Maigret in New York (13 page)

‘What are you thinking about?' he asked, as
Maigret
sat impassive and thoughtful, his snifter
cupped under his nose.

‘Jessie.'

‘And you're wondering? …'

It was almost a game they were playing, the one
man with his everlasting yet discreetly faint smile, the other with his frowning pretence of ill
humour.

‘I'm wondering whose mother she is!'

For an instant, the redhead's smile faded as he
sipped and murmured, ‘That will depend on the death certificate, won't it?'

They had understood each other. Neither one felt
like voicing his thoughts any further.

Maigret, however, could not help grumbling,
feigning a bad mood that had already passed.

‘If we find it! What with your damned personal
freedom that prevents you from keeping a record of who lives and who dies!'

In reply, O'Brien simply pointed to their empty
glasses and called, ‘Waiter, the same again!'

And added, ‘Your poor Sicilian must be dying of
thirst out on the sidewalk.'

It was late, probably close to ten o'clock.
Maigret's watch had stopped and unlike the St Regis, the Berwick did not spoil its guests by
setting electric clocks in its walls. Anyway, why bother knowing the time? Maigret was in no
hurry that morning. Actually, he had no plans at all. For the first time since he had landed in
New York, he was greeted when he awakened by real springtime sunshine, a tiny bit of which had
filtered in to his room and bathroom.

Because of this sun, moreover, he had hung his
shaving mirror from the window latch and was shaving there, as he used to do in Paris at
Boulevard Richard-Lenoir, where there was always a ray of sunlight on his cheek when he shaved
in the morning. Isn't it wrong to believe that big cities are all different from one another,
even in the case of New York, which is always written about as a kind of monstrous machine that
grinds people to pieces?

He, Maigret, was there, in New York, and he had a
window latch at just the right height for shaving, a slanting ray of sunshine to make him blink
and, across the way in some office or studio building, two girls in white smocks laughing at
him.

That morning, as it happened, he wound up shaving
in three stages, because he was interrupted twice by the
phone ringing. The first time, the voice sounded far way, of
recent memory yet unrecognizable.

‘Hello … Inspector Maigret?'

‘Yes.'

‘You're really Inspector Maigret?'

‘Yes, I am.'

‘It's Inspector Maigret on the phone?'

‘Yes, dammit!'

Then the voice shifted from mournful to
tragic.

‘Ronald Dexter here.'

‘Yes. And?'

‘I'm so sorry to disturb you, but I absolutely
must see you.'

‘You have some news?'

‘I beg you to see me as soon as possible.'

‘Are you far from here?'

‘Not very.'

‘It's urgent?'

‘Quite urgent.'

‘In that case, come right away to my room at the
hotel.'

‘Thank you.'

Maigret had smiled at first. Then, upon
reflection, he remembered something in the clown's tone that worried him.

Barely had he returned to lathering his cheeks
when the telephone summoned him back into the bedroom, where he hastily wiped his face
clean.

‘Hello.'

‘Inspector Maigret?'

A crisp voice, this time, almost excessively so;
French with a pronounced American accent.

‘Speaking.'

‘Lieutenant Lewis here!'

‘I'm listening …'

‘My colleague O'Brien informed me that I should
get in touch with you as soon as possible. Might we perhaps meet this morning?'

‘Forgive me, lieutenant, for asking you this, but
my watch has stopped. What time is it?'

‘Ten thirty.'

‘I would have been glad to come to your office.
Unfortunately, a moment ago I agreed to see someone in my hotel room. And it's possible, even
probable, that the meeting will concern something of interest to you. Would you mind coming to
see me in my room at the Berwick?'

‘I'll be there in twenty minutes.'

‘Has there been some new development?'

Maigret was sure that the lieutenant had still
been on the phone and heard his question, but he'd pretended not to hear and hung up.

That made two! Now he had only to finish shaving
and get dressed. He had just called room service for his breakfast when there was a knock at the
door.

It was Dexter. A Dexter whom Maigret, albeit
increasingly familiar with this phenomenon, stared at appalled.

