American Gods

“It’s okay, Mister Road. Sam here—pardon, ma’am,—I mean, Miz Black Crow wants to help us. She’s a law-abiding citizen.”

“Ma’am, we know you helped Shadow. You were seen with him, in a white Chevy Nova. He gave you a ride. He bought you dinner. Did he say anything that could help us in our investigation? Two of our best men have vanished.”

“I never met him.”

“You met him. Please don’t make the mistake of thinking we’re stupid. We aren’t stupid.”

“Mm. I meet a lot of people. Maybe I met him and forgot already.”

“Ma’am, it really is to your advantage to cooperate with us.”

“Otherwise, you’ll have to introduce me to your friends Mister Thumbscrews and Mister Pentothal?”

“Ma’am, you aren’t making this any easier on yourself.”

“Gee. I’m sorry. Now, is there anything else? Cos I’m going to say ‘buh-bye now’ and close the door and I figure you two are going to go and get into Mister Car and drive away.”

“Your lack of cooperation has been noted, ma’am.”

“Buh-bye now.”

Click.

CHAPTER TEN

I’ll tell you all my secrets

But I lie about my past

So send me off to bed for evermore

—TOM WAITS, “TANGO TILL THEY’RE SORE”

Awhole life in darkness, surrounded by filth, that was what Shadow dreamed, his first night in Lakeside. A child’s life, long ago and far away, in a land across the ocean, in the lands where the sun rose. But this life contained no sunrises, only dimness by day and blindness by night.

Nobody spoke to him. He heard human voices, from outside, but he could understand human speech no better than he understood the howling of the owls or the yelps of dogs. He remembered, or thought he remembered, one night, half a lifetime ago, when one of the big people had entered, quietly, and had not cuffed him or fed him, but had picked him up to her breast and embraced him. She smelled good. She had made crooning noises. Hot drops of water had fallen from her face to his. He had been scared, and had wailed loudly in his fear.

She put him down on the straw, hurriedly, and left the hut, fastening the door behind her.

He remembered that moment, and he treasured it, just as he remembered the sweetness of a cabbage-heart, the tart taste of plums, the crunch of apples, the greasy delight of roasted fish.

And now he saw the faces in the firelight, all of them looking at him as he was led out from the hut for the first time, which was the only time. So that was what people looked like. Raised in darkness, he had never seen faces. Everything was so new. So strange. The bonfire light hurt his eyes. They pulled on the rope around his neck, to lead him to the space between the two bonfires, where the man waited for him.

And when the first blade was raised in the firelight, what a cheer went up from the crowd and the child from the darkness began to laugh and laugh with them, in delight and in freedom.

And then the blade came down.

Shadow opened his eyes and realized that he was hungry and cold, in an apartment with a layer of ice clouding the inside of the window glass. His frozen breath, he thought. He got out of bed, pleased he did not have to get dressed. He scraped at a window with a fingernail as he passed, felt the ice collect under the nail, then melt to water.