“Heads,” said Mr. Wednesday.
“Sorry,” said Shadow, revealing the coin without even bothering to glance at it. “It was tails. I rigged the toss.”
“Rigged games are the easiest ones to beat,” said Wednesday, wagging a square finger at Shadow. “Take another look at the quarter.”
Shadow glanced down at it. The head was face-up.
“I must have fumbled the toss,” he said, puzzled.
“You do yourself a disservice,” said Wednesday, and he grinned. “I’m just a lucky, lucky guy.” Then he looked up. “Well I never. Mad Sweeney. Will you have a drink with us?”
“Southern Comfort and Coke, straight up,” said a voice from behind Shadow.
“I’ll go and talk to the barman,” said Wednesday. He stood up, and began to make his way toward the bar.
“Aren’t you going to ask what I’m drinking?” called Shadow.
“I already know what you’re drinking,” said Wednesday, and then he was standing by the bar. Patsy Cline started to sing “Walkin’ after Midnight” on the jukebox again.
The man who had ordered Southern Comfort and Coke sat down beside Shadow. He had a short ginger-colored beard. He wore a denim jacket covered with bright sew-on patches, and under the jacket a stained white T-shirt. On the T-shirt was printed:
IF YOU CAN’T EAT IT, DRINK IT, SMOKE IT OR SNORT IT…THEN F*CK IT!
He wore a baseball cap, on which was printed:
THE ONLY WOMAN I HAVE EVER LOVED WAS ANOTHER MAN’S WIFE…MY MOTHER!
He opened a soft pack of Lucky Strikes with a dirty thumbnail, took a cigarette, offered one to Shadow. Shadow was about to take one, automatically—he did not smoke, but a cigarette makes good barter material—when he realized that he was no longer inside. You could buy cigarettes here whenever you wanted. He shook his head.
“You working for our man then?” asked the bearded man. He was not sober, although he was not yet drunk.
“It looks that way,” said Shadow.
The bearded man lit his cigarette. “I’m a leprechaun,” he said.
Shadow did not smile. “Really?” he said. “Shouldn’t you be drinking Guinness?”
“Stereotypes. You have to learn to think outside the box,” said the bearded man. “There’s a lot more to Ireland than Guinness.”
“You don’t have an Irish accent.”
“I’ve been over here too fucken long.”
“So you are originally from Ireland?”
“I told you. I’m a leprechaun. We don’t come from fucken Moscow.”
“I guess not.”
Wednesday returned to the table, three drinks held easily in his paw-like hands. “Southern Comfort and Coke for you, Mad Sweeney, m’man, and a Jack Daniel’s for me. And this is for you, Shadow.”
“What is it?”
“Taste it.”
The drink was a tawny golden color. Shadow took a sip, tasting an odd blend of sour and sweet on his tongue. He could taste the alcohol underneath, and a strange blend of flavors. It reminded him a little of prison hooch, brewed in a garbage bag from rotten fruit and bread and sugar and water, but it was smoother, sweeter, infinitely stranger.
“Okay,” said Shadow. “I tasted it. What was it?”
“Mead,” said Wednesday. “Honey wine. The drink of heroes. The drink of the gods.”
Shadow took another tentative sip. Yes, he could taste the honey, he decided. That was one of the tastes. “Tastes kinda like pickle juice,” he said. “Sweet pickle juice wine.”
“Tastes like a drunken diabetic’s piss,” agreed Wednesday. “I hate the stuff.”
“Then why did you bring it for me?” asked Shadow, reasonably.
Wednesday stared at Shadow with his mismatched eyes. One of them, Shadow decided, was a glass eye, but he could not decide which one. “I brought you mead to drink because it’s traditional. And right now we need all the tradition we can get. It seals our bargain.”
“We haven’t made a bargain.”
“Sure we have. You work for me. You protect me. You help me. You transport me from place to place. You investigate, from time to time—go places and ask questions for me. You run errands. In an emergency, but only in an emergency, you hurt people who need to be hurt. In the unlikely event of my death, you will hold my vigil. And in return I shall make sure that your needs are adequately taken care of.”
“He’s hustling you,” said Mad Sweeney, rubbing his bristly ginger beard. “He’s a hustler.”
“Damn straight I’m a hustler,” said Wednesday. “That’s why I need someone to look out for my best interests.”
The song on the jukebox ended, and for a moment the bar fell quiet, every conversation at a lull.
“Someone once told me that you only get those everybody-shuts-up-at-once moments at twenty past or twenty to the hour,” said Shadow.
Sweeney pointed to the clock above the bar, held in the massive and indifferent jaws of a stuffed alligator head. The time was 11:20.
“There,” said Shadow. “Damned if I know why that happens.”
“I know why,” said Wednesday.
“You going to share with the group?”
“I may tell you, one day, yes. Or I may not. Drink your mead.”
Shadow knocked the rest of the mead back in one long gulp. “It might be better over ice,” he said.
“Or it might not,” said Wednesday. “It’s terrible stuff.”
“That it is,” agreed Mad Sweeney. “You’ll excuse me for a moment, gentlemen, but I find myself in deep and urgent need of a lengthy piss.” He stood up and walked away, an impossibly tall man. He had to be almost seven feet tall, decided Shadow.
A waitress wiped a cloth across the table and took their empty plates. She emptied Sweeney’s ashtray, and asked if they would like to order any more drinks. Wednesday told her to bring the same again for everyone, although this time Shadow’s mead was to be on the rocks. “Anyway,” said Wednesday, “that’s what I need of you, if you’re working for me. Which, of course, you are.”
“That’s what you want,” said Shadow. “Would you like to know what I want?”
“Nothing could make me happier.”
The waitress brought the drink. Shadow sipped his mead on the rocks. The ice did not help—if anything it sharpened the sourness, and made the taste linger in the mouth after the mead was swallowed. However, Shadow consoled himself, it did not taste particularly alcoholic. He was not ready to be drunk. Not yet.
He took a deep breath.
“Okay,” said Shadow. “My life, which for three years has been a long way from being the greatest life there has ever been, just took a distinct and sudden turn for the worse. Now there are a few things I need to do. I want to go to Laura’s funeral. I want to say goodbye. After that, if you still need me, I want to start at five hundred dollars a week.” The figure was a stab in the dark, a made-up number. Wednesday’s eyes revealed nothing. “If we’re happy working together, in six months’ time you raise it to a thousand a week.”
He paused. It was the longest speech he’d made in years. “You say you may need people to be hurt. Well, I’ll hurt people if they’re trying to hurt you. But I don’t hurt people for fun or for profit. I won’t go back to prison. Once was enough.”