Never in his life had he seen a man that pale and
so like a sleepwalker set adrift in broad daylight in New York.

The clown was not drunk. Besides, he did not have
the weepy expression of his drunken periods. On the contrary, he seemed self-possessed, but in a
peculiar way.

To
be precise, standing there in the doorway, he looked like those actors in comic films who have
just been clubbed on the head yet remain on their feet for a moment, staring in a daze, before
collapsing.

‘Inspector …' he began, speaking with some
difficulty.

‘Come in and close the door.'

Then Maigret understood that the man was not
drunk, but suffering from a colossal hangover. He remained upright only through a miracle. The
slightest movement must have set his brain pitching and rolling, as his face convulsed with pain
and his hands groped automatically for the support of the table.

‘Sit down!'

Dexter brushed the idea away. Had he sat down,
mightn't he have lapsed into a coma?

‘Inspector, I am a lousy bum.'

As he spoke, his trembling hand had dug around in
his jacket pocket and now placed on the table some folded bills, American banknotes that the
inspector stared at in astonishment.

‘There are five hundred dollars here.'

‘I don't understand.'

‘Five fat hundred-dollar bills. Brand-new. They
aren't counterfeit, don't worry. This is the first time in my life I have had five hundred
dollars to my name all at one time. Do you understand that?
Five hundred dollars all at one
time in my pocket
.'

The waiter entered with a tray bearing coffee,
bacon, eggs, jam. And morbidly hungry Dexter, who had always been ravenous in the way he had
always longed to have
five hundred dollars at one
time – Dexter became nauseated at the sight of food and the smell of bacon and eggs. He looked
away, as if about to vomit.

‘Don't you want to drink something?'

‘Water.'

He drank two, three, four glasses without
catching his breath.

‘Forgive me. Afterwards I'll go to bed. First I
had to come and see you.'

His pale brow was beaded with sweat and he clung
to the table, which did not prevent his tall, thin body from swaying uncontrollably.

‘You can tell O'Brien, who has always thought of
me as an honest man and who recommended me to you, that Dexter is a lousy bum.'

He pushed the money towards Maigret.

‘Take this. Do whatever you want with it. It
doesn't belong to me. Last night … last night …'

He seemed to be collecting himself before
tackling the hardest part.

‘… last night I betrayed you for five
hundred dollars.'

Telephone.

‘Hello! … What? You're downstairs? Come up,
lieutenant. I'm not alone, but that's not important.'

And the clown asked, smiling bitterly, ‘The
police?'

‘Don't be afraid. You can talk in front of
Lieutenant Lewis. He's a friend of O'Brien.'

‘They can do what they want with me. I don't
care. Only, I'd like it to be quick.'

He stood there, literally oscillating like a
pendulum.

‘Come in, lieutenant. I'm pleased to meet you. Do you know Dexter? No matter, O'Brien knows him.
I believe he has some very interesting things to tell me. Would you take a seat in that armchair
while he talks and I have my breakfast?'

The room was almost cheerful, thanks to the
sunshine slanting through it in a glistening swarm of golden dust.

Maigret, however, was wondering if he had done
the right thing in asking the lieutenant to hear what Dexter would say. O'Brien hadn't lied in
saying the previous evening that Lewis was as unlike him as possible.

‘Delighted to make your acquaintance,
inspector.'

Only, he said it without smiling. Clearly on
duty, he sat down in an armchair, crossed his legs, lit a cigarette and, before Dexter had even
opened his mouth, was already pulling a notebook and pencil from his pocket.

He was of middling height, a little below average
weight, with an intellectual's face, like a professor's, for example: long nose, glasses with
thick lenses.

‘You can take down my statement, if necessary,'
Dexter intoned, as if seeing himself already condemned to death.

And the lieutenant, immobile, observed him with
cold eyes, his pencil poised for action.

‘It was perhaps eleven at night. I don't know.
Maybe around midnight. Over by City Hall. But I wasn't drunk, and you can believe me.

