"There's no good way to say this so I'll put it plain." "Your wife died in the early hours of this morning." "Don't look at me like that, like you're a lost puppy." "Oh, shit, Shadow." "No one told you?" "My lucky coin." "Do you believe in the afterlife?" "You rot." "When you die, you rot." "I love you, puppy." "It's not always gonna be tails." "It had been a hard journey east across the land bridge from Siberia." "Freezing and dark, and it had taken a bitter toll." "After the custom of her people," "Atsula spoke her baby's name..." "Aputi." "For the final time." "Her daughter would never see the new land to which they traveled." "They did not travel alone." "Their god came with them." "Nunyunnini." "But when they reached the new lands, the promised food was nowhere to be found." "Atsula communed with Nunyunnini for the barriers were thinner then between people and their gods." "And Nunyunnini spoke." "And he showed her what to do, as he had once shown her grandmother, and her grandmother's grandmother." "Nunyunnini loved His people, as they loved Him." "And so it pained Him to tell her that escape from the cold embrace of starvation would come at a terrible price." "The gods are great." "But people are greater." "For it is in their hearts that gods are born, and to their hearts that they return." "Gods live and gods die." "And soon enough," "Nunyunnini was entirely... forgotten." "Hi, puppy." "Hey... baby." "The fuck are you doing here?" "I'm cold, puppy." "I was just seeing if you were real." "I'm real." "Here." "Come sit by me." "Yo, we got some unresolved issues to discuss." "You and Robbie?" "Yes." "Yes." "There is that." "Uh, there's also the miracle of me sitting here posthumously." "I mean, that's a pretty significant thing for us to discuss, too." "And to appreciate." "I think maybe we should take a moment and do that." "No, no." "You rising from the dead?" "It's about par for the fucking course since I left prison, okay?" "So don't think that anything that you got to say or do, including dying, is going to distract from the subject at hand." "Okay, you want to know about me and Robbie?" " Yeah." " To what degree do you want to know?" "I mean, do you want to know everything, or you want to know the broad strokes, so to speak?" "Why don't you start telling me?" "And I will tell you when to stop." "I wasn't lying when I said that I could wait for you at the time that I said it." "I sort of knew that it had the potential of being a lie, but I was giving myself the benefit of the doubt that there was a version of events where it wouldn't be a lie." "You were in prison, Shadow." "How long did you wait?" "13 months." "Baker's year." "Why did you have to fuck Robbie?" "Well, I wasn't going to do it, and then I was going to do it, and then I wasn't going to do it, and then it felt really good having not done it, and then... the cat died... and, um..." "Robbie came over and, you know, wine." "You know what they say about grief." "Next to every cemetery is a motel." "Once we did it, we'd already done it, and there was no undoing it." "Were you going to leave me for him?" "For Robbie?" "Please." "Why would I do that?" "You're my puppy." "I love you." "I..." "So..." "Ahem." "What happened?" "The night you were killed, what... what happened?" "Um... so anyway, we were driving, and he was upset, and so I decided to give him a little goodbye blow job." "You know?" "One last time with feeling." "And so I unzipped his pants." "Big mistake." "Yeah." "No shit." "Um, he swerved, and there was a big crunch, and the world started to roll and spin, and I thought... fuck." "I'm going to die." "I mean, really, I was very blah about the whole thing." "I wasn't scared." "I remember that." "Then I was... somewhere." "And then..." "I was in a box." "Puppy, do you think that you could possibly get me a cigarette?" "Think it might calm my nerves." "Might calm yours as well." "Laura?" "I'm in here, puppy." "I thought it might be nice if I were warm to the touch, in the event that you were thinking of touching me." "Or kissing me." "I don't want you kissing cold lips." "What?" "Normally, people who die tend to stay in their graves, that's what." "Do they really, puppy?" "I mean, I used to think so, too, but now I'm not so sure." "Maybe." "Yeah, what is it?" "Whoa, whoa, whoa." "Slow down." "What?" "Can't taste it." "This is not doing anything, nerve-wise or otherwise." "Want to put that on my finger?" "When I called you, the last time..." "I had a feeling I was never going to see you again." "I think I knew you were going to die." "I had this feeling in my stomach that something was wrong." "There is a big storm rolling across the country right now, and nothing feels okay." "This feels okay." "You and me... it can." "I'm sure there are some things about our marriage that we're going to have to work on." "What, like you being dead?" "I tasted that." "I felt that." "I just..." "I felt something." "It felt like..." "Like alive." "Do I feel alive?" "Yeah." "Good." "You know?" "I don't really know much more now than I did when I was alive, and I think whatever I know now that I didn't know then" "I-I can't even really put into words." "But I do know that I