Untouchable Read Online Free PDF

binders, the case study binders. Molina would sit in his office with potential clients, property managers and county administrators and representatives of hotel chains, and take them on a tour through the binders, a pictorial history of Everclean cleanups, selling them of the need to plan for the unthinkable. He showed them the Polaroids of how the rooms looked before the techs got to work and waited as they flinched, as they turned their heads or covered their mouths, as their faces blanched, as their lunches rose. He always made sure they’d eaten well before they sat with the binders, a rich and heavy meal on the company credit card, a visceral reminder of how unequipped they’d be to deal with something like this. When he was sure he had their attention, he showed them the next set of pictures, the After photos, the disappearing act, the rooms good as new. That was how clients were acquired, contracts were signed. An ad in the yellow pages, word-of-mouth from cops and EMTs, a binder full of Polaroids.
    “They’ve come from all over the country,” the TV reporter said. “Single people, couples, possibly entire families now living in this compound at the foot of the Tehachapi Mountains.”
    “I knew it,” Bob said. “Used to camp up there.”
    “I’m sorry,” Mrs. Fowler said into the phone. She had one finger pressed into her open ear. “I can’t hear you. There’s a TV here that’s turned up too high.” She slid the plexiglass window between the dispatch office and the garage shut.
    “What are you looking for?” Molina said. He’d turned from the TV, was watching Darby scan the floor.
    “Lost my phone.”
    “Check the vans,” Roistler said.
    “Already did.”
    “Call,” Bob said, shouting over the TV.
    “What’s that?”
    “Call your number from the office, listen for the ring.”
    “Bob,” Roistler said. “You are a goddamn genius.”
    Bob poured himself a cup of coffee, flipped Roistler the bird.
    Darby went around into the dispatch office. Mrs. Fowler was off the phone, had her reading glasses perched back up on her nose, her face pressed into a paperback romance. Darby slid open the window, shouted out into the garage.
    “It’s set to vibrate, so we have to cut the noise.”
    Bob turned down the TV. Darby dialed the secret number. Mrs. Fowler lifted her nose out of the book and they all kept still, listening for the sound of the phone.
    “I think it’s lost,” Roistler said, finally. “I haven’t felt a single vibration.”
    They stood against the wall in the school courtyard, backs against the brick, boys only. The girls were somewhere else, playing soccer, running relay races. The boys lined up according to height and The Kid generally ended up at the short end of the spectrum, next to Matthew Crump, the shortest of them all. It didn’t really matter where he stood to start the game though, because after a few throws everything shifted and reshuffled as boys ducked and jumped and got hit and fell out of line and The Kid always found himself smack dab in the middle of the line of fire.
    The boys with the ball were always gunning for The Kid. Brian and Razz were their names. Brian was from another sixth grade class. Razz was from The Kid’s class, though he really should have been up in seventh grade. His real name wasn’t Razz, it was Ramón, but Razz was his tagging name, the name he used when he was spray-painting on walls around the neighborhood. His older brother was in a gang, that’s what the other kids said, and Razz would be in the gang, too, in another year or so, which is why he kept his head shaved down to the scalp and wore his clothes as baggy as he could without getting sent home from school. Brian was tall and blond, a real athlete, always won the relay races and push-up contests in P.E. class. He had a throwing arm like a big league pitcher. Whenever Brian had the dodgeball, girls came over from whatever they were doing to watch him throw and cheer him on and