Free GUNNER (ALTON RHODE MYSTERIES Book 5) by Lawrence de Maria Page A

lioness in heat.”
    “You’re told?”
    Rahm laughed.
    “I try not to mix business with pleasure. She works for me. That’s all. But enough about Veronica, what can I do for you? You sounded so mysterious over the phone.”
    “That’s how everyone who calls you has to sound. You probably have more taps than a German brauhaus.” I looked around his office. “I presume it’s safe to talk in here.”
    He gave me a condescending look.
    “Swept daily.’
    Arman’s father, Marat, the titular head of the family, had once been a top agent in the KGB before moving to the United States. What the Rahms didn’t know about surveillance hadn’t been discovered yet. Arman’s cell phone rang. Or, rather, it started playing “Lara’s Theme” from Doctor Zhivago . He picked it up and began speaking in Russian. I could tell from his body language and deferential tone who the caller was. I got up to leave, but he waved me back down to my seat. Arman mentioned my name, listened and then laughed.
    “How is he?” I asked when he completed the call.
    Marat was battling prostate cancer and had ceded much of the power and operational responsibilities of the family to Arman shortly after the murder of his eldest son, Stefan.
    “He is tough,” Arman said affectionately. “He sends his regards. He wanted to know what kind of trouble you were in now.”
    Maks Kalugin came into the office, threw his pea coat on a nearby couch and sat down next to me. The Rahm’s family assassin, a Russian Luca Brasi, he was built like a small refrigerator, with a mashed nose, cauliflower ears and the weathered visage of a Cossack. We had come a long way since our first meeting. The fact that he now sat and didn’t hover to the side staring at me like I was road kill was a testament to our grudging respect for each other. In fact, Maks had saved my life a couple of times, even taking a bullet for me and, in an action that embarrassed us both, gave me mouth-to-mouth. Alice thought he was adorable, and he was like putty in her hands.
    “It’s all taken care of,” Maks said. “But we need a new maintenance man.”
    Rahm looked at me.
    “We had a little problem at one of our nursing homes,” he explained. “The previous owner let things go. A disgrace. Now this.”
    The Rahms had recently branched into various medical enterprises, partly because in one of my prior cases I strong-armed them into taking care of the occupant of a nursing home who had no one else looking out for her. Since they basically were the reason she had no one, and since they owed me big-time, they did the right thing. Then they found out there was legitimate money to be made in nursing homes and medical clinics, so everyone was happy.
    “What happened?”
    “I kept on the maintenance guy who convinced me he was never given enough money to keep the place up. There were leaks everywhere. I did a walk-through of the entire building. The floor in the lobby is rotted out. You can hear it creak when you walk across it. Place was inspected and always passed. Someone was on the take. And they call me a crook! I told the maintenance man to spend what he needed to fix the place up. Next thing I know one of the nurses finds the pervert masturbating at the foot of some 90-year-old woman’s bed!”
    “Jesus. Did you call the cops?”
    Arman stared at me.
    “Sorry,” I said.
    “I called Maks.”
    “Hard jerking off with no fingers,” Kalugin said.
    “So,” Arman said, “enough of that. What do you need, Alton?”
    I decided to level with the both of them. I knew the Rahms didn’t have anything to do with Panetta’s death. They never brought in outside help. When you have a Maks Kalugin, there is no need to farm out assassinations. And they don’t use misdirection. When they kill someone, it’s to make a statement. But they might have heard something. I told them about Maples and what Cormac Levine and I were doing. When I finished, Rahm looked at Kalugin.
    “What do you