American Gods

“We lost them,” says Town. He feels a knot of frustration in his gut: these were the bastards, the lousy dirty sons of bitches who killed Woody and Stone, for Chrissakes. Good men. Good men. He badly wants to fuck Mrs. Wood, but knows it’s still too soon after Woody’s death to make a move. So he is taking her out for dinner every couple of weeks, an investment in the future, she’s just grateful for the attention . . .

“How?”

“I don’t know. We set up a roadblock, there was nowhere they could have gone and they went there anyway.”

“Just another one of life’s little mysteries. Don’t worry. Have you calmed the locals?”

“Told ’em it was an optical illusion.”

“They buy it?”

“Probably.”

There was something very familiar about Mr World’s voice—which was a strange thing to think, he’d been working for him directly for two years now, spoken to him every day, of course there was something familiar about his voice.

“They’ll be far away by now.”

“Should we send people down to the rez to intercept them?”

“Not worth the aggravation. Too many jurisdictional issues, and there are only so many strings I can pull in a morning. We have plenty of time. Just get back here. I’ve got my hands full at this end trying to organize the policy meeting.”

“Trouble?”

“It’s a pissing contest. I’ve proposed that we have it out here. The techies want it in Austin, or maybe San Jose, the players want it in Hollywood, the intangibles want it on Wall Street. Everybody wants it in their own backyard. Nobody’s going to give.”

“You need me to do anything?”

“Not yet. I’ll growl at some of them, stroke others. You know the routine.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Carry on, Town.”

The connection is broken.

Town thinks he should have had a S.W.A.T. team to pick off that fucking Winnebago, or land mines on the road, or a tactical friggin’ nukuler device, that would have showed those bastards they meant business. It was like Mr. World had once said to him, We are writing the future in Letters of Fire and Mr. Town thinks that Jesus Christ, if he doesn’t piss now he’ll lose a kidney, it’ll just burst, and it was like his pop had said when they were on long journeys, when Town was a kid, out on the interstate, his pop would always say, “My back teeth are afloat,” and Mr. Town could hear that voice even now, that sharp Yankee accent saying “I got to take a leak soon. My back teeth are afloat” . . .

. . . and it was then that Shadow felt a hand opening his own hand, prising it open one finger at a time, off the thighbone it was clutching. He no longer needed to urinate; that was someone else. He was standing under the stars on a glassy rock plain.

Wednesday made the signal for silence again. Then he began to walk, and Shadow followed.

There was a creak from the mechanical spider, and Wednesday froze. Shadow stopped and waited with him. Green lights flickered and ran up and along its side in clusters. Shadow tried not to breathe too loudly.

He thought about what had just happened. It had been like looking through a window into someone else’s mind. And then he thought, Mr. World. It was me who thought his voice sounded familiar. That was my thought, not Town’s. That was why that seemed so strange. He tried to identify the voice in his mind, to put it into the category in which it belonged, but it eluded him.

It’ll come to me, thought Shadow. Sooner or later, it’ll come to me.

The green lights went blue, then red, then faded to a dull red, and the spider settled down on its metallic haunches. Wednesday began to walk forward, a lonely figure beneath the stars, in a broad-brimmed hat, his frayed dark cloak gusting randomly in the nowhere wind, his staff tapping on the glassy rock floor.

When the metallic spider was only a distant glint in the starlight, far back on the plain, Wednesday said, “It should be safe to speak, now.”

“Where are we?”

“Behind the scenes,” said Wednesday.

“Sorry?”

“Think of it as being behind the scenes. Like in a theater or something. I just pulled us out of the audience and now we’re walking about backstage. It’s a shortcut.”

“When I touched that bone. I was in the mind of a guy named Town. He’s with that spook show. He hates us.”

“Yes.”

“He’s got a boss named Mister World. He reminds me of someone, but I don’t know who. I was looking into Town’s head—or maybe I was in his head. I’m not certain.”

“Do they know where we’re headed?”

“I think they’re calling off the hunt right now. They didn’t want to follow us to the reservation. Are we going to a reservation?”

“Maybe.” Wednesday leaned on his staff for a moment, then continued to walk.

“What was that spider thing?”

“A pattern manifestation. A search engine.”

“Are they dangerous?”

“You only get to be my age by assuming the worst.”

Shadow smiled. “And how old would that be?”