Conduct Unbecoming Read Online Free

fist up in the air in mock, silent celebration.  “Okay, I'm heading out.  Need a lift?”
                       “Nah.  Think I'll stick around awhile.”
                       “Suit yourself.”  Augie headed for the elevator, then glanced back over his shoulder with a wicked-looking grin.  “Did I mention the kid’s name is Lorenzo Giancana?”
                       Giancana?  Harley frowned, rolled it around in the back of her mind.  The mobster?  Frank Sinatra and the Rat Pack came to mind, too - and JFK? - but she was having a hard time connecting the dots.  “What, is he like some kind of gangster?”
                       “Not quite.  He is, however, Dante Giancana's kid brother.”  He got into the elevator and pushed the button, said, “Google them, I think you'll find it makes for interesting reading,” as the doors slid shut between them.
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 3
                      
     
     
     
    Dante grabbed his duffel bag and climbed out of the cab, slammed the door shut behind him.  Sweat trickled down his neck, his back, and he rolled his shoulders in a half-hearted attempt at pulling his shirt away from his skin.  The air was so thick with humidity he felt like he was wading through it.
                       People walked around him, past him.  Dante ignored them, looked up instead, up at the seventh floor.  St. Ignatius’  ICU, lit up like the 4th of July. 
    Jesus, he’d been in such a hurry to get here that he hadn’t stopped to consider what it would feel like when he did.  Tightness in the chest, some shortness of breath, a little lightheadedness.  He was either having a panic attack or a full-blown heart attack.
    Dante shifted his bag from one shoulder to the other, shook his head.  Opened the lobby door for a woman with a sleeping, rosy-cheeked toddler on her hip, and followed her into the hospital.  The baby - a little girl with damp brown ringlets and pudgy legs - was plastered against the woman's side, her face buried in her mother’s hair.  Her mouth, a perfect little crimson-shaped O, leaving a softball-sized patch of drool on the woman’s shoulder.
    She frowned when he followed her into one of the elevators, narrowed her eyes in his direction.  Probably hadn’t given a second thought to standing next to him in the lobby.  Being trapped in a tiny, enclosed elevator with him was a whole different ballgame.
    When the doors slid shut he caught a glimpse of his own reflection and winced.  Jesus, no wonder she was nervous.  Two days worth of stubble on a tightly clenched jaw; dark, bloodshot eyes; two inch scar on his right cheekbone; bump on the bridge of his nose from an old, poorly-healed break; clothes that had obviously been slept in.  Hell, he almost scared himself.   
                       When the elevator doors opened on Seven he stepped out, turned left.  Six years was a long time, but not much had changed.  And yes, the deja-vu thing was more than a little disconcerting.
                       The waiting room was full of cops, but he leaned over the chest-high partition around the nurse’s station instead of looking for a familiar face.  “Hello?”
    The U-shaped desk was covered with half-empty coffee cups, stacks of paper and file folders, several computers with brightly-lit monitors and an ancient-looking fax machine.  He drummed his fingers on the counter, but none of the nurses behind the desk even looked up.
                     He tried again, louder, knocked on the counter this time.  “Excuse me?” 
                       One of them - a forty-something dishwater blonde - pulled off a pair of half-moon glasses to rub at the bridge of her nose.  She slid the glasses back on and said, “yes?”, all without looking