Rizzo reached into his pocket and pulled out two hundred euro notes. Massiter had known there might be incidentals along the way.
“Listen,” he said. “The Giannis are a real close family. Just let me see my sweet little cousin one more time and then I’m on my way, OK?”
“Shit,” the man said, then pocketed the notes and picked up a crowbar leaning against the wall. “You want me to take the lid off? Or do you feel so close to her you want to do that too?”
What Rizzo felt like was a cigarette. The tiny room was airless. A smell, musty and pervasive, was coming from the coffin. “Do it,” he said, and nodded at the casket.
The man grunted, lifted the crowbar, and jammed it beneath the cover of the coffin. He barely looked at what he was doing. He’d popped these things a million times, Rizzo guessed. It was like working in a slaughterhouse or a morgue. After a while you never even thought about what was going on.
The iron worked its way around the wooden box slowly, lifting it just a few centimetres at a time, exposing the bent, rusty nails that held the thing together. The man completed a circle of the casket, then looked at Rizzo one final time.
“You sure about this, kid? A lot of you guys are real brave out there in the light of day, but it doesn’t seem such a good idea when you’re in here and it’s time.”
Rizzo didn’t like being called “kid.” Again he said, “Do it.”
The supervisor carefully eased the bar beneath the cover, then pushed down, levering it open. The wood shattered into two pieces with a sudden, piercing crack. Rizzo jumped, in spite of himself. Dust and particles filled the air. Behind them came a persistent, noisome smell that was identifiably human in origin. Just one look, he thought. That was all the Englishman asked for.
He leaned over and peered into the casket. Her head was in the shadow cast by the corner of the box. The long hair was grey now, grey and fine and dry-looking. It hung down both sides of her skull, to which some flesh was still attached, like flaps of old brown leather. There was something in the eye sockets. He didn’t want to look too closely. Around what remained of her shoulders were the straps of what must once have been a white shroud.
Rizzo thought he was going to stare at the skull and wonder where that lovely face had disappeared to. The nascent erection was all but gone now. He felt cold in the room. The air swam in front of him. He wouldn’t be surprised if, pretty soon, he threw up. Not through horror and disgust, but from the insidious, choking atmosphere of the place. It was like standing in a cloud of human dust formed by every single being that had passed through the gates of San Michele over the centuries.
But he didn’t look at the skull for long. Her arms were folded over her chest, long arms now reduced to a skeletal skinniness. To his surprise, they enclosed something, an object large enough to run from beneath her chin to the lower part of her body. He stared at it and knew the cemetery supervisor was doing the same. It was so out of place that it took a long time before he finally realised what this shape was. The corpse of Susanna Gianni, whoever she might have been, had been buried clutching an ancient violin case, her arms wrapped lovingly around the thing as if it were an infant.
The Englishman hadn’t said anything about this. He just said to see the bones and then get going. It was a done deal, Rizzo thought, and no one could blame a man if he took a little incidental profit along the way.
He reached down, gently pried the grip of the dead arms from the case, then started to slide it out from underneath the cold, dry flesh.
The supervisor glowered at him. “You shouldn’t be doing that.”
Rizzo stopped and sighed. He was tired of this little man. He was tired of this place. Rizzo reached into his pocket and pulled out the small flick blade he took everywhere. Looking at the fat man, he pushed the button on the side, let the thin sliver of blade bite into the musty air, then grabbed him by the collar, watched the terror in his face grow. He thrust the tip into the fleshy underside of the man’s left eyelid. The point lifted the flabby skin into a tiny pyramid, pricking through the surface just hard enough for Rizzo to see a tiny bubble of blood there.
“Do what?” he asked calmly. “I didn’t do a thing.”
The fat man froze and didn’t speak. Rizzo reached into the man’s jacket pocket, took out a cheap plastic wallet, and looked at the identity card. The caretaker lived in one of the public housing blocks north of him, in the Cannaregio. He could walk it in five minutes.
“Be smart,” Rizzo hissed. “Or maybe I come back here and make you bury yourself. Huh?”
The supervisor’s eyes had the flat, glazed look of terror. Rizzo pulled his arm away, let go of the man, then went back to the coffin, lifted the dead arms again, and removed the violin case. Using the sleeve of his cheap jacket, he brushed away the dust on the surface and saw her name there on a faded paper label. Then he slipped his fingers through the handle. The case swung solidly beneath his arm. There was something inside, for sure. Maybe it was just rocks. Even crazy people didn’t bury their dead with treasure these days.
The fat man cowered in the darkness, peeing himself in all probability, wishing he were home with his equally fat wife, waiting to be fed. Rizzo grimaced, then pulled out another couple of 100,000-lire notes and stuffed them into the man’s shirt pocket. “Your lucky day, friend. It’s just a little family business. OK?”
The supervisor took out the notes and rustled them. The money gave him back some respect. They were now, in a sense, even. Rizzo could appreciate that. There wasn’t enough respect in the world. He put his fake Predators back on his face, turned, and walked outside.
The voice rose up from behind him. “Hey! Where are the boatmen? They got to deal with this now.”
Rizzo looked back from the door at the coffin and the squat little man standing next to it, still in the darkness. “What boatmen?”
“For the bones, for God’s sake! I thought you brought her up early to take care of things yourself.”
“I never said that,” Rizzo answered.
“Jesus! So what do I do with them now?”
Rizzo shrugged. His jacket felt too tight. He hated having to buy these cheap things when what he really wanted were those clothes they sold in San Marco: Moschino, Valentino, and Armani.
“Do what you like,” he replied, then looked at the man. Maybe he had pushed it too far. The guy looked ready to burst into tears or maybe pick a fight, even though he knew Rizzo would use the knife in his pocket. It was wrong, Rizzo thought, to let crazy people work in cemeteries. But maybe that was the only kind that took the job.
“Hey,” he said. “Calm down. Keep your mouth shut. Stop looking like a crazy man. You could scare people like that.”
Then he walked briskly out into the cemetery, retracing his steps through Campo B, past what had been Susanna Gianni’s grave, not looking at the headstone, because something told him it would be a bad idea to see that picture of her again.
The vaporetto from Murano was half-full. He stood in the centre section, open to the air, and noticed how people moved away from him. The violin case stank, even on the deck with the lagoon breeze stiffening to the occasional gust. The boat slowed, then came to a halt. In front of the Fondamente Nuove, where the vessel would dock, some kind of regatta was taking place. A group of racing boats chased each other along the waterfront, cheered on by spectators from the bars behind the jetty. Rizzo cursed them. The violin felt heavy. The smell was getting worse. The vaporetto rolled drunkenly on the grey chop of the waves.
Rizzo closed his eyes. When he opened them, he was staring back at the island. Three police launches, sirens flashing, were heading for the jetty. He couldn’t believe his eyes. He couldn’t believe the fat little caretaker could be that stupid.