love you." "I mean, I..." "I had to die to know just how much, but..." "I really do." "You know, you've gotten yourself mixed up in some really weird shit, Shadow." "I'm watching out for you." "Thank you for my present, by the way." "What present?" "My coin." "Yeah, I know someone looking for that coin." "Well, they can't have it." "It's mine now." "Are you still my puppy?" "No." "I'm not." "Still awake?" " I think so." " Yeah, me, too." "Can't sleep." "Recent events have conspired against us both, and I need a drink." "A man can admit that, huh?" "Yeah, uh, I just really want to go to bed," " put the day behind me." " Come on." "One drink." "Well, that's a lie." "Five, six drinks." "Now isn't the time." "Shadow." "You must have questions, and if you don't, you should." "What is that smell?" "What is it, cat piss and oven cleaner?" "Yeah, I do..." "I do have questions." "Hey, I..." "I'm making a list, a long list." "But right now," "I just need to wrap my head around what I've seen." "I see you've seen something." "Hmm." "Hands where I can see them." "Now." "My hands are right here, ma'am." "Didn't take long." "Parole officer says you've been out" " all of six days." " What's this about, ma'am?" "You're under arrest, genius." "May I ask what for?" "Bank robbery." "Fuck." "Why, you pretty thing, you." "What?" "You have an image problem." "You need to think about your brand, how you want the world to see you." "How you want Mr. World to see you." "Tasked with asking a few questions." "You hang a black man from a tree." "You've got your transmission and your live wire, but your circuit's dead." "He was fucking with me." "I told him not to fuck with me." "Take a look at you, beating up the wrong guy." "You're a good kid, just not good with people you don't know." "Apologize." "Please pass on my sincerest apologies to Mr. World." "Mr. World doesn't want your apology." "He would, however, like to regift your apology to Wednesday and his man Shadow Moon." "Are you fucking with me right now?" "Mr. World expects your apology to be every bit as authentic as if you were apologizing to him directly." "He's letting the old fuck get away with it." "There is a terror in knowing what Mr. World is about." "Wednesday was suffocating." "The spark was smoldering." "And then you came along, putting out fire with gasoline." "Wednesday's collecting monsters." "Fucking Pokémon." "He's recruiting." "Martyrdom is a popular recruitment tool." "And now we have to pluck the fuse out of the fucker before the whole thing blows up in our faces." "You're delusional if you think he's letting go of whatever it is he's holding on to with a little apology from me." "That is one mass fucking delusion." "Mass delusions are as old as I am." "I was there when the Martians invaded in 1938." "What a panic." "Powerful panic." "Now there are starmen waiting in the sky." "They believed it was true, and it was." "Not everyone believed." "Not everyone had to." "Just enough." "That's all Mr. Wednesday needs..." "Just enough." "Maybe just one." "Your boss doesn't seem to have an I.D., record, somehow even a name." "You got all those, Mr. Moon, record especially." "Lawyer." "Didn't catch that." "You're probably asking yourself about now how it came to pass that two country-fried police even found you at that motel for a crime committed over... count 'em..." "Two state lines." "It's a good story." "Just ask." "Lawyer, please." "Hmm." "I thought maybe you were gonna say something different." "So this guy Moon robbed you?" "He stole me." "From the, uh," "Aged Oaks Retirement Home where you live?" " What Oaks?" " Mm-hmm." "Yeah, mmm..." "No, no, no, no, no, no." "There's no sand there." "I live on a beach." "Always have." "We like to go fishing, me and the boys, you know?" "My wife hates it, though." "She..." "She loves fish." "Loves wine." "Hates fishing." "Uh, why don't we start with your name, huh?" "Madam Life's a piece in bloom." "Death goes dogging everywhere." "She's a tenant of the room." "He's the ruffian on the stair." "Look, I get it." "You're a week out of jail." "You meet some old grifter, seems to know his way around." "Guy offers a job, a chance to learn." "But I think this boss of yours pissed off some big-time bombers." "And whether you realize it or not, you're about to get hit by the shrapnel." "Lawyer." "Ah." "What were you doing in Chicago?" "You wouldn't believe me if I told you." "Try me." "Chicago." "Honest answers only." "If you can manage." "God's honest." "I was recruiting a tired but still vital god of death into a war against the new gods who very rightly fear him as much as they should fear me but don't yet." "You're not dumb." "Might even be smart." "I get that, and I respect that." "In every other case, you'd be doing what experience advises." "And the reason I take pause here, the reason I'm hoping you will break from the natural script is that this is, I suspect, suspect strongly, this is not the average case." "So... take a moment to consider answering my next question before saying what you're going to say anyway." "Okay?" "Does your boss have enemies?" "Lawyer." "The reason I ask is because some anonymous tip dropped you right in our laps, boxed up