"I think I'm losing my mind." "Hello, Shadow." "We need to talk, Shadow." "There are bigger sacrifices one might be asked to make than going a little mad." "What's in Chicago?" "The hammer." "If I lose, I will go with Votan and do what he ask..." "And if you win?" "I get to knock your brains out with my hammer." "Right there." "Okay." "Mmm." "Mmm." "Perfect." "It's too good for them." "Eight grandchildren, each one smart as a table." "Assaf with his music." "He sounds like you." "Yeah." "No, it's too early to fry the onions." "Assaf likes them crisp." "No, no, it's not perfect." "More cinnamon." "Assaf?" "I told you no come before 5!" "And no more bringing me your laundry!" "I tell you I am done being your maid..." "You are in wrong floor." "Black people family is upstairs." "No mistake." "You are to come with me, Mrs. Fadil." "You have died, Mrs. Fadil." "And it is time for you to come with me." "I have company soon." "If you are here to rob, then rob." "There is a television, and I..." "I have a phone my grandson says is also a camera." "I wish I was but a thief." "I am not." "I am of Death." "You are dead, Mrs. Fadil." " That is me?" " That is you." "Your family will come soon and find you." "They will do right by your body and bury you as is proper." "They will be sad for a time, then they will find happiness again." "Your Assaf will marry in a year and name his first daughter for you." "A bullshit middle name?" "A bullshit middle name." "This is how they will find me?" "This is a Muslim home." "Why does Anubis hold out his hand for me?" "It is my thanks." "You were once a girl with your own Tita." "Who taught you the ways of Egypt old, of when the Nile was full and flooding." "She told you stories of the Wolf and the Jackal, the Red Wind, and of the Child of Bast." " I remember." " You do." "For that, I bring you to the Scales." "Come." "My family will find me." "They will not try it." "You taste." "It is perfect." "Sixty-eight years." "It's not much for America, but... more than my Tita ever prayed for." "Come." "This is not Queens." "This is not Queens." "I was using that." "We shall see if you have used it well." "I was unkind to the first boy who loved me." "I stole a doll once from my cousin." "I..." "I tried... my best." "Your best is good." "Each will take you to the Du'at." "The Du'at has many worlds." "Choose." "Which has my father?" "He beat me, and I would like not to see his world." "Choose." "You are a kind boy." "You choose for me?" "Are you sure I do this with you?" "Follow the wrong god," "I do not see my Tita again." "Careful!" "The Buffalo is waning tonight." "You're Zorya Poluch... ch... the sister that was sleeping." "I am Zorya Polunochnyaya, yes." "And you are called Shadow." "What are you looking at up there?" "I was looking at that." "See?" "The Big Dipper?" "Odin's Wain, they call it." "And the Great Bear." "It is a thing." "It's not a god." "Like a god." "It's a bad thing." "Chained up in those stars." "If it escapes, it will eat the whole of everything." "So we watch the sky... all day, all night, the three sisters." "If he escapes, the thing in the stars, the world is over." "Like that." "And people believe that?" "A long time ago." "You're not cold?" "Cold doesn't bother me." "This time is my time." "My sisters, they're of their times." "When is your time?" "Your birthday?" "No, I..." "I don't want my fortune told." "My fortunes are the best." "Virgins have the advantage." "And now we have something." "Oh." "No." "You have nothing." "You believe in nothing so you have nothing." "You are on a path... from nothing to everything." "You had something recently." "You lost it." " My... my wife." " Not your wife." "Did you sell your head to Czernobog?" "Yeah." "You keep giving away your life." "You don't much care if you live or die, do you?" "The world's not what I thought it would be." "You'd rather die than live in a world with bears in the sky." "I can help you." " First, you must do something for me." " What is it?" "Gotta fight you?" "Play checkers?" "You have to kiss me." "I have not ever been kissed." "I don't know if I like it." "We do this now." "I..." "Kissing is disgusting... but... but in a nice way, like, uh, bleu cheese or brandy." "Take the moon." "What?" "Just take it." "Here." "Don't lose this." "Don't give it away." "You've been given protection once." "You had the sun itself." "I can give you the moon." "It's the daughter, not the father." "Now... you wake up." "Is not sunrise yet." "Enjoy your time." "How about another game?" "Same terms." "How can be same?" "You want me to kill you twice?" "Right now you only have one blow." "One is all it takes." "That is... the art." "How long has it been... since you last swung a killing hammer in the stockyards, though?" "It's gotta be, like, what, twenty