American Gods by Neil Gaiman Read Free Book Online

“No, honey, he’s not here. He’s gone away.”
    She turns the telephone off before she flops out on the bed in the dark red room, then she stretches once more, and she closes her eyes, and she sleeps.

CHAPTER TWO
    They took her to the cemet’ry
    In a big ol’ Cadillac
    They took her to the cemet’ry
    But they did not bring her back.
    — OLD SONG
    I have taken the liberty,” said Mr. Wednesday, washing his hands in the men’s room of Jack’s Crocodile Bar, “of ordering food for myself, to be delivered to your table. We have much to discuss, after all.”
    “I don’t think so,” said Shadow. He dried his own hands on a paper towel and crumpled it, and dropped it into the bin.
    “You need a job,” said Wednesday. “People don’t hire ex-cons. You folk make them uncomfortable.”
    “I have a job waiting. A good job.”
    “Would that be the job at the Muscle Farm?”
    “Maybe,” said Shadow.
    “Nope. You don’t. Robbie Burton’s dead. Without him the Muscle Farm’s dead too.”
    “You’re a liar.”
    “Of course. And a good one. The best you will ever meet. But, I’m afraid, I’m not lying to you about this.” He reached into his pocket, produced a newspaper, much folded, and handed it to Shadow. “Page seven,” he said. “Come on back to the bar. You can read it at the table.” Shadow pushed open the door, back into the bar. The air was blue with smoke, and the Dixie Cups were on the jukebox singing “Iko Iko.” Shadow smiled, slightly, in recognition of the old children’s song.
    The barman pointed to a table in the corner. There was a bowl ofchili and a burger at one side of the table, a rare steak and a bowl of fries laid in the place across from it.
    Look at my King all dressed in Red,
    Iko Iko all day,
    I bet you five dollars he’ll kill you dead,
    Jockamo-feena-nay
    Shadow took his seat at the table. He put the newspaper down. “I got out of prison this morning,” he said. “This is my first meal as a free man. You won’t object if I wait until after I’ve eaten to read your page seven?”
    “Not in the slightest bit.”
    Shadow ate his hamburger. It was better than prison hamburgers. The chili was good but, he decided, after a couple of mouthfuls, not the best in the state.
    Laura made a great chili. She used lean-cut meat, dark kidney beans, carrots cut small, a bottle or so of dark beer, and freshly sliced hot peppers. She would let the chili cook for a while, then add red wine, lemon juice, and a pinch of fresh dill, and, finally, measure out and add her chili powders. On more than one occasion Shadow had tried to get her to show him how she made it: he would watch everything she did, from slicing the onions and dropping them into the olive oil at the bottom of the pot on. He had even written down the sequence of events, ingredient by ingredient, and he had once made Laura’s chili for himself on a weekend when she had been out of town. It had tasted okay—it was certainly edible, and he ate it, but it had not been Laura’s chili.
    The news item on page seven was the first account of his wife’s death that Shadow had read. It felt strange, as if he were reading about someone in a story: how Laura Moon, whose age was given in the article as twenty-seven, and Robbie Burton, thirty-nine, were in Robbie’s car on the interstate, when they swerved into the path of a thirty-two wheeler, which sideswiped them as it tried to change lanes and avoid them. The truck brushed Robbie’s car and sent it spinning off the side of the road, where the car had hit a road sign, hard, and stopped spinning.
    Rescue crews were on the scene in minutes. They pulled Robbie andLaura from the wreckage. They were both dead by the time they arrived at the hospital.
    Shadow folded the newspaper up once more, and slid it back across the table, toward Wednesday, who was gorging himself on a steak so bloody and so blue it might never have been introduced to a kitchen flame.
    “Here. Take it back,”