Amerika tanrıları

he was relishing the idea that he could simply walk and walk, forever if need be.

A small woman walked in through the door, and hesitated. Her hair was a coppery red, and her clothes were expensive and very black.
<…>
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.

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.

"Sweeney. Did he actually show me how he did that trick with the gold coins?""Oh, yes.""I can't remember.""It'll come back. It was a long night."

"Good," he said. "Good. Very good. So, one last glass of evil, vile fucking mead to seal our deal, and then we are done."
"It'll be a Southern Comfort and Coke for me," said Sweeney, lurching back from the jukebox.
The jukebox began to play the Velvet Underground's "Who Loves the Sun?" Shadow thought it a strange song to find on a jukebox. It seemed very unlikely. But then, this whole evening had become increasingly unlikely.

"What do you do?"
"I'm a leprechaun," he said, with a grin.
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."
<…>
"So you are originally from Ireland?"
"I told you. I'm a leprechaun. We don't come from fucken Moscow."

Shadow found himself remembering a PBS show about chimpanzees. The show claimed that when apes and chimps smile it's only to bare their teeth in a grimace of hate or aggression or terror. When a chimp grins, it's a threat.

The bearded man in a pale suit seated next to the unoccupied seat at the very front grinned at Shadow as he got onto the plane, then raised his wrist and tapped his watch as Shadow walked past.
Yeah, yeah, I'm making you late, thought Shadow. Let that be the worst of your worries.
<…>The man in the pale suit in the seat beside Shadow tapped his watch with his fingernail. It was a black Rolex. "You're late," said the man, and he grinned a huge grin with no warmth in it at all.

The plane shook and shuddered, and Shadow wondered, coldly and idly, if he was going to die. It seemed possible, he decided, but unlikely. He stared out of the window and watched the lightning illuminate the horizon.

"Where am I?" Shadow asked."In the earth and under the earth," said the buffalo man. "You are where the forgotten wait." His eyes were liquid black marbles, and his voice was a rumble from beneath the world.