years?" "Thirty?" "I think you got used to the bolt gun." "I think you got weak, and I don't think you can kill me with one shot." "You could just leave me brain damaged, a drooling piss bag reminder that you got old." "That's not gonna do either of us any good, is it?" "If you're gonna smash my brains in," "I'd rather you finish the job." "I win, you come with me and Mister Wednesday, you'll still take your shot when we're through." "But you win... come sunrise, you'll take your second swing, if you need it." "No one needs to know but me." "Okay." "Another game." "You are light, I'm dark." "Enough visiting." "Go to bed." "I'm trying to." "You deserve better than this." "You no like it, you sleep on floor." "Is good enough for me." "You only learned to live with less." "There is food, there is roof." "What more do you need?" "A court to adore you." "In the old country, you were draped with pearl, loved, feared, waited upon." "Excess suits you." "Things will be better again soon enough." "Ah." "Your turn." "Ah." "Mm-hmm." "Bye-bye." "In old country," "I opened the gate for my father at dusk when he returned to us, then climb into black satin sheet." "Here, I tell pretty fortune for dollars." "Now, you've never told me mine." "This thing you want to do." "You will fail." "And they will win." "That's only my fortune today." "Come." "Walk with me, hmm?" "It will rain now." "Boy, will it ever." "Since when were you afraid of getting a little wet, hmm?" "You're playing the same game, old man." "Only get to fool me once." "Shut your mouth." "Still so beautiful." "I thought I told the pretty lies." "You want fortune or you want truth." "Oh, I want knowledge over comfort, over all things, always." "They will kill you this time." "Ahh..." "Do you remember when we were young?" "Barely." "Well, let me remind you." "What have you done?" "I can taste you on the rain." "What else can I taste?" "War." "All right." "I'll go with Votan to his Wisconsin." "Then I'm gonna kill you." "Is good?" "Is good." "Oh, you're up." "This is good." " Storm died." " No, it hasn't." "We're gonna rob a bank." "You want some coffee?" "You best be getting on, son." "Jack's Crocodile will take a bite outta you." "You won't shoot." "You'll try, but the gun will jam, or worse it'll backfire and you'll lose two fingers." "Don't push your luck." "Hey, there." "You look like you've seen better days, friend." " You okay there?" " I am not." " Where you headed?" " Wisconsin." "Take you as far as Madison." "Get in." " You a rapist?" " No." " Murderer?" " Not recently." "You?" "I got seats that tip back if you want a good sleep." "Eleven years sober, but I remember being on your side of the highway." "I'm not a drunk." "Okay." "Got a sack of cranberries on the floor." "Don't try to touch my knob." "Not my style, friend... and not my type." "But when you wake up, I might extol" " the virtues of the program." " Yeah, you do that." "Ah, that's some crazy bad luck." "No." "No, no, no, no, no." "Fuck." "Watch it!" "It's 11:35." "My appointment was for 11." "Mr. Blanding knows you're here." "Excuse me." "Can you perhaps call Mr. Blanding and tell him I am still waiting?" "He's at lunch." "When will he be back?" "He won't be coming back." "Excuse?" "Mr. Blanding." "He won't be coming back today." "Can I make an appointment for tomorrow?" "You have to telephone." "Appointments only by telephone." "I see." "Why are you smiling?" "A salesman is naked in America without a smile." "Tomorrow I will telephone." "Peak Hotel, please." "Fuck!" "Fuck!" "Shit!" "Fuck!" "Been driving this Allah-forsaken taxi for 30 hours." "It's too much." "I spent the day waiting to see a man who will not see me." "My brother-in-law hates me." "I have been in America for a week, and it has done nothing but eat my money." "I sell nothing." "Hmm." "What do you sell?" "Worthless gew-gaws and baubles and tourist trinkets." "It's horrible, cheap, foolish, ugly shit." " You try and sell shit." " I sell shit, yeah." "And they will not buy it?" " No." " Eh, strange." "'Cause when you look in the stores here, that's all they sell." "Shit." "Take Eighth Avenue." "We'll go uptown that way." "My grandmother... once swore that she had seen an ifrit, or perhaps a marid, late one evening, on the edge of the desert." "We all told her that it was just a sandstorm, a little wind, but she had seen its face." "And its eyes, like yours, were burning flames." "Grandmothers came here, too." "Are there many jinn in New York?" "No." "There are angels, there are men who Allah made from mud." "Then there are the people of the fire, the jinn." "They know nothing about my people here." "They think all we do is grant wishes." "If I could grant a wish, do you think I would be driving a cab?" "Once I had a man shit in the back seat." "I