Shadow said, “Best of three?”
Czernobog simply stared at him, his gray eyes like points of steel. And then he laughed, clapped his hands on Shadow’s shoulders. “I like you!” he exclaimed. “You have balls.”
Then Zorya Utrennyaya put her head around the door to tell them that dinner was ready, and they should clear their game away and put the tablecloth down on the table.
“We have no dining room,” she said, “I am sorry. We eat in here.”
Serving dishes were placed on the table. Each of the diners was given a small painted tray on which was some tarnished cutlery, to hold on his or her lap.
Zorya Vechernyaya took five wooden bowls and placed an unpeeled boiled potato in each, then ladled in a healthy serving of a ferociously crimson borscht. She plopped a spoonful of white sour cream in, and handed the bowls to each of them.
“I thought there were six of us,” said Shadow.
“Zorya Polunochnaya is still asleep,” said Zorya Vechernyaya. “We keep her food in the refrigerator. When she wakes, she will eat.”
The borscht was vinegary, and tasted like pickled beets. The boiled potato was mealy.
The next course was a leathery pot roast, accompanied by greens of some description—although they had been boiled so long and so thoroughly that they were no longer, by any stretch of the imagination, greens, and were well on their way to becoming browns.
Then there were cabbage leaves stuffed with ground meat and rice, cabbage leaves of such a toughness that they were almost impossible to cut without spattering ground meat and rice all over the carpet. Shadow pushed his around his plate.
“We played checkers,” said Czernobog, hacking himself another lump of pot roast. “The young man and me. He won a game, I won a game. Because he won a game, I have agreed to go with him and Wednesday, and help them in their madness. And because I won a game, when this is all done, I get to kill the young man, with a blow of a hammer.”
The two Zoryas nodded gravely. “Such a pity,” Zorya Vechernyaya told Shadow. “In my fortune for you, I should have said you would have a long life and a happy one, with many children.”
“That is why you are a good fortune-teller,” said Zorya Utrennyaya. She looked sleepy, as if it were an effort for her to be up so late. “You tell the best lies.”
At the end of the meal, Shadow was still hungry. Prison food had been pretty bad, and prison food was better than this.
“Good food,” said Wednesday, who had cleaned his plate with every evidence of enjoyment. “I thank you ladies. And now, I am afraid that it is incumbent upon us to ask you to recommend to us a fine hotel in the neighborhood.”
Zorya Vechernyaya looked offended at this. “Why should you go to a hotel?” she said. “We are not your friends?”
“I couldn’t put you to any trouble ...” said Wednesday.
“Is no trouble,” said Zorya Utrennyaya, one hand playing with her incongruously golden hair, and she yawned.
“You can sleep in Bielebog’s room,” said Zorya Vechernyaya, pointing to Wednesday. “Is empty. And for you, young man, I make up a bed on sofa. You will be more comfortable than in feather bed. I swear.”
“That would be really kind of you,” said Wednesday. “We accept.”
“And you pay me only no more than what’ybu pay for hotel,” said Zorya Vechernyaya, with a triumphant toss of her head. “A hundred dollars.”
“Thirty” said Wednesday.
“Fifty.”
“Thirty-five.”
“Forty-five.”
“Forty.”
“Is good. Forty-five dollar.” Zorya Vechernyaya reached across the table and shook Wednesday’s hand. Then she began to clean the pots off the table. Zorya Utrennyaya yawned so hugely Shadow worried that she might dislocate her jaw, and announced that she was going to bed before she fell asleep with her head in the pie, and she said good night to them all.
Shadow helped Zorya Vechernyaya to take the plates and dishes into the little kitchen. To his surprise there was an elderly dishwashing machine beneath the sink, and he filled it. Zorya Vechernyaya looked over his shoulder, tutted, and removed the wooden borscht bowls. “Those, in the sink,” she told him.
“Sorry.”
“Is not to worry. Now, back in there, we have pie,” she said.
The pie—it was an apple pie—had been bought in a store and oven-warmed, and was very, very good. The four of them ate it with ice cream, and then Zorya Vechernyaya made everyone go out of the sitting room, and made up a very fine-looking bed on the sofa for Shadow.
Wednesday spoke to Shadow as they stood in the corridor.
“What you did in there, with the checkers game,” he said.
“Yes?”
“That was good. Very, very stupid of you. But good. Sleep safe.”