess I’m a bit lost.’
Still that same smile.
‘An American custom, you’ll get used to it. What’s he like, this Bill?’
‘Rather tall, rather heavy … About as big as I am. A broken nose and a scar across his chin.’
O’Brien definitely knew him: his eyelids twitched, but he said nothing.
‘We took a cab over to the French Line pier.’
The storm was at its worst. The wind had not yet driven away the rain, which fell on them in gusts each time they stepped out of their cab. Vigorously chewing his gum, Bill led the way, his hat pushed back on his forehead as in old films. In fact, had he ever taken this hat off all afternoon? Probably not. Who knows, maybe he was bald!
He talked to everyone – customs officials, stewards, company employees – with equal familiarity, sitting on the corner of a table or desk, speaking briefly, always with the same drawl. And if Maigret did not understand everything he said, he understood enough to know that it was good work from a real professional.
First, customs … Jean Maura’s luggage had been claimed. When? They checked the records … Shortly before noon … No, the bags had not been taken into town by one of the usual delivery companies with offices on the pier … So his luggage had gone off by taxi or in a private car.
The person claiming the luggage had been in possession of the keys. Was it Jean Maura in person? Impossible to verify. A few hundred passengers had passed through that morning, and more were still showing up to claim their things.
Next, the purser. It was an odd feeling to go aboard an empty ship, to find it deserted after having known it brimming with excitement, to see it being cleaned stem to stern and readied for another crossing.
No doubt about it: Maura had left the ship and handed in his completed customs forms. At what time? No one remembered. Probably during the initial great rush of departing passengers.
The steward … This man recalled perfectly that at around eight in the morning, shortly after the arrival of the police and health authorities, young Maura had given h
im his tip. And the steward had immediately set his suitcase down near the gangway … No, the young man had not been at all nervous. A touch tired. He must have had a headache, because he’d taken an aspirin tablet. The empty bottle had been left on the shelf in the bathroom.
The imperturbable Bill with his exasperating chewing-gum forged on. At the French Line offices on Fifth Avenue, he leaned against the mahogany counter and carefully studied the passenger list.
Then, from a drugstore, he telephoned the harbour police.
Maigret felt that MacGill was growing impatient and trying to hide it, but as their inquiries continued, his increasing tension became obvious.
Something was not adding up, something out of line with what he’d been expecting, because he and Bill occasionally exchanged a quick look.
And now, while the inspector was describing their afternoon’s activities to O’Brien, his listener, too, grew more solemn and sometimes froze with his fork in mid-air, forgetting to eat.
‘They found the Chilean girl’s name on the passenger list and managed to learn where she was staying before her next sailing. It’s a hotel at 66th Street … We went there … Bill questioned the doorman, the desk clerk, the elevator operators: no one could tell him anything about Jean Maura.
‘So then Bill gave the driver the address of a bar near Broadway. On the way there he talked to MacGill too fast for me to understand. I did note the name of the place: the Donkey Bar … Why are you smiling?’
‘No reason,’ replied O’Brien casually. ‘In short, considering it’s your first visit to New York, you’ve covered a lot of territory. You’ve even dropped by the Donkey Bar, which isn’t bad at all. And what do you think of it?’
Still that feeling he was being played with, in a friendly way, but played with all the same.
‘Right out of an American film,’ he grumbled.
A long smoke-filled room, an endless bar with the inevitable stools and multicoloured bottles, a black bartender and a Chinese one, the jukebox, and some machines dispensing cigarettes, roasted peanuts and gum.
Everyone in there knew everyone else or at least seemed to. They were all hailing one another as Bob, or Dick, or Tom or Tony and the two or three women were as clearly at home there as the men.
‘It appears,’ said Maigret, ‘to be a gathering place for various journalists and theatre people …’
And his companion murmured with a smile, ‘You could say that …’
‘Our detective wanted to speak to a reporter he knows who covers ship arrivals and must have gone aboard this morning. We did find him, in fact: dead drunk or as good as … A habit of his, I was assured, after three or four in the afternoon.’
‘You know his name?’
‘Vaguely … Something like Parson … Jim Parson, I think it is … He has washed-out blond hair, bloodshot eyes and nicotine stains all around his lips.’
Agent O’Brien could claim all he wanted that the American authorities had no right to pay attention to anyone whose conscience was clear, but it was still curious how at each name, each new description Maigret brought up, the redhead seemed to know exactly whom he meant.
And so the inspector could not help remarking, ‘Are you sure your police here are that different from ours?’
‘Very! Now, what did Jim say?’
‘I could only understand bits and pieces … Drunk though he was, he definitely seemed interested. I should mention that the detective had backed him into a corner and was giving him what for, as the saying goes, pinning him right to the wall. The other fellow was making promises, trying to remember … Then he staggered into the telephone booth, and I saw him through the window ask for four separate numbers.
‘Meanwhile, MacGill was explaining to me, “You understand, the reporters who went on board still represent our best chance to learn something. Those people are highly observant. They know everybody …”
‘That’s as may be,’ continued the inspector, ‘but Jim Parson came out of the booth empty-handed and made a beeline for a double whisky.
‘He’s supposed to keep making inquiries. If he’s doing it in bars, he must have passed out by now, because I’ve never seen anyone go through drinks at that pace.’
‘You’ll see more like that … Well, if I’ve got it right, this afternoon Jos MacGill seemed to you mighty eager to locate his boss’s son.’
‘Whereas this morning, he couldn’t have cared less.’
O’Brien was fairly worried after all.
‘What are you planning on doing?’ he asked.
‘I admit I wouldn’t mind finding the boy …’
‘And you’re not the only one, it seems.’
‘You’ve got an idea, haven’t you?’
‘I remember, my dear inspector, something you said to me in Paris, during one of our conversations at the Brasserie Dauphine … Do you recall?’
‘Our conversations, yes, but not whichever remark you’re thinking of.’
‘I was asking you almost the same question you just asked me, and you puffed on your pipe while you replied, “Me, I never have ideas.”
‘Well, my dear Maigret, if you’ll allow me to call you that, at this moment, at least, I am like you, which proves that police all over the world have certain things in common.
‘I know nothing. I don’t know anything – or hardly anything, only what everyone else does – about Little John’s affairs or his entourage.
‘I didn’t even know he had a son.
‘And what’s more, I belong to the FBI, which handles only certain clearly defined crimes. In other words, if I were unfortunate enough to stick my nose into this business, I’d stand a good chance of being severely reprimanded.
‘I don’t suppose that what you want from me is advice, right?’
‘No,’ muttered Maigret, lighting his pipe.
‘Because, if it were advice you were after, I’d tell you this.
‘The winters in New York are hard on my wife, who’s in Florida at the moment … As for my son, he’s off at college, and my daughter got married two years ago. So I’m on my own. I therefore have a certain number of evenings free. Allow me to put them at your disposal by showing you around a little of New York the way you once showed me around Paris.
‘As for that other matter, well … How did you put it again? Wait … No, don’t tell me … I’ve kept a few of your expressions in mind and often repeat them to my colleagues … Ah! Yes: As for that other matter, let it go.
‘I know perfectly well you won’t do that. So, if you feel like it, you could come by now and then for a chat.
‘I can’t keep a man like you from asking me questions, can I?
‘And there are some questions it’s very hard not to answer.
‘For example! Look, I’m sure you’d like to see my office … I remember yours, with the windows overlooking the Seine. The view from mine is more prosaic: a big black wall and a parking lot.
‘Admit it: the Armagnac is excellent and this little bistro, as you folks call it, isn’t bad at all.’
As in certain Paris restaurants, they had to compliment the patronne (and even the chef, whom she’d fetched from the kitchen), promise to come again, have one last drink and finally sign a somewhat greasy guest book.
A little later the two men piled into a taxi, and O’Brien barked an address at the driver.
They both smoked their pipes in the back seat during a rather long silence. They both happened to open their mouths to speak at the same instant and turned towards each other, smiling at the coincidence.
‘What w
ere you going to say?’
‘And you?’
‘Probably the same thing you were.’
‘I was about to say,’ the American began, ‘that, judging from what you’ve told me, MacGill did not want you to meet his boss.’
‘My thought exactly. Yet I was surprised not to find Little John any more anxious than his secretary to obtain news of his son. You follow me?’
‘And then it’s MacGill who goes to a lot of trouble – or pretends to – trying to find the young man.’
‘And who put himself out on my behalf. He told me he would call by tomorrow morning with any news.’
‘Does he know we’re having this discussion tonight?’
‘I did not mention it to him.’
‘He suspects something. Not that you’re meeting me, just someone from the police. Given the contacts you’ve had with the American authorities, that’s inevitable … And in that case …’
‘In that case?’
‘Nothing … Here we are.’
They entered a large building and a few moments later emerged from an elevator into a corridor with numbered doors. O’Brien unlocked one and switched on the light.
‘Sit down … I’ll show you around the premises another time because right now you wouldn’t see the place at its best. Will you forgive me if I leave you on your own for a few minutes?’
Those few minutes turned into a long quarter of an hour, during which Maigret found himself thinking of nothing but Little John. It was odd: he’d seen the man for only a few brief moments. Their conversation had been, in fact, fairly banal. Nevertheless, as the inspector was suddenly realizing, Maura had made a strong impression on him.
He could still see him: short, thin, dressed almost too correctly. There was nothing special about his face. So what was it about him that had struck Maigret so forcefully?
He was intrigued. He concentrated on remembering, recalled the slightest actions of the lean and tense little man.
And he abruptly remembered his gaze, his first look above all, when Maura had not yet known that he was being observed, as he half-opened the door to the other room.
Maigret in New York Page 3