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I arrange the flowers myself. I choose white, heavy on the lilies, the kind of flower you send when you don’t like the person, but the whole room needs to know you spent money anyway. There’s a book by the door for guests to sign. There’s soft music playing in the background and at the front, in one of the most elaborate Novak caskets one can find, all waxed and shiny, lies the last Ferro to perish, his hands folded.

Matteo, an only son who inherited the family business after his father’s untimely passing, seems so peaceful now in the open casket. Late thirties, so much life ahead of him. I took him myself, ten days ago, to a warehouse that belongs to me, took care of him there. Then I brought him here and made him look beautiful, because I’m not an animal. Also it was because I needed his people to see him first. It was going to be the first thing that greeted them at the door.

I sent the invitations to four key people and they’re showing up on time. They’re the ones holding Ferro’s together.

Gennaro Sarno comes in first, middle-aged and silver-haired at the temples. He used to be Ferro’s number two, a careful man who’s outlived three bosses through sheer shrewdness. Then Bruno, who breaks arms for a living and looks like it. Yet he’s got a great logistical brain on him. Then Nunzio, twenty-six and very much like Tomek in his wide-eyed stance, only more creative and resourceful. Last but not least, Patrick, who keeps Ferro’s money safe. All one needs to run a successful company.

They all come in expecting a wake. They came because a man doesn’t skip his boss’s funeral, not when the boss’s funeral is being run by the man everyone knows put him in the box, because skipping it would say more than showing up. They came to stand in my house, drink my best Soplica vodka, and take my measure. They all think this is some kind of truce. Well, they are not wrong.

They see Matteo in the casket and the room gets suffocated with their heavy breaths, and even heavier aftershaves.

Gennaro stops so hard that Bruno walks into his back. Nunzio makes a startled sound. Patrick’s eyes go to the door, then to me, then to the door again, doing the math on the distance and realizing he has nowhere to go.

The doors are already shut and Rafe’s against them with his hands folded. Tomek’s by the flowers with a pack of paluszki he thinks I can’t see. Constantine’s off to the side, examining his own knuckles like they’re more interesting than any of us.

And laid out along the front, beside Matteo, are four more caskets. Open. Empty. Waiting.

“Sit down,” I tell them. “You’re late for your own funeral.”

Nobody moves, but the fear is palpable.

On each of the four chairs at the front there’s a card. It’s a good one we print for real services, heavy stock with gold edges. Each one has a photograph, along with a name, a date of birth and date of death, which is today.

Gennaro picks his up first because I can appreciate he’s got balls. I watch him find his own name on the front. His birthday. Tonight’s date sits under it, printed weeks ago. And below that, the line we always fill in for the family.

Cause of death.

“Gunshot wound to the head,” he reads. His voice is pretty steady and I’m impressed.

“Front page is yours to keep,” I say. “The rest of the program’s mine.”

I don’t stand up front to start with my eulogy. I stand close, right among the four of them. I like this work because nobody ever interrupts a man at a funeral.

“You knew Matteo as your boss,” I tell the room. “So you must guess I’ll be brief. He was a boring man and there isn’t much to say. Instead I’ll tell you what he did, since none of you seem to have been paying attention while he did it.”

I walk to the casket and straighten Matteo’s cuff. It’s crept up, and the thing bothers me.

“A year ago you had a port. My port, technically, but I’m not petty. You had a man inside it and a man in the customs house. Every week you moved caskets through both that went right through. It was seamless. Great job.” I keep adjusting Matteo’s cuff until it’s just right. “The port’s been shut since spring. Your man inside drowned in April, which the coroner ruled an accident, and I signed off on personally because I did his makeup. Your man in the customs house took an early retirement to a country with no extradition, which is a nice way of saying he’s in a field somewhere. Marku’s packing house in Bushwick had an electrical fault in June. Sad. All those caskets, gone up at once.”

Nunzio’s breathing has gone heavy and loud. Bruno looks like a man ready to do a desperate thing. I need to watch out for him.

“You lost the routes in July, the showrooms in August. And then there was only Matteo, sitting on a business that couldn’t ship a hatbox, wondering why the phones stopped ringing.” I look at the casket. “So I came and got him. I wanted all of you to notice something important.”

I pick up the card from the second chair and read it as I walk.

“For years I didn’t do this part myself. I’d make the request, my man Rafe would take care of the rest, and I’d stay downstairs with the dead, where I’m comfortable.” I stop in front of Bruno and hold up his card so he’s looking at his own face. “I told myself that I made myself the new manager.” I laugh at my own little joke. “Bruno. Born the ninth of March. Cause of death, asphyxiation.”

Bruno moves.

He’s fast for a big man. Comes in low, under my arms, trying to put me down. I let him. I’ve spent a year handing this work to other men, and I want to feel it just once. Then I slide a forearm across his throat, pressing hard, and we go down into the flowers together. A stand tips over. Lilies everywhere. Water across the good carpet.

He’s fucking strong. He grabs my face and his thumb finds my eye. The pressure turns that whole side white. I don’t decide anything. I turn my head into his hand and bite down below his thumb, and I keep biting until the skin gives and tears away in my teeth.

He screams. His blood floods my mouth. It’s hot and tastes of copper, and there’s a scrap of him on my tongue. I spit it into the lilies and put my whole weight on the arm across his throat.

For twenty years I haven’t touched anyone’s blood without gloves on. Two pairs, if I don’t know where a body’s been. I know which diseases live in blood and how many weeks each one takes to show. Somewhere in the back of my head that list is running now, calm and in order. That’s what my head does.

The rest of me doesn’t care. I can’t get past that.