For a man who enjoyed a three-decade reign in the underworld, Nicolo Rizzuto's was a simple ceremony that eschewed much of the ostentatious pomp of past mobster farewells.
A procession of black vehicles — three town cars, six limousines, and one hearse — filed their way past a crowd of curious onlookers, transporting heaping white floral arrangements.
What followed was a 90-minute ceremony led entirely by an Italian-speaking priest. None of Rizzuto's relatives spoke. One witness said there wasn't even a eulogy.
At the end, hundreds of mourners filed out. A few distant family friends agreed to speak with the media outside and shared a few fleeting memories of their encounters with the man.
Rizzuto was often considered the last of a generation, an old-style don who grew up on Sicilian farms and always wore a fedora in public.
But his funeral was a far cry from some of the others for men who shared his place in the underworld hierarchy.
Outside this same church, in 1978, 31 black Cadillacs reportedly lined up for the funeral of Paolo Violi, who was killed in the purge that saw the Rizzutos rise to prominence.
Neither of those affairs could compare with the 1931 spectacle for murdered New York Mob boss Salvatore Maranzano, with its reported 100 Cadillac limousines, two-dozen separate cars carrying flower bouquets, his silver casket, and thousands lining the streets in a mile-long funeral procession.
The biggest surprise at Monday's funeral came, perhaps, in the form of a little black box.
The dark package — about the size of a shoebox, with a white cross taped onto the top — was left on the front steps Notre-Dame-de-la-Defense Church early Monday morning.
It was said to contain a note. The package was seized by investigators for analysis.
"The contents of the note will be kept confidential until our investigators have had a chance to look at it," said police Const. Daniel Lacoursiere.
Lacoursiere said it was unclear whether the box left at the church door was part of any Italian tradition. He said the Italian-born priest had never heard of any such practice.
Rizzuto's gold-coloured coffin was pulled from the hearse and carried inside by pallbearers. It resembled the gold-coloured coffin used at the funeral for his grandson and namesake, who was also gunned down last year.
The service ended with the soothing sound of bells, followed by a quiet retreat for burial. The immediate Rizzuto family — Nicolo's wife, daughter, daughter-in-law and grandchildren — were present.
But his son Vito, the reputed head of the Mafia in Montreal now serving out a sentence in a Colorado prison, was not present.
His extradition and sentence in the U.S. touched off the violence that has seen the once-dominant clan all but decimated over the last few years. He isn't due out of jail until 2012.
Vito Rizzuto has now missed the funeral for his son, several close friends and, Monday, for his 86-year-old father who was shot last week by a marksman lurking outside the family home.
One family friend painted a picture of the deceased that contrasted sharply with his popular image as a battle-hardened mobster.
"I remember him as a very nice and gentle person," said Francesco Bennici, 71, who knew Rizzuto for about 40 years.
Bennici, who came from the same Sicilian province as Rizzuto but said they met in Montreal, described the funeral as a sad affair and said of the mourners inside: "Everybody's sorry, everybody's sad."
Bennici brushed aside reporters' questions about Rizzuto's documented Mafia ties.
"What you hear, I don't know, and I don't hear the same thing," he said.
Alberto Pizzi said it was important to pay his respects to a man he'd met not long after he arrived in Canada some 57 years ago.
"For me, he's not a criminal," said Pizzi, an accountant who had business dealings with the family. "Everyone knew everyone and there was a respect between us."
A few hundred members of the public gathered on the sidewalk, standing two- and three-deep in some places, mainly out of curiosity. One man, sipping coffee from a paper cup, expressed incredulity that someone would have targeted Rizzuto at his advanced age.
"At 86 years old, it doesn't make any sense," said Frank Santomassimo, a local resident standing on the sidewalk.
"My own opinion is, if he did something wrong, go get him somewhere else, not in the house with the family present."
Nicolo Rizzuto's slaying is the latest in a series of attacks against the family: his grandson and namesake Nick Jr. was shot dead last December; his son-in-law Paolo Renda was kidnapped in May and hasn't been heard from since; and another Mafia boss close to the family, Agostino Cuntrera, was assassinated in front of his food-distribution business this summer.
None of those crimes have been solved.
The heightened police presence wasn't just there to protect the Rizzutos. It was also there gathering intelligence.
Police detectives kept an eye on comings and goings, with some officers filming both the mourners and their licence plates after a weekend of similar surveillance at the Rizzuto-owned funeral parlour.
Police officers snapped away, blending into the rest of the photo-snapping public. News photographers set up perches on balconies across the street to get a better vantage point.
A number of reporters also attempted to enter the church to cover the funeral in person. Many were either blocked at the entrance or whisked out by a swarm of burly security guards.
Leopoldo Seccarecca, a long-time church volunteer, called the funeral a typical Catholic service.
He estimated that as many attended Monday's crowded service as the one for Nick Rizzuto Jr. in early January. The church seats about 800.
"It's a person that everyone knows and people come here from the curiosity," Seccarecca said.
"I don't know him personally. I see what everyone else sees. I sell fruits and I see these people because we are in a business."
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