Chapter Four
“Dillon and Aaron on standby.”
Pop music blared so loud that Kid could barely hear the intercom voice as he and Kinzer made their way through a smoke-filled bar.
Kid was still chuckling at the sign outside. “This place really called Dick Dongs?”
A dim, orange light illuminated a box of a stage where two late twenty-something guys rubbed their steroid-induced muscled bodies against black poles, posing with the music.
The place was pretty empty, except for a few balding men—well into or beyond their fifties—who were tended to by shirtless gym-rats that looked barely legal.
Kinzer had driven for nearly twenty-four hours without rest until they’d reached Atlanta, where he claimed his friends would be to help him. Kid still thought it was a bunch of nonsense, and now that they were in a strip bar, he was even surer of it.
Kinzer approached the bar. An older guy—his broad chest covered in curly black hair, his love handles nearly nonexistent—set a crate on the floor and stocked beers in a chrome tub of ice. His shirt dangled from his back belt loop.
Kid looked around uneasily. His eyes drifted to the stage. The less-than-enthusiastic steroid-ripped dancers bobbed around and dipped fairly low for wide-eyed frumpies that were slipping bills into their underwear. Kid saw the same look in the dancers’ eyes that he was used to seeing at Jerry’s. Sad, empty, defeated. He imagined that was what he looked like.
Kinzer set his arm on the bar and glanced around.
Kid finally asked the question that had been burning on his mind since they’d arrived.
“I’m sorry. You said these were angels, right?”
As much as Kid didn’t buy Kinzer’s story, he was still curious about how this all worked in his head.
Kinzer nodded. “AKA higherlings.”
“Um…what are they doing here?”
Kinzer smirked. “Seems like God has a pretty fucked-up sense of humor, right?”
The bartender popped up from the beer tub and approached the counter. “Hey, man.”
“Jack on the rocks,” Kinzer said. “And can I change out for some ones?”
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a wallet he’d lifted from one of Jerry’s clients, and handed some cash over to the bartender.
Kinzer turned back to Kid. “Better to keep higherlings in places you wouldn’t expect them. These guys are liaisons for the Almighty’s secret organizations on Earth.”
The bartender slid a glass of Jack across the counter and handed Kinzer a wad of ones. Kinzer curled the cash up and slipped it in his back pocket.
Kid rocked his head to the pop beat. He smiled. “This is kinda fun.”
He scanned the pack of trim bodies that pranced around the room in just jeans.
A pretty-faced brunet, his chest pushed forward, his abs sucked in, approached Kinzer.
“Hey, man. Wanna lap dance?” He winked.
Kinzer shook his head. The brunet frowned. His chest sank in. His abs pushed out. He moved along.
“So,” Kid began, “how will I know when I see one of these guys?”
“Don’t sweat it. I got this.”
The song faded out. An awkward silence filled the room, followed by the sound of a toilet flushing. The dancers hopped off the stage.
“Dillon and Aaron on deck.”
