Free SISTER (ALTON RHODE MYSTERIES Book 4) by Lawrence de Maria Page B

Government? I was a respected criminal attorney. And now this? ” I wanted to say that no one had ever respected him, and his criminal experience was limited to one crime family. I was pretty sure he’d never actually handled a case at trial. I might have even mentioned that I hadn’t actually been a party to Nando’s “disappearance.” Arman Rahm never told me which landfills he deposited the fat rival mobster in, and I never asked. I probably could have also noted that Carlucci had tried to kill me, several times in fact, but why bother?
    “Look, Sam, I’m sorry if I caught you between ambulances, but I need some information. So let’s cut the bull. You’ll never get another meal ticket like Nando, but maybe I can put in a word for you with some people I know. Throw you some business.”
    A gleam came to the old shyster’s eyes.
    “I have heard that you’re tight with the Rahms. I wouldn’t mind an introduction there.”
    “That wouldn’t be a conflict of interest for you?”
    “I’ll recuse myself if Carlucci ever shows up. Him and Lazarus.”
    So much for Nando.
    “I’ll see what I can do.” I sat down in a client chair that could have doubled for lawn furniture. “Now, what can you tell me about Harry Frost.”
    “That rotten, thieving son of a bitch. He should rot in hell.”
    I suspected that this would be a productive interview.
    “I thought you worked together.”
    “We worked on some deals before I decided to concentrate on criminal law. Real estate stuff, probate, estates, trusts, that sort of thing. Then one day he took a powder. Left me holding the bag with a lot of angry clients.”
    “Why were they angry?”
    “A lot of them had money, and I emphasize ‘had,’ when they came to us. You remember how Staten Island was after they built the Guinea Gangplank?”
    “You mean the Verrazano Bridge?”
    “What are you, some kind of politically correct asshole? I know your name ends in a vowel but I also know you’re not Italian. Besides, it’s just a phrase. I ain’t prejudiced. I saw 42 , the Jackie Robinson flick. Liked it, too. So don’t get high and mighty on me. Where was I?”
    “Staten Island after the bridge.”
    “Yeah. Well, after it opened, a lot of farmland and oceanfront property that wasn’t worth diddley squat before suddenly took off. Big pieces of property. A lot of old-time families cashed in. They owned restaurants on the water, or pieces of the old airport and the drive-in mid-Island, all before your time probably, and they got small fortunes for them. I mean, had they held on they would have gotten even bigger fortunes, of course, but they did OK. Most of them were cheap squareheads, so they thought they were rich. I never could figure out why Staten Island had so many Northern Europeans, but they were hard-working, I’ll say that. Anyway, we got a lot of business from that. You know, families falling out over the windfalls, divorces, somebody dies and the money has to be split up. Typical human bullshit.”
    He was revving up. I think I saw where it was all going.
    “Large escrow accounts,” I said.
    “Huge.  A goddamn gold mine.”
    “And Harry dipped.”
    “Dipped? He used a steam shovel. After he split, I found out that there was hardly anything left in the accounts. He billed so many hours he would have had to start working for some of those people before Henry Hudson sailed into the Narrows. What he didn’t bill, he siphoned off to dummy corporations, you know, for title research and other crap.”
    “How much are we talking about.”
    “Almost $3 million, spread out over about 20 clients.”
    “I have to ask, Sam. What was your involvement?”
    Rosenberg sat back and put his hands behind his head. He smiled.
    “You probably won’t believe this, but at one point I was pretty wet behind the ears. Me and Harry weren’t partners, thank God, but I trusted him. I saw just enough money to think everything was on the up and up. He snowed the clients