Sent By Maigret

On a Saturday in August, I stepped from the cool, dark lobby of my building into a warm, bright afternoon. Paris is quiet everywhere this month. In residential neighborhoods like mine, there is little traffic. Cars parked along the sidewalk hardly budge. The owners have all fled on holidays.

I pulled the heavy door shut behind me.

A motorcycle started up a few steps away to my right. The rider wore a heavy leather jacket and bulbous black helmet with prominent microphone. He reversed direction, traveling left at a slow roll parallel with me. He was going the wrong way down a one-way street. I had seen only teenagers on scooters ever go the wrong way before. The street was deathly still, and it was the weekend. Because I know the French can have a casual relationship with the law, I shrugged off the minor infraction.

A petite woman in jeans then stepped into the street from the opposite sidewalk and came towards me. “Monsieur! Monsieur!” she yelled. Her blonde hair was straight and shoulder length. She was young and attractive. “Blondie” was printed on her oversized grey t-shirt, along with images of Debbie Harry and her band. I concluded the worst.

The first time a prostitute ever approached me was a short stroll from where I live today. This was on my first visit to Paris, 35 years ago. I was staying in a small hotel near Place Charles DeGaulle, the circular array of a dozen boulevards in the outline of a star that surround the Arc de Triomphe on its paved island. One evening, after dinner, I headed down the Champs Elysees. The object of my stroll was to luxuriate at being in Paris, the city I dreamed of visiting since high school when I discovered New Wave cinema at arthouse movie theatres. I’m certain I gaped awkwardly at the Parisians, which was not only impolite but also imprudent. When a young woman in a cinched trench coat stepped from a doorway, I realized that I might have looked at her a little too intently. She advanced and spoke to me before I scurried away like a mouse.

While I now continued down Rue Lalo, “Blondie” had reached my side of the street.

“Monsieur! Monsieur! Je suis police!”

I stopped.

Blondie and I were face to face next. She hiked her t-shirt, and pulled at a photo ID. I read, “POLICE NATIONALE,” in italic blue block letters. On a separate fob dangled a small gold badge with a star at the center. Under that t-shirt, Blondie wore another, tight black t-shirt and a kind of utility belt high around her waist. She pulled the top t-shirt down before I decided whether one of those things on her belt was a gun.

“Je suis police!” Blondie repeated firmly. I still doubted this assertion but felt cornered. The motorcycle rider had pulled in beside us and dismounted. He lifted the shaded visor of his helmet. He was a tall, imposing Black man. Inside his leather jacket, he wore the same photo ID and badge as Blondie.

A short time ago, I was finishing my lunch and had planned an afternoon of shopping.

Abruptly, I stood expecting to be arrested in Paris by undercover cops.

I searched my brain to imagine what possibly were the charges. How could I have done something to bring the police to Rue Lalo?

As for making a protest of innocence, that just wasn’t an option. My French vocabulary blew from my mind like sand in a gust of wind. I stood before the policewoman silently, pathetically. Guiltily?

Had I seen anyone come inside from the street that I didn’t recognize?

Aha. Were they not after me?

“Je suis un etranger,” I said finally, an all-purpose excuse I often used at awkward moments. I am a foreigner. No, I had not seen anyone, I continued. I added, however, that I did find the door left open when I returned home at noon. (At the time, I was annoyed and slammed the door shut behind me from disgust with my neighbors. Even I know that August in a deserted Paris is Christmas morning all month long for burglars.)

Relieved that I wasn’t under suspicion myself, my suspicion about the two agents returned. Blondie asked me to let them inside. I hesitated and asked to see those IDs again. POLICE NATIONALE. I decided then I had no choice but to accept the premise of this real-life scene ripped straight from a script in Law & Order 16e Arrondissement.

I opened the door to my building with my security fob and motioned for Blondie and Mr. Moto to enter. I wasn’t only being polite; I did not want to get hit on the head from behind. Moto accelerated past me toward the inner door and sprinted up the stairs beside the elevator. Blondie walked into the interior courtyard ahead of me and made her own dash up a flight of stairs at the rear.

While waiting, I pictured rushing across Paris in a squad car to 36, Le Quai des Orfevres. For over a century, Paris and French police forces have made their headquarters at Le Quai des Orfevres, on the edge of Ile de la Cite overlooking the Seine’s Left Bank, and conveniently adjacent to Le Palais de Justice, the city courthouse.

In the Inspector Maigret novels by Georges Simenon, Le Quai des Orfevres is a notorious lock-up for criminal suspects where Maigret presides as lord of the fortress. He marshals his detectives like a general at war; lies to and misdirects the news reporters desperate for a scoop; and browbeats detainees mercilessly until they confess wretchedly. In a world where the penalty for murder is still the guillotine, Maigret is police and prosecutor, judge, and jury.

I have read many Maigret books over many years. That I would encounter his colleagues one day, I hadn’t considered. And that I might ever, even for a moment, imagine I was at real risk of arrest, possibly to be brought before the Inspector himself for a good beating, was just too incredible.

Blondie and Mr. Moto returned soon from their searches. They conferred in the courtyard. “C’est beau,” she told me finally. The pair left the way they came; I followed them out shortly afterward. As before, the two cops were back in position on Rue Lalo. I walked by them, not letting on I knew they were there and sent by Maigret.