SISTER (ALTON RHODE MYSTERIES Book 4) Read Online Free

kickbacks to Medicare beneficiaries and used the beneficiaries' names to bill Medicare.”
    “Forgive me for saying this, Arman, but why all the disapproval?”
    “I like a good scheme as well as the next man,” he said, smiling. “But these dog turds give Russians a bad name. They don’t even read the papers. The Government is cracking down on this sort of thing. I own this building, so I started getting the kind of publicity I don’t need or want.”
    “Then why keep it going?”
    “Public relations. I’ll turn it into a legitimate clinic. I’ll make money. I mean, we’ll still be dealing with the Government, right. I’ll just fold it into my other medical properties.”
    “What other medical properties?”
    “Nursing homes, mainly. Which brings me to why I asked you to come over. Mrs. Capriati died.”
    I was sorry to hear that. She was a nice lady whose son, Billy, was a wannabe gangster who got himself involved in a turf war between the Rahms and the Carlucci crime family. The Rahms needed Capriati dead before he could testify against them and I had been duped into finding him by Arman’s actress sister, Eleni. I managed to locate him, through his invalid mother, hiding in a Federal witness protection program. Maks Kalugin promptly broke his neck in a Florida condo. The entire fiasco was somewhat mitigated by the fact that the Rahms prevented Nando Carlucci from carving me up in my own basement and nursed me back to health. I laid a guilt trip on the Rahms, who promised to look after Mrs. Capriati. The additional fact that I slept with Eleni Rahm and also met Alice Watts during the case did help assuage any lingering bad feeling.
    “What happened?”
    “Old age. She went peacefully. We took care of the funeral arrangements.”
    “All I asked was for you to take care of her when she was alive. Send money every month.” I glanced at the women working the computers and lowered my voice. “After all, you killed her son.”
    “They don’t speak English,” Rahm said. “As for her son, it couldn’t be helped. You know that.”
    “And it was quick,” Kalugin interjected.
    Arman and I both looked at him.
    “I’m just saying,” Kalugin shrugged.
    “You cut off his finger and sent it to the Carluccis,” I pointed out, “with his college ring still on it.”
    “Anyone can send a finger. It was important that they knew who he was. Besides, he was already dead.”
    I decided to leave it at that. 
    “Anyway, we became quite fond of the old woman,” Arman continued. “When we saw how badly the place was run, we bought it. Then a few more. They come in handy for the families of some of our associates, many of whom are getting old. They are not happy about what’s available locally.”
    “Medicare clinics and nursing homes. What’s next? Funeral homes?”
    “Actually, my friend, I’ve already made an offer on a couple of them in New Jersey.”

CHAPTER 4 - DIARY
     
    The next day, I was in my office on my iPad scrolling through the digital version of The New York Times sports section. Just reading about the various ankle, hip, elbow, knee and tendon woes of the ancient and ailing Bronx Bombers made me feel old. I once commanded a platoon in a combat zone that was less banged up. I was also thinking about dinner. Truth was, I’d been thinking about dinner since shortly after lunch.
    Two cops walked in. I knew they were cops by the way they assumed they could go anywhere, like in my office.
    The cops didn’t look New York. And they weren’t Feds, because they both had on sports jackets; one brown, the other green. Their pants matched the jackets, but not the ones each was wearing. But it’s not like they could have switched. Brown jacket was a beefy older guy with some small but noticeable striations on his nose. He liked to drink and I made him for a tough hombre in whatever jurisdiction he came from. Blue jacket was rapier-thin, fresh faced and tried to look stern. Still wet behind the ears,