Read Online Tapping the Dream Tree by Charles De Lint - Free Book Online

Jimmy’s Billiards, corner of Vine and Palm. He’s not my first choice, an alcoholic ex-priest I only know by reputation, but I’m running out of options.
    Sully’s got something of the insect about him, he’s all arms and legs with big, buggy eyes and hair that stands up like so many antennae or centipede’s legs. He’s already half-cut and it’s barely mid-afternoon. But I want to do good for Christina, play it straight and give this deal a fair shot, so I sit down on the bench beside him, buy him another shot of whiskey with a beer chaser, tell him about my problem to the accompaniment of the click and clatter of billiard balls making their way around the tables and into the pockets. It doesn’t take much to get him going. It never does with these guys.
    â€œThey’re angels,” he says when I show him the pictures.
    Maybe I should have held out for one of the others. Christy’s friend the Prof, maybe. When I called, his housekeeper was expecting him back any time.
    â€œAngels,” I repeat.
    He nods. “Good shot,” he tells a player at the table near us when he sinks a tough shot. “Wingless angels,” he adds, turning back to me. “And don’t ask them to sing—it’ll just break their hearts. It’s very distressing, as I’m sure you can imagine. They get all maudlin and homesick, which isn’t a pretty sight. Mind you, they’re never a pretty sight, are they?”
    â€œCan you tell me something that actually makes sense?” I ask.
    â€œThey sing like angels, but they can’t fly,” he tells me. “Chose the wrong side when the war raged in heaven and now they’re living down below with the rest of the sinners. Lucifer’s boys.”
    I
really
should’ve held out for one of the others.
    â€œSee,” he goes on, alcohol heavy on his breath as he leans closer to me, “sometimes they walk among us, but they can’t ever have what we have.”
    â€œWhich is?”
    â€œA shot at getting back upstairs.”
    â€œSo what’re they doing here?” I have to ask.
    He shrugs. “You know, the usual thing. Taking in the sights, a little R &
R, leading us into temptation.”
    â€œAnd the guy they’re killing?” I say, pointing to the last couple of pictures.
    â€œHasn’t happened yet—at least not according to these dates. Why do people date stamp their photographs anyway? Can’t they remember when they took them?”
    So we have something in common. Why isn’t that a comfort?
    â€œBeats me,” I tell him.
    He nods, returns his attention to the game at the table.
    â€œSo what should I do?” I ask, not expecting any more sensible an answer to this than I’ve gotten so far. He doesn’t disappoint me.
    â€œYou mean to stop them from killing the man?”
    I nod.
    Sully gives me a drunkard’s grin. “Ask him what he did to tick them off.”
    â€œAnd I would find him how?”
    â€œUse your intuition.” He taps his temple with a forefinger. “Go out walking with the intent of finding him and you will. If you concentrate on what you’re looking for, fill your head with it, nine out of ten times, whatever you’re looking for will come to you. That’s what Jesus would do.”
    â€œI don’t remember anything like that in the Bible.”
    Maybe that surprises you, that I’ve read the Big Book, but when you’re doing time and other material is scarce, it turns out to be a pretty good read. These days I do a lot of reading—it keeps me out of trouble.
    â€œThat’s one of the things that didn’t make it into the texts,” Sully says. “But everybody knows it.”
    Right. Like everybody knows about these wingless angels, I suppose. But I can’t be too hard on the old guy. I mean, I’m the one who came asking.
    â€œThanks, Sully,” I tell him. “You