“That,” said Wednesday, driving off, “is the eternal folly of man. To be chasing after the sweet flesh, without realizing that it is simply a pretty cover for the bones. Worm food. At night, you’re rubbing yourself against worm food. No offense meant.”
Shadow had never seen Wednesday quite so expansive. His new boss, he decided, went through phases of extroversion followed by periods of intense quiet. “So you aren’t American?” asked Shadow.
“Nobody’s American,” said Wednesday. “Not originally. That’s my point.” He checked his watch. “We still have several hours to kill before the banks close. Good job last night with Czernobog, by the way. I would have closed him on coming eventually, but you enlisted him more wholeheartedly than I could ever have.”
“Only because he gets to kill me afterward.”
“Not necessarily. As you yourself so wisely pointed out, he’s old, and the killing stroke might merely leave you, well, paralyzed for life, say. A hopeless invalid. So you have much to look forward to, should Mister Czernobog survive the coming difficulties.”
“And there is some question about this?” said Shadow, echoing Wednesday’s manner, then hating himself for it.
“Fuck yes,” said Wednesday. He pulled up in the parking lot of a bank. “This,” he said, “is the bank I shall be robbing. They don’t close for another few hours. Let’s go in and say hello.”
He gestured to Shadow. Reluctantly, Shadow got out of the car. If the old man was going to do something stupid, Shadow could see no reason why his face should be on the camera. But curiosity pulled him and he walked into the bank. He looked down at the floor, rubbed his nose with his hand, doing his best to keep his face hidden.
“Deposit forms, ma’am?” said Wednesday to the lone teller.
“Over there.”
“Very good. And if I were to need to make a night deposit . . . ?”
“Same forms.” She smiled at him. “You know where the night deposit slot is, hon? Left out the main door, it’s on the wall.”
“My thanks.”
Wednesday picked up several deposit forms. He grinned a goodbye at the teller, and he and Shadow walked out.
Wednesday stood there on the sidewalk for a moment, scratching his beard meditatively. Then he walked over to the ATM machine and to the night safe, set in the side of the wall, and inspected them. He led Shadow across the road to the supermarket, where he bought a chocolate fudge Popsicle for himself and a cup of hot chocolate for Shadow. There was a pay phone set in the wall of the entryway, below a notice board with rooms to rent and puppies and kittens in need of good homes. Wednesday wrote down the telephone number of the pay phone. They crossed the road once more. “What we need,” said Wednesday, suddenly, “is snow. A good, driving, irritating snow. Think ‘snow’ for me, will you?”
“Huh?”
“Concentrate on making those clouds—the ones over there, in the west—making them bigger and darker. Think gray skies and driving winds coming down from the arctic. Think snow.”
“I don’t think it will do any good.”
“Nonsense. If nothing else, it will keep your mind occupied,” said Wednesday, unlocking the car. “Kinko’s next. Hurry up.”
Snow, thought Shadow, in the passenger seat, sipping his hot chocolate. Huge, dizzying clumps and clusters of snow falling through the air, patches of white against an iron-gray sky, snow that touches your tongue with cold and winter, that kisses your face with its hesitant touch before freezing you to death. Twelve cotton-candy inches of snow, creating a fairy-tale world, making everything unrecognizably beautiful . . .
Wednesday was talking to him.
“I’m sorry?” said Shadow.
“I said we’re here,” said Wednesday. “You were somewhere else.”
“I was thinking about snow,” said Shadow.
In Kinko’s, Wednesday set about photocopying the deposit slips from the bank. He had the clerk instant-print him two sets of ten business cards. Shadow’s head had begun to ache, and there was an uncomfortable feeling between his shoulder blades; he wondered if he had slept wrong, if the headache was an awkward legacy of the night before’s sofa.
Wednesday sat at the computer terminal, composing a letter, and, with the clerk’s help, making several large-sized signs.
Snow, thought Shadow. High in the atmosphere, perfect, tiny crystals that form about a minute piece of dust, each a lacelike work of fractal art. And the snow crystals clump together into flakes as they fall, covering Chicago in their white plenty, inch upon inch . . .
“Here,” said Wednesday. He handed Shadow a cup of Kinko’s coffee, a half-dissolved lump of nondairy creamer powder floating on the top. “I think that’s enough, don’t you?”
“Enough what?”
“Enough snow. Don’t want to immobilize the city, do we?”