had to clean wet shit from that seat." "Tell me, is that right?" "That's not right." "Keep the change." "I'm in room 318." "Going to 76th and Madison." "I wish you can see what I see." "I do not grant wishes." "But you do." "I do not grant wishes." "This is the bank I'll be robbing, so let's go say hello." "Are you outta your goddamn mind?" "Have a little faith, son." "Hell, no." "Well, how about faith in a higher power wanting me to succeed?" "Fuck, no." "Oh, fuck, yes." "You're my bodyguard, huh?" "That means you guard my body." "Is that not right?" "Not when you're robbing a bank." "At the moment, my body is going to the bank." "It's not robbing it." "Come on, learn." "It'll be fun." "All right, look." "We had a compact or whatever the fuck you called it." "Okay?" "I'm not doing anything illegal." "Oh, you're not." "Well, apart from maybe a little aiding and abetting, and, of course, receiving stolen money." "I'll tell you what, at the end of this, you're gonna come out smelling like a rose." "Fuck." "Fuck." "Fuck." "Excuse me." "Could you tell me where the deposit slips are, please?" "Right out the front door on the wall." "And if I needed to make an overnight deposit?" " Same forms." " Oh, thank you." "Oh, you do not look happy." "I am five days out of prison, you're fixing to put me back in by six." "Do not bleed before you are wounded, huh?" "Would you like me to get you a hot chocolate?" "Yeah, come on!" "Let me buy you a hot cocoa." "Jot that number down." "Got you marshmallows in your cocoa." "You like marshmallows?" "Why are you talking to me about marshmallows?" "Like I'm worried about marshmallows." "Yeah, I like marshmallows." "What we need is snow." "Hard, driving, irritating snow." "I want you to think "snow."" "Think "snow."" "Think "snow."" " Snow?" " Snow." "Yeah, snow." "See those clouds over there to the west?" "Concentrate on making those bigger, darker." "Think about dark skies and driving winds coming down from the Arctic." " Think "snow."" " Okay." " And how's this gonna help?" " Might not do anything." "But at least it will concentrate your mind." "Snow, snow." "Snow." "Snow." "Snow." "We're here." "Well, I'm here." "You're somewhere else." "Just thinking about snow." "That woman thinks Jesus suffered for her sins." "They're her sins." "Why should Jesus do all the suffering?" "'Cause his dad sacrificed his ass." "Don't blame the parent." "Plenty of suffering and blame to go around, although that White Jesus, well, could stand a little more suffering." "He's doing very well for himself these days." "And how many colors does Jesus come in?" "Why, you got your White Jesuit-style Jesus." "You got your Black African Jesus." "You got your Brown Mexican Jesus." "You got your swarthy Greek Jesus." "You've got..." "Well, that's a..." "That's a lotta Jesus." "There's a lotta need for Jesus, so there's a lotta Jesus." "Now, the Mexican Jesus came here the same way a lot of Mexicans do." " Illegally." " Oh..." "No, that's not being racial." "You can ask Him." "He'll tell you." "He waded across the Rio Grande, his back as wet as the epithet suggests." "Next customer." "Good afternoon." "I want to insta-print a couple of sets of business cards." "And I may need your assistance with printing some posters." "Snow." "Snow." "Snow." "I think that's enough." "Enough what?" "Snow." "Don't want to immobilize the city." " I thought of snow." " And it snowed." "What do you know?" "I love this place." "Food's not particularly good, but the ambiance... unmissable." "Come on, eat up." "Can't rob a bank on an empty stomach." "No, I'm not hungry." "Who says you have to be hungry to eat?" "Wasn't supposed to snow today." "Wasn't even supposed to be cold." "So, you're perfectly okay believing that tiny people on television can predict the weather, but you crinkle with consternation at the mere suggestion that you could make it snow." "One of those things is science, okay?" "The other is fantasy." "You're talking about it like it's apples and oranges." "It's not apples and oranges, okay?" "It's reality and fantasy." "Oh, so that's how the world works!" "It's either real or it's fantasy?" "Yeah, that's how the world works." "Yeah, says the man who hasn't seen it." "Shadow, at best, you suffer from a failure of imagination." "We're gonna have to fix that." "Uh-oh, look what the goat dragged in." " Cat." " Goat." "Big, rank, stinking goat." "Mad Sweeney, you look like a man who's fallen on hard times from a great height." "Thought I wasn't gonna see you until Wisconsin." "I'll never make it to Wisconsin, not with the current state of my luck." "This cunt's got my coin." "Give me my coin, cunt." " The coin you gave me?" " Witness." "He has a point." "I gave you the wrong coin." "The one I gave you was my lucky coin." "Well, you can't afford