with a bow." "But not the usual, uh, "Hey, I saw someone" ""who looked like the guy on 'America's Most Wanted' at the Carl's Jr." "Drive-thru."" "This was, uh, I'm going to say different." "I got a goddamn fax on a machine hasn't been turned on in..." "I don't know..." "Since fax machines." "And this fax gave us your precise location," "GPS coordinates, make, model, mileage, even VIN number of your Caddy." "So, much as I'd get accolades if we collar you two for the bank bullshit, it's nowhere near as big or as interesting as what is suggested by the details." "Now, you help me unpack those," "I may just help get you out of here." "You have my attention." "Now, the leprechaun, h-he's been against all this from the get-go, but he's at a disadvantage being as he is a fucking idiot." "Now, Nancy, he comes at all of this from a specific vantage of the bitterly dispossessed, which normally I would take with a grain, but I have to admit, having seen the rope burns around my friend's neck..." "So imagine:" "two rural police, middle of wild turkey season, and the same company whose tech found Osama, is dropping two no-name grifters in our lap." "You two have very extravagant enemies." "Lawyer?" "What's the ask?" "Oh, you got me curious." "I'd like to know what you know." "Uh, don't think you do." "I'm a big girl." "I make my own mistakes." "You offering me something?" "Might be." "I want to walk out of here." "Soon." "Got somewhere to be?" "Prison Bureau says... your wife just passed away." "DA can be persuaded to look leniently on that." "Losing a wife." "It's got to be complicated." "You're the wife." "You're the dead wife." "Give me my fucking coin, dead wife." "Aah!" "You mean my fucking coin." "The dead can't own things." "That's why God made last wills and testaments." "Don't imagine yours includes my lucky coin." "Oh!" "Ohh!" "Oh!" "My lucky coin, Ginger Minge." "Fuck." "My husband gave that coin to me." "Damn his dark eyes." "Gave it a-fucking-way." "Wasn't his to give!" "I gave him the wrong coin." "Wasn't meant to be that coin." "That's for royalty, see?" "That's a coin you'd give to the King of America himself, not some piss-ant bastard like your piece-of-shit husband." "Just give me my fucking coin back!" "No." "You'll never see me again if you do." "I swear to fucking Bran, okay?" "I..." "I swear by the years I spent in the fucking trees." "Give me my coin, cunt!" "Ohh!" "I'm going to ask you some questions, and I'd like for you to answer me honestly." "However, if I feel like you're not being honest," "I'm going to kick you in the nuts." "And I want you to know that the last time I kicked a guy in the nuts, my foot didn't stop until it reached his throat." "Okay?" "How do you know my husband?" "I was told to be at a bar, pick a fight with your man." "Said he wanted to see what your man was made of." " Who said?" " Aah!" "Use your words." "Uhh!" "Grimnir!" "The dude he calls Wednesday." "Uhh!" "Fuck." "He's a god." "You don't believe me?" "No, no." "Just processing." "Um, what else did God tell you to do?" "You shouldn't trust him..." " Grimnir." " Wednesday." " Don't trust him." " Don't have to trust him." "Your man does, and he shouldn't." "Listen, just give me my fucking coin back, yeah?" "Hey." "There's more where that came from." "I'll give you another." "Just as good." "Hell." "I'll give you a shitload." "Just as good?" "Just as good." "Mm." "I don't really feel like any of those coins are going to do the job that my coin's doing." "You can't take it, can you?" "I have to give it to you freely, right?" "Right." "Well, you're fucked." "I'm not going to give it to you." "Come on." "I don't think you're ever going to get your coin back." "Never ever ever." "Not ever." "Not not ever." "Meat's going to slide off you sooner or later, dead wife." "Sooner if you keep soaking it in hot water." "All that connective tissue holding you together." "Well, that's gonna liquefy." "You'll find yourself on a hot, humid summer day just cooking in that moist heat." "And you're going to fall right off the bone." "When you do," "I'm going to reach up under those ribs, and I'm going to pluck that coin out of you like a berry." "Aah!" "Freeze!" "Hands up!" "She ain't dead!" "She ain't dead." "See?" "Oh, you're an asshole." "You're a fucking asshole, dead wife." "You're a fucking asshole, dead wife!" "You're an asshole, dead wife!" "He's loyal." "So you two talk about whatever you need to talk about." "Then I want to hear it." "I have nothing to talk about." "Hmm." "Something to talk about now?" "I'll leave you two to it." "What the fuck are you doing?" "We don't get out of here soon, they'll be carrying out a couple of corpses." "Those photographs are a particular god's eye-view of the world." "Okay, how'd you do that?" "See that little spider?" "He's a friend of mine." "That cop was right, wasn't she?" "Someone big is after you." "You're afraid." "I thought you weren't afraid of anything." "Who are you?" "Who's after you?" "Who's after you?" "Who's after you!" "Someone you don't want to let see your face until you're ready to be seen." ""I Love Lucy"?" "How the fuck are you floating?" "Happy birthday, Mr. President." "No." "No, no, no, no, no, no, no." "You..." "You..." "You're