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pocket, to read later.
     Then he said, “I guess you girls don’t drink, do you?”
    Said Tess, “We can when we’re not witnessing.”
    “Well, let’s witness me some other time then,” said Romeo, and the girls laughed. He asked them if they had boyfriends. They
     looked at each other and laughed some more.
    Megan said, “Tess had a boyfriend. But he was a total asshole.”
    Tess asked him, “You know Arroyo?”
    He shrugged. “You mean like from around here? I don’t know anybody.”
    “Oh, right.”
    Megan said, “You know what he does? He does body suspensions. He’s got that old auto-paint shop up on 17, and there’s like
     this crane thing behind it, where he puts hooks in you and hangs you up in the air.”
    “He puts hooks in you?”
    “Yeah.”
    “In your flesh?”
    “Yeah.”
    “People
let
him do that?”
    Megan shrugged. “Don’t ask me why.”
    But then Tess spoke up, with a flicker of pride: “
I
let him do it.”
    “Really?” said Romeo. “What was it like?”
    “It’s hard to explain,” said Tess. She had a faraway look.
    Romeo asked, “Did it make you feel close to God?”
    “No, it made me feel like I
was
God. When He was on the Cross. And then after it was over?
Oh
. Like so good. Like
nothing
sucks.”
    “Yeah, but then he dumped you,” Megan reminded her. “Because he’s a total asshole.”
    Romeo liked listening to them. He’d never met missionaries before. He invited them down to his room for Jack-and-Cokes, and
     on the way, he walked behind them, trying to decide which girl was prettier, so he could offer that one to Shaw. But there
     was no prettier one. Tess had the disturbing forehead and Megan was squat like a traffic cone, and they were equally unappealing,
     unless you were in a generous mood. Shaw was in a weird mood. He was still flying around on the web when they got to the room,
     still working on that mysterious project. He seemed unhinged. He nodded when Romeo made introductions but didn’t speak and
     didn’t shake hands, and the look he cast Romeo was on the order of
What’s with the bitches?
    This hurt Romeo because he had brought these girls as gifts. “They’re missionaries,” he said. “From Missouri.”
    Shaw said, “Missionaries to what?”
    Tess said, “We go door to door.”
    “Here?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    Shaw stared at them. “You’re on a mission to Brunswick, Georgia?”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “You’re evangelizing the
Bible Belt
?”
    He smiled and the girls smiled too. Whenever Shaw got one of his insights into the true heart of things, his lips would curl
     up on one side and he could be charming and off-kilter and really funny if he didn’t go overboard.
    Romeo fixed drinks for everyone. Liberal measures of Jack. It was turning into a party; he was excited. But then Shaw turned
     away without a word and went back to his laptop,
clickety-click
. It got kind of awkward, just listening to that, so after a minute Romeo and the girls decided go back upstairs.
    However, as they were all leaving, Shaw said, “Wait. Romeo, hang around a second. I want to ask you something.”
    Romeo told the girls to go on ahead.
    It was clear that something was coming. He had a feeling. The best course would be to say no right away, even before Shaw
     launched. Not even wait to hear Shaw’s proposal. Just clear out, go get trashed with the girls. But he didn’t do that. He
     sat on one of the motel beds while Shaw sat on the other, facing him, and when Shaw said, “OK, listen, I need you,” Romeo
     nodded meekly.
    “For what?”
    “Something I couldn’t trust anyone else in the world with. I mean you and me, we’re the only ones alive who can do this. Because
     we’ve got this trust between us. But it’s going to be scary as hell and at any moment we could get ourselves killed and if
     you’re not up for it you just say so right away and I’ll understand. OK? You go back home and do tech support. But I’m going
     to do this. And if you want