The Dogfather

the grave, ready to be lowered into the earth, it was surrounded on all sides by fake-grass carpeting on which stood a small number of people and at least two dozen large and elaborate flower arrangements, indescribably immense floral wreaths displayed on easel-like stands, and ostentatious sheaves of oversize lilies and gladioli in extra large papier-mâché vases. The coffin was bedecked with rosebuds, baby’s breath, and other selections that struck me as oddly delicate tributes to the brutish Joey Cortiniglia, whose living presence would’ve been more vividly evoked by big orange poppies with coarse, weedy foliage than it was by all this pink and white fragility.
    Still, the lavishness of the flowers compensated for the sparse human attendance by creating the illusion that Joey Cortiniglia was mourned by a great many people, even though most of them weren’t there. Enzio Guarini, of course, was there, together with his entourage: the two silent bodyguards, Alphonse “The Count” Favuzza, Zap the Driver, and the twin body movers, as I thought of them, the identical monstrosities who’d helped lift Joey’s body into the Suburban and who’d mopped his blood and brains from the blacktop. Guarini’s men all wore dark suits, but Al Favuzza, with his widow’s peak, vampirish build, and Transylvanian aura, looked as if he’d just arisen from the flower-strewn coffin and might fall down dead at any moment from the lethal effects of the bright April sunshine. The wizened priest was so ancient that I wouldn’t have been surprised to see him die of old age then and there. He kept glancing at Guarini as if seeking permission to begin the service. Two pallbearers hovered, and a round-bellied bald man kept going up to Guarini to ask, I felt certain, whether everything was all right. There were a handful of other men I’d never seen before, including two who stood a few yards away from everyone else. So far, they’d spoken to no one, and no one had spoken to them.
    Anyway, it was the women who did most of the talking. Joey’s sister, whose late-arriving plane had kept Zap at the airport, was sadly easy to identify, because she shared Joey’s Ice Age features: the prognathous jaw, the brow ridge. As if to draw attention to her atavistic countenance, she’d slicked her long dark hair away from her face and fastened it with a big butterfly-shaped barrette. Either she hadn’t received a message from Guarini, or hers had been different from mine. She wore aquamarine. I wore black. My dress was an old wide-wale corduroy shirtwaist I’d dug out of the back of the closet. Joey Cortiniglia’s widow wore black, too. The sateen was as heavy as my out-of-season corduroy, but there ended the resemblance. Hers was a cocktail dress with thin straps and a plunging neckline that would’ve been revealing but for the presence of a tiny, fluffy dog tucked into her décolletage. Try that with a malamute. The minuscule creature belonged to no identifiable breed, but appeared to be a mix of Chinese crested and Yorkshire terrier with a dash of toy poodle and the merest soupfon of Chihuahua. The animal’s most notable characteristics, however, were its ability to emit an amplified version of the sound of fingernails on a blackboard and its determination to exercise that ability nonstop. Because the tiny little squealer almost disappeared between the expanse of Mrs. Cortiniglia’s very large, sateen-sheathed breasts, it would have been easy to overlook the true source of the noise and to imagine that Joey’s widow was uniquely equipped with a highly vocal bosom. With her mouth, she didn’t need one.
    “Joey, Joey, I should’ve never let you eat all that crap! Ham, pork roast, pork chops, and in your coffee, you hadda have cream, not even half-and-half.”
    Joining her sister-in-law in this cholesterol-laden eulogy, Joey’s sister managed to make herself heard above the screaming of the little dog. “And butter. You ever see Joey eat a piece of toast? Butter! All butter. And take breakfast. Bacon and eggs, and I says to him, ‘Look, Joey, you’re Italian, for Christ’s sake, you never heard of the Mediterranean diet? Olive oil, Joey, screw all this butter, but—”
    “On toast?” the widow asked.
    “Carla, you always gotta take everything literally?”
    “Jeannine, shut up!” Lowering her chin, Carla gave the same order, long overdue, to the shrieking dog. “And you shut up, too, Anthony!”
    Al Favuzza, standing on