‘Two men came over to lean on the bar next to me
and I knew right away it was on purpose, they'd been looking for me.'

‘Would you recognize them?' the lieutenant
asked.

Dexter looked at him, then at Maigret, as if asking him to whom
he should be speaking.

‘They were looking for me. There are things you
just know. I had the feeling they were part of the gang.'

‘What gang?'

‘I am very tired,' Dexter said carefully. ‘If I
am interrupted all the time …'

And Maigret could not help smiling as he ate his
eggs.

‘They offered me something to drink, and I knew
it was to worm out information. You see, I'm not trying to lie or make excuses. I also knew that
if I drank, I was done for, and yet I didn't refuse the scotches, four or five, I can't remember
now.

‘They called me Ronald, even though I hadn't told
them my name.

‘They took me to another bar. Then to another
one, but this time in a car. And in that bar, all three of us went upstairs to a billiard room.
No one else was there.

‘I was wondering if they wanted to kill me.

‘“Sit down, Ronald,” the biggest guy said, after
locking the door. “You're a sorry bastard, aren't you? You've been a sorry bastard all your
life. And if you've never been able to do anything worth doing, it's because you've always
lacked the capital to get started.”

‘You know, inspector, how I am when I've been
drinking. I told you about that myself. I should never be allowed to drink.

‘I saw myself as a little kid. I saw myself
through all the ages of my life, always the poor jerk, always chasing after a few dollars, and I
began to cry.'

What kind of notes could Lieutenant Lewis be taking? Because now
and then he would write a word or two in his notebook, listening as solemnly as if he were
interrogating the most dangerous of criminals.

‘Then, the bigger fellow pulled some bills from
his pocket, beautiful new bills, hundred-dollar bills. There was a table with a whisky bottle
and some soda water. I don't know who brought them, because I don't remember seeing a waiter
come in.

‘So he tells me, “Drink, you idiot.”

‘And I did. Then he folded the bills, after
counting them in front of me, and stuffed them in the outside pocket of my jacket.

‘“You see, we're being nice to you. We could have
got you a different way, by scaring you, because you're a scaredy-cat. But poor saps like you,
we'd rather buy you. Get it?

‘“And now, spill it! You're going to tell us
everything you know. Everything, you understand?”'

The clown looked at the inspector with his pale
eyes and said distinctly, ‘I told everything.'

‘Told what?'

‘The whole truth.'

‘What truth?'

‘That you knew everything.'

The inspector still didn't really understand and
lit his pipe, frowning thoughtfully. What he was actually debating was if he should laugh or
take seriously his clown now afflicted with the worst hangover he'd ever seen in his life.

‘That I knew what?'

‘First off, the truth about J and J.'

‘But what truth, goddammit?'

The poor fellow gaped at him in amazement, as if
wondering why Maigret was suddenly pretending not to have a clue.

‘That Joseph, the one with the clarinet, was the
husband or lover of Jessie. You know perfectly well.'

‘Really?'

‘And that they had a child.'

‘What?'

‘Jos MacGill. I mean, look at the first name:
Jos. And the dates fit. I watched you work them out yourself. Maura – Little John – was also in
love with her, and jealous. He killed Joseph. Maybe he killed her afterwards. Unless she died of
sorrow.'

The inspector was now staring dumbfounded at the
clown. And what bewildered him the most was to see Lewis feverishly writing this down.

‘Later, when Little John was making money, he
felt remorseful and made provisions for the child, but without ever going to see him. Quite the
opposite: he sent him off to Canada with a certain Mrs MacGill. And the boy, who'd taken the old
Scotswoman's name, didn't know the identity of the person paying for his upkeep.'

‘Go on,' sighed Maigret. And for the first time,
he addressed Dexter with easy familiarity.

‘You know the rest better than I do. I told
everything. I had to earn the five hundred dollars, you understand? Because I still had some
integrity left, after all.

‘Little John got married, too. Anyway, he had a child whom he had brought up in Europe.