They ate a leisurely dinner and arrived at the Rotonde shortly after 11 p.m. Though the night was chilly, most of the sidewalk tables were occupied. The maître d’hôtel, an immensely fat man with a friendly smile, led them to a table in the front room, but Easter shook her head. “S’il vous plait, l’autre salle.”
The man peered at her, said, “Very noisy there,” in passable English, then shrugged and led them to the back room. Easter settled her hat, squared her shoulders and followed.
It was more than noisy. The room was teeming; smoke hung heavy and acrid; Frederick’s eyes watered. Men in shirt sleeves shouted to overcome the din and added to it. Waiters in long white aprons ran obstacle courses past customers standing at the bar. The maître d’hôtel found a tiny table, asked, “Here?” Frederick was about to refuse but Easter smiled and quickly sat in the proffered chair.
“My God, Easter, this is intolerable!” Frederick made a show of wiping his brow with his handkerchief. “Please, let’s leave. It must be a hundred degrees in here!”
Easter was already scanning the room. “Take off your jacket. Everyone else has.”
It was true; all the men were in shirt sleeves rolled up to their elbows.
“I will not!” He stood. Easter remained seated. He sat back down, looked aggrieved. “Look at this rabble! If I take my jacket off, some thief will make off with it! Please, darling. Let’s find someplace civilized.”
She ignored him. A waiter slid a basket of bread on the table, looked at Frederick. “Monsieur?”
Easter answered, “Deux anisettes, s’il vous plait.”
Frederick’s annoyance grew. “What did you get us?”
“Anisette. A licorice drink.”
He made a face. She shot him a hard look, leaned close. “Frederick, I have wanted to come here for a decade. Don’t spoil it.”
Frederick opened his mouth to reply, thought better of it.
There were Arab men and black men, blond men smoking pipes, women with violently colored hair and make-up puffing on cigars. At the table next to theirs, an Oriental man in a tunic and bowl haircut played with the earring in his left lobe. The woman with him, a European with strangely slanted eyes, was arguing in a low voice. Frederick noticed the man had on leather sandals with straps wound about his bare lower legs.
The waiter brought their drinks. Easter sipped hers, then drank it down. Frederick put the glass tentatively to his lips. “This stuff is awful!” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Easter, I insist!”
The command didn’t have the expected impact. “Order something else, Frederick. Or go back to the hotel if you prefer and I’ll join you there later.”
He tried looking petulant. “Oh, for heaven’s sake!” Still, he remained seated.
The blanket of smoke made it hard to see. Easter stared, hoping to match faces to magazine photos she had seen. “The older man with the beard,” she whispered, “the one with the shaven skull and bushy mustache, the fat fellow in the boater, they all look familiar. But then, so does the waiter.” Her eyes swept the room, stopped, focused on a table close to the door. Frederick followed her gaze, saw nothing worth noting.
Easter squinted. “It’s James Johnson,” she said. The man she was looking at was in an animated discussion with a young woman. “That woman looks just like the one in the portraits hanging in his studio.”
The woman was laughing loudly and Frederick glimpsed her white teeth, bright eyes. The man reached across the table, found the woman’s hands, held them in both of his.
The woman glanced up and her eyes met Easter’s. Easter turned away, unaccountably flustered.
Frederick asked, “This is the man you visited? The one you told me about?”
She nodded. He grimaced, added, “The place smells like a mine shaft, Easter. I know some of these people haven’t bathed recently. I can smell it.” He made a dismissive gesture with his wrist. “Phew! Really very unpleasant.”
Easter was still watching Johnson’s table. The woman with him was walking away, hips swaying beneath her tight skirt. She embraced a tall and thin auburn-haired man and wound an arm about his waist.
Johnson was watching the couple amble toward the back of the room.
“We should join him,” said Easter. “I’ll introduce you.”
It took a minute, however, to hail their waiter and settle the bill and by the time they paid, Johnson was gone.
Chapter 13
The first woman was Jeanne-Marie Cuchet, a 39-year-old widow whose late husband had been killed in battle early in the war. She and her son, André, 17, died in Landru’s rented villa in Vernouillet one night in May 1915.
The three had spent the night there, he and Jeanne-Marie in the upstairs bedroom, the son in the guest room on the second floor. She had been passionate, Landru less so. He did not really find the woman attractive—her nose was too large, her hips were rubbery, her pubic hair was beginning to gray—and he was annoyed by her voice, high-pitched and grating. Still, she had 17,000 francs in a savings account, and several pieces of acceptable furniture in her apartment. In bed that night they played a game where he bound a scarf over her mouth, supposedly to muffle her moans and protect her son’s sensitivities. In fact, Landru had discovered, Jeanne-Marie liked to talk during the act, and he found this habit disagreeable and unnecessary.
The next morning he prepared a petit déjeuner of café au lait et tartines. He knew André and his mother each laced their coffee with 4 teaspoons of sugar—a habit that he, as a former soldier, found sinfully wasteful—and so to the sugar in the bowl he added a powdered cyanide-based rat poison bought at the local hardware store. The Cuchets, mère et fils, drank their coffee in one swallow. He turned his back to them and busied himself at the stove fixing more grilled bread. Within minutes, André dropped his bread and orange marmalade on the floor and convulsed. He fell off his chair, lay on his back and his breathing became labored. Jeanne-Marie screamed and Landru rushed to the boy’s side just in time to see her fall as well. Landru rose, poured himself a cup of coffee, and watched as both died. By his watch, it took 12 minutes for André and nine for Jeanne-Marie. André had vomited, which Landru found reprehensible, and when he went to pick up Jeanne-Marie, he noticed her bowels had failed.
He grabbed the woman’s body under the armpits and dragged her through the kitchen door to the walled backyard. He stripped off her clothes and, with a ladle, bath brush and a bucket of cold water, cleaned her. He repeated the process with her son. Then he knelt and carefully listened for heartbeats. There were none.
He checked his watch. The train for Paris would be leaving in an hour. Not enough time for dismemberment. He dragged the bodies to the garden shed, found a large, paint-splattered drop cloth, and wrapped it around the victims. He tucked the two bodies in a corner of the shed behind some gardening tools. Disposal would come later.
The day before, he had bought four train tickets to Vernouillet; three one-ways and one return. That had saved him seven francs. He found his ticket on the bedroom dresser, looked once around the house. He left the cups on the table, but made sure to put away the sugar bowl. He disliked ants. He left the house, carefully locked the front door, and walked to the train station.
He spent that night at home with his wife, Marie-Catherine, and three of his four children: Maurice, Suzanne and Charles. Marie, his oldest, was already married and living with her two children in Montpelier.
He entertained them by humming a recent Debussy composition, affecting different tonalities for the various instruments. Marie-Catherine laughed and clapped, but Maurice, his oldest son, was in a dark mood. Earlier, his father had said that in the morning Maurice was to help him transport the furniture of a Mme. Cuchet and her son to a holding garage. Five rooms would have