American Gods

“Was it really counterfeit?” asked Shadow.

“Of course not! Fresh banknotes, straight from the bank, only with a thumbprint and a smudge of green ink on a couple of them to make them a little more interesting.”

Shadow sipped his coffee. It was worse than prison coffee. “So the cop was obviously no cop. And the necklace?”

“Evidence,” said Wednesday. He unscrewed the top from the salt-shaker, poured a little heap of salt on the table. “But the jeweler gets a receipt, and assurance that he’ll get the necklace straight back as soon as Soapy comes to trial. He is congratulated on being a good citizen, and he watches, proudly, already thinking of the tale he’ll have to tell at the next meeting of the Oddfellows tomorrow night, as the policeman marches the man pretending to be a bishop out of the store, twelve hundred dollars in one pocket, a twelve-hundred-dollar diamond necklace in the other, on their way to a police station that’ll never see hide nor hair of either of them.”

The waitress had returned to clear the table. “Tell me, my dear,” said Wednesday. “Are you married?”

She shook her head.

“Astonishing that a young lady of such loveliness has not yet been snapped up.” He was doodling with his fingernail in the spilled salt, making squat, blocky rune-like shapes. The waitress stood passively beside him, reminding Shadow less of a fawn and more of a young rabbit caught in an eighteen-wheeler’s headlights, frozen in fear and indecision.

Wednesday lowered his voice, so much so that Shadow, only across the table, could barely hear him. “What time do you get off work?”

“Nine,” she said, and swallowed. “Nine thirty latest.”

“And what is the finest motel in this area?”

“There’s a Motel 6,” she said. “It’s not much.”

Wednesday touched the back of her hand, fleetingly, with the tips of his fingers, leaving crumbs of salt on her skin. She made no attempt to wipe them off. “To us,” he said, his voice an almost inaudible rumble, “it shall be a pleasure-palace.”

The waitress looked at him. She bit her thin lips, hesitated, then nodded and fled for the kitchen.

“C’mon,” said Shadow. “She looks barely legal.”

“I’ve never been overly concerned about legality,” Wednesday told him. “Not as long as I get what I want. Sometimes the nights are long and cold. And I need her, not as an end in herself, but to wake me up a little. Even King David knew that there is one easy prescription to get warm blood flowing through an old frame: take one virgin, call me in the morning.”

Shadow caught himself wondering if the girl on night duty in the hotel back in Eagle Point had been a virgin. “Don’t you ever worry about disease?” he asked. “What if you knock her up? What if she’s got a brother?”

“No,” said Wednesday. “I don’t worry about diseases. I don’t catch them. People like me avoid them. Unfortunately, for the most part people like me fire blanks, so there’s not a great deal of interbreeding. It used to happen in the old days. Nowadays, it’s possible, but so unlikely as to be almost unimaginable. So no worries there. And many girls have brothers, and fathers. Some even have husbands. It’s not my problem. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred, I’ve left town already.”

“So we’re staying here for the night?”

Wednesday rubbed his chin. “I shall stay in the Motel 6,” he said. Then he put his hand into his coat pocket. He pulled out a front-door key, bronze-colored, with a card tag attached on which was typed an address: 502 NORTHRIDGE RD, APT #3. “You, on the other hand, have an apartment waiting for you, in a city far from here.” Wednesday closed his eyes for a moment. Then he opened them, gray and gleaming and fractionally mismatched, and he said, “The Greyhound bus will be coming through town in twenty minutes. It stops at the gas station. Here’s your ticket.” He pulled out a folded bus ticket, passed it across the table. Shadow picked it up and looked at it.

“Who’s Mike Ainsel?” he asked. That was the name on the ticket.

“You are. Happy Christmas.”

“And where’s Lakeside?”

“Your happy home in the months to come. And now, because good things come in threes…” He took a small, gift-wrapped package from his pocket, pushed it across the table. It sat beside the ketchup bottle with the black smears of dried ketchup on the top. Shadow made no move to take it.

“Well?”

Reluctantly, Shadow tore open the red wrapping paper, to reveal a fawn-colored calfskin wallet, shiny from use. It was obviously somebody’s wallet. Inside the wallet was a driver’s license with Shadow’s photograph on it, in the name of Michael Ainsel, with a Milwaukee address, a MasterCard for M. Ainsel, and twenty crisp fifty-dollar bills. Shadow closed the wallet, put it into an inside pocket.

“Thanks,” he said.

“Think of it as a Christmas bonus. Now, let me walk you down to the Greyhound. I shall wave to you as you ride the gray dog north.”