American Gods by Neil Gaiman Page A

Street. Past a new tattoo parlor and the Armed Forces Recruitment Center, then the Burger King, and, familiar and unchanged, Olsen’s Drug Store, finally the yellow-brick facade of Wendell’s Funeral Parlor. A neon sign in the front window said HOUSE OF REST . Blank tombstones stood unchristened and uncarved in the window beneath the sign.
    Wednesday pulled up in the parking lot.
    â€œDo you want me to come in?” he asked.
    â€œNot particularly.”
    â€œGood.” The grin flashed, without humor. “There’s business I can be getting on with while you say your goodbyes. I’ll get rooms for us at the Motel America. Meet me there when you’re done.”
    Shadow got out of the car and watched it pull away. Then he walked in. The dimly lit corridor smelled of flowers and of furniture polish, with just the slightest tang of formaldehyde. At the far end was the Chapel of Rest.
    Shadow realized that he was palming the gold coin, moving it compulsively from a back palm to a front palm to a Downs palm, over and over. The weight was reassuring in his hand.
    His wife’s name was on a sheet of paper beside the door at the far end of the corridor. He walked into the Chapel of Rest. Shadow knew most of the people in the room: Laura’s workmates, several of her friends.
    They all recognized him. He could see it in their faces. There were no smiles, though, no hellos.
    At the end of the room was a small dais, and, on it, a cream-colored casket with several displays of flowers arranged about it: scarlets and yellows and whites and deep, bloody purples. He took a step forward. He could see Laura’s body from where he was standing. He did not want to walk forward; he did not dare to walk away.
    A man in a dark suit—Shadow guessed he worked at the funeral home—said, “Sir? Would you like to sign the condolence and remembrance book?” and pointed him to a leather-bound book, open on a small lectern.
    He wrote SHADOW and the date in his precise handwriting, then, slowly, he wrote ( PUPPY ) beside it, putting off walking toward the end of the room where the people were, and the casket, and the thing in the cream casket that was no longer Laura.
    A small woman walked in through the door, and hesitated. Her hair was a coppery red, and her clothes were expensive and very black. Widow’s weeds, thought Shadow, who knew her well. Audrey Burton, Robbie’s wife.
    Audrey was holding a sprig of violets, wrapped at the base with silver foil. It was the kind of thing a child would make in June, thought Shadow. But violets were out of season.
    She walked across the room, to Laura’s casket. Shadow followed her.
    Laura lay with her eyes closed, and her arms folded across her chest. She wore a conservative blue suit he did not recognize. Her long brown hair was out of her eyes. It was his Laura and it was not: her repose, he realized, was what was unnatural. Laura was always such a restless sleeper.
    Audrey placed her sprig of summer violets on Laura’s chest. Then she worked her mouth for a moment and spat, hard, onto Laura’s dead face.
    The spit caught Laura on the cheek, and began to drip down toward her ear.
    Audrey was already walking toward the door. Shadow hurried after her.
    â€œAudrey?” he said.
    â€œShadow? Did you escape? Or did they let you out?”
    He wondered if she were taking tranquilizers. Her voice was distant and detached.
    â€œLet me out yesterday. I’m a free man,” said Shadow. “What the hell was that all about?”
    She stopped in the dark corridor. “The violets? They were always her favorite flower. When we were girls we used to pick them together.”
    â€œNot the violets.”
    â€œOh, that ,” she said. She wiped a speck of something invisible from the corner of her mouth. “Well, I would have thought that was obvious.”
    â€œNot to me, Audrey.”
    â€œThey didn’t tell you?” Her