to be too careless with a lucky coin." "Something like that, you wanna hang on to." "Tell you what, I'll give you your lucky coin back when you tell me how you plucked it out of thin air." "I plucked it outta thin air is how I plucked it outta thin air, ya bug-eatin' nonce." "Now give me my coin." "I threw it away." "Where did you throw it away?" "Eagle Point, Indiana." "So, if you want your lucky coin back, make your way to Parkview Cemetery." "There you will find my wife's grave with your coin on top." "Oh, you fucker." "Suppose I'll just be one more in a long line of men to climb on top of your dead wife." "Be nice." " I'll see you in Wisconsin." " Yeah." "Good luck, Mad Sweeney." "I'll see you back at the car." "Just make sure he doesn't steal it, huh?" "Now, you're gonna do a little light shopping at the grocery store." "Pass a little time at the phone booth." "If anybody asks you what you're doing, well, you're waiting for a call from your girlfriend." "Her car broke down." "Here." " Who the fuck is this?" " You the fuck is this." ""A. Haddock, Director of Security, A1 Security Services."" "Yeah, that's you." "But what's the "A" stand for?" "Alberto?" "Alphonse?" "Augustine?" "Ambrose?" "It's entirely up to you." ""Asshole" is what I feel like." "Nice to meet you, Asshole." "I'm James O'Gorman." "Jimmy to my friends." "I got a card, too." "Okay." "Let's get outta here." "I'm gonna leave you with one question." "If at the end of this night you do not end up in jail, will you believe in me?" "Don't answer that question." "No." "No, no, no, no, no." "Fuck!" "A1 Security Services." "Can I speak to A. Haddock?" "Uh, this is Andy Haddock." "Mr. Haddock, this is the Chicago Police." "You've got a man at the First River Bank on the corner of Market and Second." "Uh... yeah." "That's..." "That's right, Officer." "It-It should be James O'Gorman." "Is there a problem?" "No problem, sir." "Just wanted to make sure everything's in order." " Well, thank you." " We're just concerned, because something like this really ought to be handled by two personnel." "Oh, tell me about yet." "B-Better yet, you tell those stingy bastards down at First River Bank about it." "I mean, these are my men I'm putting on the line." "You know, they're good men." "You know, you sound like a bright young man, Officer..." " Myerson." " Officer Myerson." "If you ever need any extra weekend work, you just give us a call." "You got my card?" "Yes, sir." "Hang onto it." "You call us." "Yes, sir." "Have a good evening, sir." "So that's what you do to make money." "You believe in me now?" "I believe you exist." "Oh, I think I deserve a little more faith than that." "Are you back in jail?" "All that whining about going back to jail, and you haven't, have you?" "Not yet." "This is the only country in the world that wonders what it is." "You've been to a lot of other countries, have you?" "No." "No, never, just this one." "Just that the others know what they are." "I mean, no one wonders about the heart of Norway or goes searching for the soul of Mozambique." "Mozambique knows what it is." "They all know what they are." "Americans know who they are." "They pretend they know." "But it's still just pretending, like I'm pretending now." "Just like you." "What am I pretending?" "You are pretending you cannot believe in impossible things." "Uh, I'd be genuinely deluded if I believed that shit." "If you are deluded, I believe it's genuine." "You don't strike me as the disingenuous type." "Okay, let's go." "Huh?" "Did I make snow?" "Did you make snow?" "Well, if you choose to believe you made snow, then you get to live the rest of your life believing that you can do things that are impossible." "Or you can believe it's a delusion." "No, see, delusions feel real, okay?" "That's why it's a delusion." "None of this feels real." "It feels like a dream." "What a beautiful, beautiful thing to be able to dream when you're not asleep." "I've..." "I've crossed enough paths to know that one in four people are rock stupid." "Even the smart ones have got some kind of delusion they believe in, whether it's gods or ghosts." "Do you believe in love?" "Yeah, I believe the shit out of love." "Did you always?" "Not before Laura." "So you didn't believe till you did, and then the world changed because you believed." "Belief is only a product of the company we keep and how easily we scare." "And you do not scare easily." "And my company is questionable." "Always has been." "The only thing that scares me is being forgotten." "I can survive most things but not that." "Very best part of memory is it's mostly about forgetting." "We remember what's important to us." "I wonder what'll be the first thing that drifts through your mind when you look back on this evening?" "Snow, I bet." "Room 55." "Hi, puppy."