SIREN'S TEARS (ALTON RHODE MYSTERIES Book 3) Read Online Free PDF

break in my routine came when I drove over to nearby Great Kills to see how Porgie Carmichael and his family made out. Porgie was a one-time and small-time hood who had risked his life by refusing to take mine when a psychopath mobster named Nando Carlucci ordered him to. For that, he was savagely beaten. I got Porgie a job in a marina, one of the legitimate businesses run by the Rahm crime family, with their promise that he would not have to do anything illegal for them. On Staten Island, where friendship and family ties outweigh standard, and often hypocritical, morality, such arrangements are commonplace. It can work both ways. I know a detective in the New Dorp Precinct who arranged to have a friend who had lost his job on Wall Street get a numbers job with a bookie they had both grown up with in West Brighton. Not surprisingly, the numbers business was a good fit.
    A natural fisherman, Porgie soon bought his own boat and was doing quite well. Then Superstorm Sandy came along. When I got to Porgie’s house, only three blocks from the water, it was in the middle of what looked like a war zone. He was standing in his yard piling up ruined furniture, rugs, clothing, electronics and children’s toys. I immediately asked about his family.
    “Angie and the kids left during the mandatory evacuation, Mr. Rhode.” I couldn’t get him to stop calling me that. “I stayed until the last minute at the marina securing boats. Not that it mattered.”
    “Where’s your boat?”
    It was, of course, named “Angie.”
    Porgie smiled wearily and pointed up the block.
    “My house is closer to the bay than my boat now.”
    A black Humvee pulled up. It looked suspiciously like the military version and my instincts were confirmed when I saw a splash of camouflage peeking through the newer black paint around a side view mirror. Someone had been sloppy with a spray gun.
    Arman Rahm and Maks Kalugin stepped out and walked over. Rahm, a darkly rakish, cultured man with an easy smile and murderous instincts, looked like he stepped straight out of an L.L. Bean catalogue: tan khaki pants with leg pockets, navy blue wool sweater over a red corduroy shirt and shearing-lined work boots. Everything was creased and new. Kalugin was also color coordinated, all in dark brown work clothes. As usual, he looked like a block of wood.
    “I’m not sure that gas guzzler will go over big around here, Arman,” I said.
    “When people see the blankets and food in the back, I doubt they will complain, Alton.”
    “Worried about I.E.D.’s? That doesn’t look like a Hummer you can buy off the lot.”
    “It does have some added refinements.” He smiled. “Let’s say it is Army surplus.”
    I was fairly certain the Army was unaware this particular vehicle was “surplus.”
    Rahm put his hand on Carmichael’s shoulder.
    “How are you doing, Porgie? Family OK?”
    “Yes, sir. They’re at my Mom’s. No power yet, but soon, they say.”
    “Good. What about your house?”
    “It’s going to need some work, but I think it’s sound.” He pointed at the rubble he’d been piling up. “Lost a lot of stuff on the first floor.”
    Kalugin, who had walked into the house without invitation, presumably to do a quick inspection, now reappeared. He nodded to his boss.
    “Good,” Arman said. “What your insurance doesn’t cover, I will. Same with the boat. I presume it’s a loss.”
      “Don’t know. You may have driven passed it on the way here. It’s in the front yard of that colonial at the corner of Hylan. I’m afraid the marina is a disaster.”
    The Rahm family owned the marina.
    “Serves us right,” Arman said, smiling. “Russians usually don’t have to worry about global warming. Historically, we spend much of our lives freezing our balls off. But we’re Americans now, so there you have it.”
    He looked me up and down. I must have been a sight.
    “Typical sartorial splendor, Alton. Volunteering?”
    “Yeah. Midland Beach. They are in