The Intern's Handbook: A Thriller Read Online Free PDF Page B

me of the first time I felt okay knowing I was alone in the world and would be that way for the rest of my life.
    I was six years old and I was languishing in some home for wayward youth outside Reno, Nevada. The changing leaves would float down from the Sierras and land outside my window. I remember thinking that the leaves were more beautiful dead than they were alive. And I stopped crying about the things I would never have, because I knew they meant nothing.
    First day of my last job and it feels a little strange. I’m trying not to get sentimental about a life that has been defined by the size of its body count, but I can’t help it. It’s what I know. But I also know that the sooner I can just get this job done, the sooner I can get out of this business and get on with my new life.
    Now, let’s go kill someone, shall we?
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    I show up for work at Bendini, Lambert & Locke in my grayish greenish brown suit, matte black cap toe shoes, and LensCrafters specs.The building is your typical titans of industry monolith that burns old money in the two-hundred-year-old boiler. That reddish hue in the tap water is the blood of the Irish laborers that broke their backs to build the place.
    I’m waiting in the marble and platinum lobby, making detailed mental notes about every aspect of the main building security system, when I notice the receptionist looking at me—over and over again. She looks the way you would expect a receptionist to look at an office run by old, pasty white men who count their money more often than Ebenezer Scrooge. Pretty but severe. Double Z’s up top but with rail thin hips that just don’t anatomically match. Christmas bonus? Despite my petty judgments, I am, after all, just a man, and she’s checking me out, occasionally smoothing her dress or hair—preening like a tropical bird. Even though I would like to offer her the shagging I know she desperately wants, I don’t like it when people are focused on me, especially when I’m in character on the first day of a gig.
    But then she does me a big favor. She speaks. With a voice so annoying that dead men would rise up just to silence it. And I’m relieved, because that voice might as well be a can of ugly spray, emptying itself all over her.
    “So . . .”
    Sweet Jesus it’s awful, like a cartoon child after a round of hormone treatments. I note that she’s a smoker too with the witchy grit that rattles across her larynx.
    “ . . . You got into the internship program, huh?”
    “Yes.”
    “Impressive.”
    “Thank you.”
    I need to throw her off the scent, so I do the rudest thing I can imagine in the company of an attractive woman vying for my attention—I pull out my phone. And I bury my face in its colorful screen,like a crow mesmerized by Christmas tinsel. You know that face. It’s the social networking sneer you see on every app junkie getting a fix. It’s one of the most loathsome cultural phenomena in contemporary society and I can see that she has gone from digging me to wanting to dig her nails into my eyeballs.
    “You won’t last a week.”
    No answer from me. This is the kind of conversation that could make me one memorable motherfucker.
    “Toughest internship in the city. Impossible to get. Impossible to keep. I’m surprised they let a hick like you in. Where you from, Peoria?”
    Actually, this is good. She is now underestimating me because she believes I am too timid to challenge her opinion. As long as I keep my mouth shut and smile, I will not make an impression on her. By the way, never smile and show your teeth. The pageant people have it wrong. Showing your teeth is always a sign of aggression. This is why Miss America is one of the most hated human beings on earth.
    Ding. The elevator door opens and my savior, a wretched little swollen zit of a woman carrying an iPad, looks around for me over her reading glasses.
    “John?”
    “That’s me.”
    “You’re fifteen minutes late. Not good.”
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    Rule #2: