Spiro stood hands on hips, a study of the long-suffering undertaker. “Well?” he said to me.

I pulled the bag out of my pocketbook and handed it over.

Two cemetery employees stood on either side of the casket. Spiro gave the baggie to one of them with instructions to open the casket and lay the bag inside.

Neither man blinked an eye. I guess when you make a living dropping lead-lined boxes into the ground you aren’t necessarily the inquisitive type.

“So,” Spiro said, turning to me. “How’d you get the finger?”

I gave him the rundown on Kenny in the shoe department and how I found the finger when I got home.

“You see,” Spiro said, “this is the difference between Kenny and me. Kenny always has to grandstand. Likes to set things up and then see how they play. Everything’s a game to Kenny. When we were kids, I’d step on a bug and squash it dead, and Kenny’d stick it with a pin to see how long it’d take the bug to die. Guess Kenny likes to see things squirm, and I like to get the job done. If it was me I’d have gotten you in a dark, empty parking lot, and I’d have shoved the finger up your butt.”

I felt my head go light.

“Just talking theoretically, of course,” Spiro said. “I wouldn’t ever do that to you on account of you’re such a fox. Not unless you wanted me to.”

“I have to go now.”

“Maybe we could see each other later. Like for dinner or something. Just because you’re a pain in the ass, and I’m a slime sucker, doesn’t mean we can’t get together.”

“I’d rather stick a needle in my eye.”

“You’ll come around,” Spiro said. “I got what you want.”

I was afraid to ask. “Apparently you’ve got what Kenny wants, too.”

“Kenny’s a jerk.”

“He used to be your friend.”

“Things happen.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Like nothing.”

“I got the impression Kenny thought we were partners in some sort of plot against him.”

“Kenny’s nuts. Next time you see him you should shoot him. You can do that, can’t you? You got a gun?”

“I really do have to go.”

“Later,” Spiro said, making a gun with his hand and pulling the trigger.

I practically ran back to the Buick. I slid behind the wheel, locked the door, and called Morelli.

“Maybe you’re right about my going into cosmetology.”

“You’d love it,” Morelli said. “You’d get to draw eyebrows on a bunch of old babes.”

“Spiro wouldn’t tell me anything. At least not anything I wanted to hear.”

“I picked up something interesting on the radio while I was waiting for you. There was a fire on Low Street last night. It was in one of the buildings belonging to the old pipe factory. Clearly arson. The pipe factory’s been boarded up for years, but it seems someone was using the building to store caskets.”

“Are you telling me someone torched my caskets?”