to meet you,” he said with a dazzling smile. “I know who you must be. You’re working for the old one-eye bastard, aren’t you?” There was a faint twang in his voice, a hint of a patois that might have been West Indian.
“I work for Mister Wednesday,” said Shadow. “Yes. Please, sit down.”
Czernobog inhaled on his cigarette.
“I think,” he pronounced, gloomily, “that our kind, we like the cigarettes so much because they remind us of the offerings that once they burned for us, the smoke rising up as they sought our approval or our favor.”
“They never gave me nothin’ like that,” said Nancy. “Best I could hope for was a pile of fruit to eat, maybe curry goat, something slow and cold and tall to drink, and a big old high-titty woman to keep me company.” He grinned white teeth, and winked at Shadow.
“These days,” said Czernobog, his expression unchanged, “we have nothing.”
“Well, I don’t get anywhere near as much fruit as I used to,” said Mr. Nancy, his eyes shining. “But there still ain’t nothing out there in the world for my money that can beat a big old high-titty woman. Some folk you talk to, they say it’s the booty you got to inspect at first, but I’m here to tell you that it’s the titties that still crank my engine on a cold morning.” Nancy began to laugh, a wheezing, rattling, good-natured laugh, and Shadow found himself liking the old man despite himself.
Wednesday returned from the restroom, and shook hands with Nancy. “Shadow, you want something to eat? A slice of pizza? Or a sandwich?”
“I’m not hungry,” said Shadow.
“Let me tell you somethin’,” said Mr. Nancy. “It can be a long time between meals. Someone offers you food, you say yes. I’m no longer young as I was, but I can tell you this, you never say no to the opportunity to piss, to eat, or to get half an hour’s shut-eye. You follow me?”
“Yes. But I’m really not hungry.”
“You’re a big one,” said Nancy, staring into Shadow’s light-gray eyes with old eyes the color of mahogany, “a tall drink of water, but I got to tell you, you don’t look too bright. I got a son, stupid as a man who bought his stupid at a two-for-one sale, and you remind me of him.”
“If you don’t mind, I’ll take that as a compliment,” said Shadow.
“Being called dumb as a man who slept late the mornin’ they handed out brains?”
“Being compared to a member of your family.”
Mr. Nancy stubbed out his cigarillo, then he flicked an imaginary speck of ash off his yellow gloves. “You may not be the worst choice old one-eye could have made, come to that.” He looked up at Wednesday. “You got any idea how many of us there’s goin’ to be here tonight?”
“I sent the message out to everyone I could find,” said Wednesday. “Obviously not everyone is going to be able to come. And some of them,” he said with a pointed look at Czernobog, “might not want to. But I think we can confidently expect several dozen of us. And the word will travel.”
They made their way past a display of suits of armor (“Victorian fake,” pronounced Wednesday as they passed the glassed-in display, “modern fake, twelfth-century helm on a seventeenth-century reproduction, fifteenth-century left gauntlet…”) and then Wednesday pushed through an exit door, circled them around the outside of the building (“I can’t be doin’ with all these ins and outs,” said Nancy, “I’m not as young as I used to be, and I come from warmer climes,”) along a covered walk-way, in through another exit door, and they were in the Carousel room.
Calliope music played: a Strauss waltz, stirring and occasionally discordant. The wall as they entered was hung with antique carousel horses, hundreds of them, some in need of a lick of paint, others in need of a good dusting; above them hung dozens of winged angels constructed rather obviously from female store window mannequins; some of them bared their sexless breasts; some had lost their wigs and stared baldly and blindly down from the darkness.
And then there was the Carousel.
A sign proclaimed it was the largest in the world, said how much it weighed, how many thousand light bulbs were to be found in the chandeliers that hung from it in gothic profusion, and forbade anyone from climbing on it or from riding on the animals.
And such animals! Shadow stared, impressed in spite of himself, at the