American Gods

Shadow took the orange uniform and the handcuffs and leg hobbles, put them in the brown paper bag that had briefly held his possessions, folded the whole thing up and dropped it into a parking lot garbage can. They had been waiting for ten minutes when a barrel-chested young man came out of an airport door and walked over to them. He was eating a packet of Burger King french fries. Shadow recognized him immediately: he had sat in the back of the car when they had left the House on the Rock, and hummed so deeply the car had vibrated. He now sported a white-streaked winter beard he had not had when they had met at the House on the Rock. It made him look older.

The man wiped the grease from his hands onto his sweater, extended one huge hand to Shadow. “I heard of the all-father’s death,” he said. “They will pay, and they will pay dearly.”

“Wednesday was your father?” asked Shadow.

“He was the all-father,” said the man. His deep voice caught in his throat. “You tell them, tell them all, that when we are needed my people will be there.”

Czernobog picked at a flake of tobacco between his teeth and spat it out onto the frozen slush. “And how many of you is that? Ten? Twenty?”

The barrel-chested man’s beard bristled. “And aren’t ten of us worth a hundred of them? Who would stand against even one of my folk, in a battle? But there are more of us than that, at the edges of the cities. There are a few in the mountains. Some in the Catskills, a few living in the carny towns in Florida. They keep their axes sharp. They will come if I call them.”

“You do that, Elvis,” said Mr. Nancy. Shadow thought he said Elvis, anyway, but he couldn’t be sure. Nancy had exchanged the deputy’s uniform for a thick brown cardigan, corduroy trousers, and brown loafers. “You call them. It’s what the old bastard would have wanted.”

“They betrayed him. They killed him. I laughed at Wednesday, but I was wrong. None of us are safe any longer,” said the man who might have been named Elvis. “But you can rely on us.” He gently patted Shadow on the back and almost sent him sprawling. It was like being gently patted on the back by a wrecking ball.

Czernobog had been looking around the parking lot. Now he said, “You will pardon me asking, but our new vehicle is which?”

The barrel-chested man pointed. “There she is,” he said.

Czernobog snorted. “That?”

It was a 1970 VW bus. There was a rainbow decal in the rear window.

“It’s a fine vehicle. And it’s the last thing that they’ll be expecting you to be driving. The last thing they’ll be looking for.”

Czernobog walked around the vehicle. Then he started to cough, a lung-rumbling, old-man, five-in-the-morning, smoker’s cough. He hawked, and spat, and put his hand to his chest, massaging away the pain. “Yes. The last car they will suspect. So what happens when the police pull us over, looking for the hippies, and the dope? Eh? We are not here to ride the magic bus. We are to blend in.”

The bearded man unlocked the door of the bus. “So they take a look at you, they see you aren’t hippies, they wave you goodbye. It’s the perfect disguise. And it’s all I could find at no notice.”

Czernobog seemed to be ready to argue it further, but Mr. Nancy intervened smoothly. “Elvis, you come through for us. We are very grateful. Now, that car needs to get back to Chicago.”

“We’ll leave it in Bloomington,” said the bearded man. “The wolves will take care of it. Don’t give it another thought.” He turned back to Shadow. “Again, you have my sympathy and I share your pain. Good luck. And if the vigil falls to you, my admiration, and my sympathy.” He squeezed Shadow’s hand in sympathy and in friendship with his own catcher’s-mitt fist. It hurt. “You tell his corpse when you see it. Tell him that Alviss son of Vindalf will keep the faith.”

The VW bus smelled of patchouli, of old incense and rolling tobacco. There was a faded pink carpet glued to the floor and to the walls.

“Who was that?” asked Shadow, as he drove them down the ramp, grinding the gears.

“Just like he said, Alviss son of Vindalf. He’s the king of the dwarfs. The biggest, mightiest, greatest of all the dwarf folk.”

“But he’s not a dwarf,” pointed out Shadow. “He’s what, five eight? Five nine?”

“Which makes him a giant among dwarfs,” said Czernobog from behind him. “Tallest dwarf in America.”

“What was that about the vigil?” asked Shadow.

The two old men said nothing. Shadow glanced to his right. Mr. Nancy was staring out of the window.

“Well? He was talking about a vigil. You heard him.”

Czernobog spoke up from the back seat. “You will not have to do it,” he said.

“Do what?”

“The vigil. He talks too much. All the dwarfs talk and talk and talk. And sing. All the time, sing, sing, sing. Is nothing to think of. Better you put it out of your mind.”