Free American Gods by Neil Gaiman Page B

here. I can walk the rest of the way.”
    The young man nodded. “Good talking to you,” he said. The smoke had mellowed him. “You should know that if we do fucking kill you then we’ll just delete you. You got that? One click and you’re overwritten with random ones and zeros. Undelete is not an option.” He tapped on the window behind him. “He’s getting off here,” he said. Then he turned back to Shadow, pointed to his cigarette. “Synthetic toad-skins,” he said. “You know they can synthesize bufotenin now?”
    The car stopped. The person to Shadow’s right got out and held the door open for Shadow. Shadow climbed out awkwardly, his hands tied behind his back. He realized that he had not yet got a clear look at either of the people who had been in the back seat with him. He did not know if they were men or women, old or young.
    Shadow’s bonds were cut. The nylon strips fell to the tarmac. Shadow turned around. The inside of the car was now one writhing cloud of smoke in which two lights glinted, copper-colored, like the beautiful eyes of a toad. “It’s all about the dominant fucking paradigm, Shadow. Nothing else is important. And hey, sorry to hear about your old lady.”
    The door closed, and the stretch limo drove off, quietly. Shadow was a couple of hundred yards away from his motel, and he walked there, breathing the cold air, past red and yellow and blue lights advertising every kind of fast food a man could imagine, as long as it was a hamburger; and he reached the Motel America without incident.

CHAPTER THREE
    Every hour wounds. The last one kills.
    — OLD SAYING
    T here was a thin young woman behind the counter at the Motel America. She told Shadow he had already been checked in by his friend, and gave him his rectangular plastic room key. She had pale blonde hair and a rodent-like quality to her face that was most apparent when she looked suspicious, and eased when she smiled. Most of the time she looked at Shadow, she looked suspicious. She refused to tell him Wednesday’s room number, and insisted on telephoning Wednesday on the house phone to let him know his guest was here.
    Wednesday came out of a room down the hall, and beckoned to Shadow.
    “How was the funeral?” he asked.
    “It’s over,” said Shadow.
    “That shitty, huh? You want to talk about it?”
    “No,” said Shadow.
    “Good.” Wednesday grinned. “Too much talking these days. Talk talk talk. This country would get along much better if people learned how to suffer in silence. You hungry?”
    “A little.”
    “There’s no food here. But you can order a pizza and they’ll put it on the room.”
    Wednesday led the way back to his room, which was across the hall from Shadow’s. There were maps all over the room, unfolded, spread out on the bed, taped to the walls. Wednesday had drawn all over the maps in bright marking pens, fluorescent greens and painful pinks and vivid oranges.
    “I got hijacked by a fat kid in a limo,” said Shadow. “He says to tell you that you have been consigned to the dung heap of history while people like him ride in their limos down the superhighways of life. Something like that.”
    “Little snot,” said Wednesday.
    “You know him?”
    Wednesday shrugged. “I know who he is.” He sat down, heavily, on the room’s only chair. “They don’t have a clue,” he said. “They don’t have a fucking clue. How much longer do you need to stay in town?”
    “I don’t know. Maybe another week. I guess I need to wrap up Laura’s affairs. Take care of the apartment, get rid of her clothes, all that. It’ll drive her mother nuts, but the woman deserves it.”
    Wednesday nodded his huge head. “Well, the sooner you’re done, the sooner we can move out of Eagle Point. Good night.”
    Shadow walked across the hall. His room was a duplicate of Wednesday’s room, down to the print of a bloody sunset on the wall above the bed. He ordered a cheese and meatball pizza, then he ran a bath,