TV." "You..." "You..." "You were black and white." "I'm as colorful as the story I'm telling." "This one's filmed in glorious Technicolor." "Full-color pinup to film legend to murdered." "Oh, don't believe what they say about an accidental overdose." "Last thing I saw from the floor of my Brentwood bungalow was a CIA spook jabbing a needle into my eyeball, lest I tell Kennedy tales unwanted." "Isn't that delicious?" "Oh." "We have no business with you." "Not at the moment." "We want to change that." "It's just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as a poor man." "No, no, no, no, no." "This isn't real." "Okay?" "This is reality reprogrammed, right?" "Tell me this isn't real." "Mr. Wednesday." "Overdue." "I have to start with an apology." "I've been remiss." "I should have reached out to you ages ago." "But to be honest, I didn't see you, not clearly, not like this here now in person." "You are huge." "It's a pleasure to meet you." "Have we met?" "Do not talk to him." "Do not say a word." "Do not tell him anything." "You don't have to." "I already know you." "No, you don't." "Sure I do." "You're a person." "I know people, everything about all of them." "Shadow Moon." "You have a blood type and a recurring nightmare." "B-positive and an orchard of bones." "You prefer Swiss to cheddar and can't abide the tines of two forks touching." "And this is the face you make when you masturbate." "The same as your mother, who had 86 sexual partners throughout her life." "Everything that happens is recorded and stored and recalled..." "The Book of Life." "Ahem." "Right." "Yes, yes, yes, yes." "Is he still sulking?" "I'm sorry." "For lynching you." "Hanged a dark-skinned man." "Ugh." "Was in very poor taste." "We're in a weird, tense place racially in America, and I don't want to add to that climate of hatred." "Would you like to hit him a bit?" "Knock out his front teeth?" "No." "I'm glad that we have this behind us." "Like a Renaissance pope, I absolve you." "You may sit." "You have something to say to the man." "Ahem." "Technology's evolving." "We're all evolving." "It would be an honor, sir, to evolve with you." "I can help you." "I want to help you..." "Influence opinions, behaviors, beliefs like never before." "We want to help you find your audience." "You see?" "We're not here to fight." "So you're offering a truce." "A truce implies that we were ever at war." "You might have been but I wasn't." "No, not a truce." " A..." " A merger." "Yes." "A merger." "Like champagne and potato chips." "You ever dip a potato chip into champagne?" "It's real crazy, yeah?" "Wouldn't you like an upgrade?" "A brand-new lemon-scented you?" "Oh, I'm a fine me." "I just keep getting better every year." "Of course you are, and that is the you that deserves to be seen incorporated." "Everyone in the world gets their place." "With you?" "That's why they call me Mr. World." "And if they don't agree?" "I get it." "I do." "You're an individualist." "Rugged individualism." "It simply doesn't work anymore." "Brands." "Sure." "A useful heuristic." "But ultimately, everything is all systems interlaced, a single product manufactured by a single company for a single global market." "Spicy, medium, or chunky." "They get a choice, of course." "Of course!" "But they are buying salsa." "Show him." "The ODIN guidance satellite." "To be launched over North Korea next month." "Just imagine." "Lightning raining down from the sky in the form of precision guided missiles." "Could you imagine?" "24.9 million people." "They will know your name lickety-kite." "Brand rebranded, and just the start." "No more stolen scraps, shortchanging, hand-to-mouth, gray hairs." "No more motels and byways." "A place in tomorrow..." "Current, lasting." "Valhalla anew." "Doesn't that sound swell?" "An oyster." "Inside every pearl there's a single irritating grain of sand." "That's me." "Otherwise, you wouldn't be here." "Just like an oyster, you're trying to cover me up with something smooth and shiny..." "Pretty on a necklace, but inside the shell, that slimy thing just wants that scratchy thing out of there." "You say a merger?" "I hear exile." "It's not our fault they found other ways to occupy their time." "That's all you do, occupy their time." "We gave back." "We gave them meaning." "Then give it to them again." "You're leaving?" "On a good line." "It was a good line." "He's here." "You have him." "You're letting him go." "You keep letting him go." "I'm giving him opportunity to consider." "Why?" "You have him." "Get a yes or kill the goonie cunt." "Bury him upside-down..." "This man is older than you will ever be." "He has wisdom, has knowledge, which is different, as you would know if you had either." "This man deserves our respect." "Fuck respect." "My gift to you." "We'll be telling this story, Shadow." "You can tell it however you like or don't like." "I'm not your enemy." "Was this real?" "Did that just happen?" "It's still happening." "Dispatch control..." "What story are they going to tell here?" "Any one they want." "Someone's coming." "Dispatch control." "This is Cassius PD 6651." "Radio check." "Kick it." "There." "Ohh!" "Fuck!" "Ho-ohh!"