The metal toilet in the cell had backed up, and was filled to the brim with a brown stew of liquid feces and sour, beerish urine.
Shadow came back out, gave the woman his clothes, which she put into the plastic bag with the rest of his possessions. He had thumbed through the wallet before he handed it over. "You take care of this," he had said to the woman. "My whole life is in here." The woman took the wallet from him, and assured him that it would be safe with them. She asked Chad if that wasn't true, and Chad, looking up from the last of his paperwork, said Liz was telling the truth, they'd never lost a prisoner's possessions yet.
Shadow had slipped the four hundred-dollar bills that he had palmed from the wallet into his socks, when he had changed, along with the silver Liberty dollar he had palmed as he had emptied his pockets.
"Say," Shadow asked, when he came out. "Would it be okay if I finished reading the book?"
"Sorry, Mike. Rules are rules," said Chad.
Liz put Shadow's possessions in a bag in the back room. Chad said he'd leave Shadow in Officer Bute's capable hands. Liz looked tired and unimpressed. Chad left. The telephone rang, and Liz-Officer Bute-answered it. "Okay," she said. "Okay. No problem. Okay. No problem. Okay." She put down the phone and made a face.
"Problem?" asked Shadow.
"Yes. Not really. Kinda. They're sending someone up from Milwaukee to collect you."
"Why is that a problem?"
"I got to keep you in here with me for three hours," she said. "And the cell over there"-she pointed to the cell by the door, with the sleeping man in it-"that's occupied. He's on suicide watch. I shouldn't put you in with him. But it's not worth the trouble to sign you in to the county and then sign you out again." She shook her head. "And you don't want to go in there"-she pointed to the empty cell in which he'd changed his clothes-"because the can is shot. It stinks in there, doesn't it?"
"Yes. It was gross."
"It's common humanity, that's what it is. The sooner we get into the new facilities, it can't be too soon for me. One of the women we had in yesterday must've flushed a tampon away. I tell 'em not to. We got bins for that. They clog the pipes. Every damn tampon down that John costs the county a hundred bucks in plumbers' fees. So, I can keep you out here, if I cuff you. Or you can go in the cell." She looked at him. "Your call," she said.
"I'm not crazy about them," he said. "But I'll take the cuffs."
She took a pair from her utility belt, then patted the semiautomatic in its holster, as if to remind him that it was there. "Hands behind your back," she said.
The cuffs were a tight fit: he had big wrists. Then she put hobbles on his ankles and sat him down on a bench on the far side of the counter, against the wall. "Now," she said. "You don't bother me, and I won't bother you." She tilted the television so that he could see it.
"Thanks," he said.
"When we get our new offices," she said, "there won't be none of this nonsense."
The Tonight Show finished. An episode of Cheers began. Shadow had never watched Cheers. He had only ever seen one episode of it-the one where Coach's daughter comes to the bar-although he had seen that several times. Shadow had noticed that you only ever catch one episode of shows you don't watch, over and over, years apart; he thought it must be some kind of cosmic law.
Officer Liz Bute sat back in her chair. She was not obviously dozing, but she was by no means awake, so she did not notice when the gang at Cheers stopped talking and getting off one-liners and just started staring out of the screen at Shadow.
Diane, the blonde barmaid who fancied herself an intellectual, was the first to talk. "Shadow," she said. "We were so worried about you. You'd fallen off the world. It's so good to see you again-albeit in bondage and orange couture."
"What I figure is the thing to do," pontificated bar bore Cliff, "is to escape in hunting season, when everybody's wearing orange anyway."
Shadow said nothing.
"Ah, cat got your tongue, I see," said Diane. "Well, you've led us a merry chase!"
Shadow looked away. Officer Liz had begun, gently, to snore. Carla, the little waitress, snapped, "Hey, jerk-wad! We interrupt this broadcast to show you something that's going to make you piss in your friggin' pants. You ready?"
The screen flickered and went black. The words LIVE FEED pulsated in white at the bottom left of screen. A subdued female voice said, in voice-over, "It's certainly not too late to change to the winning side. But you know, you also have the freedom to stay just where you are. That's what it means to be an American. That's the miracle of America. Freedom to believe means the freedom to believe the wrong thing, after all. Just as freedom of speech gives you the right to stay silent."
The picture now showed a street scene. The camera lurched forward, in the manner of handheld video cameras in real-life documentaries.
A man with thinning hair, a tan, and a faintly hangdog expression filled the frame. He was standing by a wall sipping a cup of coffee from a plastic cup. He looked into the camera, and said, "Terrorists hide behind weasel words, like 'freedom fighter.' You and I know that they are murdering scum, pure and simple. We're risking our lives to make a difference."
Shadow recognized the voice. He had been inside the man's head once. Mr. Town sounded different from inside, his voice was deeper, more resonant-but there was no mistaking it.
