American Gods

“I didn’t really do that?” said Shadow. “I mean, I didn’t. Did I?”

“Drink the coffee,” said Wednesday. “It’s foul stuff, but it will ease the headache.” Then he said, “Good work.”

Wednesday paid the Kinko’s clerk, and he carried his signs and letters and cards outside to the car. He opened the trunk of his car, put the papers in a large black metal case of the kind carried by payroll guards, and closed the trunk. He passed Shadow a business card.

“Who,” said Shadow, “is A. Haddock, Director of Security, A1 Security Services?”

“You are.”

“A. Haddock?”

“Yes.”

“What does the A stand for?”

“Alfredo? Alphonse? Augustine? Ambrose? Your call entirely.”

“Oh. I see.”

“I’m James O’Gorman,” said Wednesday. “Jimmy to my friends. See? I’ve got a card too.”

They got back in the car. Wednesday said, “If you can think ‘A. Haddock’ as well as you thought ‘snow,’ we should have plenty of lovely money with which to wine and dine my friends of tonight.”

“And if we’re in jail by this evening?”

“Then my friends will just have to make do without us.”

“I’m not going back to prison.”

“You won’t be.”

“I thought we had agreed that I wouldn’t be doing anything illegal.”

“You aren’t. Possibly aiding and abetting, a little conspiracy to commit, followed of course by receiving stolen money, but trust me, you’ll come out of this smelling like a rose.”

“Is that before or after your elderly Slavic Charles Atlas crushes my skull with one blow?”

“His eyesight’s going,” said Wednesday reassuringly. “He’ll probably miss you entirely. Now, we still have a little time to kill—the bank closes at midday on Saturdays, after all. Would you like lunch?”

“Yes,” said Shadow. “I’m starving.”

“I know just the place,” said Wednesday. He hummed as he drove, some cheerful song that Shadow could not identify. Snowflakes began to fall, just as Shadow had imagined them, and he felt strangely proud. He knew, rationally, that he had nothing to do with the snow, just as he knew the silver dollar he carried in his pocket was not, and never had been, the moon. But still…

They stopped outside a large shed-like building. A sign said that the All-U-Can-Eat lunch buffet was $4.99. “I love this place,” said Wednesday.

“Good food?” asked Shadow.

“Not particularly,” said Wednesday. “But the ambience is unmissable.”

The ambience that Wednesday loved, it turned out, once lunch had been eaten—Shadow had the fried chicken, and enjoyed it—was the business that took up the rear of the shed: it was, the hanging flag across the center of the room announced, a Bankrupt and Liquidated Stock Clearance Depot.

Wednesday went out to the car, and reappeared with a small suitcase, which he took into the men’s room. Shadow figured he’d learn soon enough what Wednesday was up to, whether he wanted to or not, and so he prowled the liquidation aisles, staring at the things for sale: boxes of coffee “for use in airline filters only,” Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle toys and Xena: Warrior Princess harem dolls, teddy bears that played patriotic tunes on the xylophone when plugged in, and other teddy bears that played seasonal songs on the xylophone when plugged in, cans of processed meat, galoshes and sundry overshoes, marshmallows, Bill Clinton presidential wristwatches, artificial miniature Christmas trees, salt and pepper shakers in the shapes of animals, body parts, fruit and nuns, and, Shadow’s favorite, a “just add real carrot” snowman kit, with plastic coal eyes, a corncob pipe, and a plastic hat.

Shadow thought about how you made the moon seem to come out of the sky and become a silver dollar, and what made a woman get out of her grave and walk across town to talk to you.

“Isn’t it a wonderful place?” asked Wednesday when he came out of the men’s room. His hands were still wet, and he was drying them off on a handkerchief. “They’re out of paper towels in there,” he said. He had changed his clothes. He was now wearing a dark blue jacket, with matching trousers, a blue knit tie, a thick blue sweater, a white shirt, and black shoes. He looked like a security guard, and Shadow said so.

“What can I possibly say to that, young man,” said Wednesday, picking up a box of floating plastic aquarium fish (“They’ll never fade—and you’ll never have to feed them!!”), “other than to congratulate you on your perspicacity. How about Arthur Haddock? Arthur’s a good name.”

“Too mundane.”

“Well, you’ll think of something. There. Let us return to town. We should be in perfect time for our bank robbery, and then I shall have a little spending money.”

“Most people,” said Shadow, “would simply take it from the ATM.”

“Which is, oddly enough, more or less exactly what I was planning to do.”