American Gods by Neil Gaiman Page A

become clear in time.”
    Wednesday paid and they left, walked back across the road to the motel parking lot. Wednesday tossed Shadow the car keys. He drove down to the freeway and out of town.
    “You going to miss it?” asked Wednesday. He was sorting through a folder filled with maps.
    “The town? No. Too many Laura memories. I didn’t really ever have a life here. I was never in one place too long as a kid, and I didn’t get here until I was in my twenties. So this town is Laura’s.”
    “Let’s hope she stays here,” said Wednesday.
    “It was a dream,” said Shadow. “Remember.”
    “That’s good,” said Wednesday. “Healthy attitude to have. Did you fuck her last night?”
    Shadow took a breath. Then, “That is none of your damn business. And no.”
    “Did you want to?”
    Shadow said nothing at all. He drove north, toward Chicago. Wednesday chuckled, and began to pore over his maps, unfolding and refolding them, making occasional notes on a yellow legal pad with a large silver ballpoint pen.
    Eventually he was finished. He put his pen away, put the folder on the back seat. “The best thing about the states we’re heading for,” said Wednesday, “Minnesota, Wisconsin, all around there, is it has the kind of women I liked when I was younger. Pale-skinned and blue-eyed, hair so fair it’s almost white, wine-colored lips, and round, full breasts with the veins running through them like a good cheese.”
    “Only when you were younger?” asked Shadow. “Looked like you were doing pretty good last night.”
    “Yes.” Wednesday smiled. “Would you like to know the secret of my success?”
    “You pay them?”
    “Nothing so crude. No, the secret is charm. Pure and simple.”
    “Charm, huh? Well, like they say, you either got it or you ain’t.”
    “Charms can be learnt,” said Wednesday.
    “So where are we going?” asked Shadow.
    “There’s an old friend of mine we need to talk to. He’s one of the people who’ll be coming to the get-together. Old man, now. He’s expecting us for dinner.”
    They drove north and west, toward Chicago.
    “Whatever’s happening with Laura,” said Shadow, breaking the silence. “Is it your fault? Did you make it happen?”
    “No,” said Wednesday.
    “Like the kid in the car asked me: would you tell me if it was?”
    “I’m as puzzled as you are.”
    Shadow tuned the radio to an oldies station, and listened to songs that were current before he was born. Bob Dylan sang about a hard rain that was going to fall, and Shadow wondered if that rain had fallen yet, or if it was something that was still going to happen. The road ahead of them was empty and the ice crystals on the asphalt glittered like diamonds in the morning sun.
     
    C hicago happened slowly, like a migraine. First they were driving through countryside, then, imperceptibly, the occasional town became a low suburban sprawl, and the sprawl became the city.
    They parked outside a squat black brownstone. The sidewalk was clear of snow. They walked to the lobby. Wednesday pressed the top button on the gouged metal intercom box. Nothing happened. He pressed it again. Then, experimentally, he began to press the other buttons, for other tenants, with no response.
    “It’s dead,” said a gaunt old woman, coming down the steps. “Doesn’t work. We call the super, ask him when he going to fix, when he going to mend the heating, he does not care, goes to Arizona for the winter for his chest.” Her accent was thick, Eastern European, Shadow guessed.
    Wednesday bowed low. “Zorya, my dear, may I say how unutterably beautiful you look? A radiant creature. You have not aged.”
    The old woman glared at him. “He don’t want to see you. I don’t want to see you neither. You bad news.”
    “That’s because I don’t come if it isn’t important.”
    The woman sniffed. She carried an empty string shopping bag, and wore an old red coat, buttoned up to her chin, and, perched on her gray hair, a green