The cameras pulled back to show that Mr. Town was standing outside a brick building on an American street. Above the door was a set-square and compass framing the letter G.
"In position," said somebody offscreen.
"Let's see if the cameras inside the hall are rolling," said the female voice-over voice.
The words LIVE FEED continued to blink at the bottom left of the screen. Now the picture showed the interior of a small hall: the room was underlit. Two men sat at a table at the far end of the room. One of them had his back to the camera. The camera zoomed in to them awkwardly. For a moment they were out of focus, and then they became sharp once more. The man facing the camera got up and began to pace, like a bear on a chain. It was Wednesday. He looked as if, on some level, he was enjoying this. As they came into focus the sound came on with a pop.
The man with his back to the screen was saying, "-we are offering is the chance to end this, here and now, with no more bloodshed, no more aggression, no more pain, no more loss of life. Isn't that worth giving up a little?"
Wednesday stopped pacing and turned. His nostrils flared. "First," he growled, "you have to understand that you are asking me to speak for all of us. Which is manifestly nonsensical. Secondly, what on earth makes you think that I believe that you people are going to keep your word?"
The man with his back to the camera moved his head. "You do yourself an injustice," he said. "Obviously you people have no leaders. But you're the one they listen to. They pay attention to you. And as for keeping my word, well, these preliminary talks are being filmed and broadcast live," and he gestured back toward the camera. "Some of your people are watching as we speak. Others will see videotapes. The camera does not lie."
"Everybody lies," said Wednesday.
Shadow recognized the voice of the man with his back to the camera. It was Mr. World, the one who had spoken to Town on the cellphone while Shadow was in Town's head.
"You don't believe," said Mr. World, "that we will keep our word?"
"I think your promises were made to be broken and your oaths to be forsworn. But I will keep my word."
"Safe conduct is safe conduct," said Mr. World, "and a flag of truce is what we agreed. I should tell you, by the way, that your young protégé is once more in our custody."
Wednesday snorted. "No," he said. "He's not."
"We were discussing the ways to deal with the coming paradigm shift. We don't have to be enemies. Do we?"
Wednesday seemed shaken. He said, "I will do whatever is in my power…"
Shadow noticed something strange about the image of Wednesday on the television screen. A red glint burned on his left eye, the glass one. The dot left a phosphor-dot afterimage as he moved. He seemed unaware of it.
"It's a big country," said Wednesday, marshaling his thoughts. He moved his head and the red laser-pointer dot slipped to his cheek. Then it edged up to his glass eye once more. "There is room for-"
There was a bang, muted by the television speakers, and the side of Wednesday's head exploded. His body tumbled backward.
Mr. World stood up, his back still to the camera, and walked out of shot.
"Let's see that again, in slow motion this time," said the announcer's voice, reassuringly.
The words LIVE FEED became REPLAY. Slowly now the red laser pointer traced its bead onto Wednesday's glass eye, and once again the side of his face dissolved into a cloud of blood. Freeze frame.
"Yes, it's still God's Own Country," said the announcer, a news reporter pronouncing the final tag line. "The only question is, which gods?"
Another voice-Shadow thought that it was Mr. World's, it had that same half-familiar quality-said, "We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming."
On Cheers, Coach assured his daughter that she was truly beautiful, just like her mother.
The telephone rang, and Officer Liz sat up with a start. She picked it up. Said, "Okay. Okay. Yes. Okay." Put the phone down. She got up from behind the counter, and said to Shadow, "I'm going to have to put you in the cell. Don't use the can. The Lafayette sheriff's department should be here to collect you soon."
She removed the cuffs and the hobble, locked him into the holding cell. The smell was worse, now that the door was closed.
Shadow sat down on the concrete bed, slipped the Liberty dollar from his sock, and began moving it from finger to palm, from position to position, from hand to hand, his only aim to keep the coin from being seen by anyone who might look in. He was passing the time. He was numb.
He missed Wednesday, then, sudden, and deep. He missed the man's confidence, his attitude. His conviction.
He opened his hand, looked down at Lady Liberty, a silver profile. He closed his fingers over the coin, held it tightly. He wondered if he'd get to be one of those guys who got life for something they didn't do. If he even made it that far. From what he'd seen of Mr. World and Mr. Town, they would have little trouble pulling him out of the system. Perhaps he'd suffer an unfortunate accident on the way to the next holding facility. He could be shot while making a break for it. It did not seem at all unlikely.
There was a stir of activity in the room on the other side of the glass. Officer Liz came back in. She pressed a button, a door that Shadow could not see opened, and a black deputy in a brown sheriff's uniform entered and walked briskly over to the desk.
Shadow slipped the dollar coin back into his sock.
The new deputy handed over some papers, Liz scanned them and signed. Chad Mulligan came in, said a few words to the new man, then he unlocked the cell door and walked inside.
"Okay. Folk are here to pick you up. Seems you're a matter of national security. You know that?"