Tapping the Dream Tree (7 page)

But today when I set out looking for the usual suspects with their business in mind, I keep coming up with a losing hand. Bones, Christy, the Prof, nobody's in their usual haunts until I finally track down Father Sully in 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.

“They'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.

“Angels,” 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?”

“Can you tell me something that actually makes sense?” I ask.

“They 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.

“See,” 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.”

“Which is?”

“A shot at getting back upstairs.”

“So 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.”

“And the guy they're killing?” I say, pointing to the last couple of pictures.

“Hasn'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?

“Beats me,” I tell him.

He nods, returns his attention to the game at the table.

“So 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.

“You 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.”

“And I would find him how?”

“Use 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.”

“I 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.

“That'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.

“Thanks, Sully,” I tell him. “You want another drink?”

“I believe that would be in order. Long conversations make for dry throats.”

I leave him with his drinks, absorbed in the game once more.

“Let's try it,” Christina says when I finish my story.

All I can do is look at her across the table, and I'll admit that's not hard on the eyes, even with the vinyl dress, but I can't believe she's taking any of this seriously.

“Sully's a drunk,” I tell her.

“You said he was a priest.”

“Ex-priest, as in no more.”

“He knew what they were, straightaway.”

“He
said
he knew what they were. There's a big difference. I could make up as good a story. I mean, really. Angels?”

“Come on,” she says, those big eyes of hers just drawing me in.

I'm going to tell her no?

I have to tell you the truth here. What I said before was only partly true. We are only friends, but I've always had a thing for her. Who wouldn't? She's smart and pretty and she's got a heart as big as the sky is wide. When she turned me down, back when we first met, I took it at face value and settled for being pals. Funny thing is, I like having her for a friend. I never had a woman for a friend before and it's an experience I'd recommend. For one thing, I come away from our conversations with things to think about, and let me tell you, that doesn't happen around the guys I know. Before I knew Christina, I never gave a whole lot of thought to what we've been doing to the world, what we do to each other. I minded my own business and asked others to do the same. But how hard is it to clean up after yourself or to look out for someone worse off than you are?

So being friends is good, and I don't want to lose that. But if she wants to take it to another level, I'm not going to complain.

See, anyone I'm going to be serious with in the romance department, we've also got to be friends. I don't want to end up like my parents who could barely tolerate each other. I want it to mean something, us being together. I want us to look forward to being together, instead of thinking up excuses as to why I've got to get out of the apartment, just to get some breathing space. That was always the old man's line. He couldn't breathe around Ma and us kids.

So would I go chasing down the monsters' victim for Christina, given that I don't believe either he or the uglies exist? Hell, I'd go look up Lucifer, slap him silly and damn the consequences, if that'd make her happy. Which is how we end up wandering the streets long past midnight, and where I blow it because I can't keep my mind—my intent, as Sully put it—on this victim. When I'm not thinking about Christina, I'm thinking about these monsters, how good the costumes were in the pictures, the time that had to have gone into making them, the way they set up the shots, and the next damn thing you know, we've got them chasing us down Williamson to the waterfront and all my doubts go out the window. Because whatever these freaks are, they're not make-believe.

“They must've felt us thinking so hard about their victim,” Christina says when we duck into an alleyway that'll take us in behind the Harbor Ritz.

“I was thinking about them,” I tell her.

She gives me a look, half angry, half scared.

“Jesus, Sammy. You brought them right to us. You weren't
supposed
to be thinking about
them.”

So she's not all that happy with me, with good reason, and I hate the way it feels, but right now we've got more serious concerns on our mind. Like staying alive.

That's when we try hiding out behind the Dumpster and you know how well that turns out.

Okay, I think. I've made a mess of things so far, but I can still make good. For Christina, anyway.

I stand up and pull her to her feet. The freaks are closing in on us, but there's still room for what I've got in mind. I tell Christina to make a run for it, I'll be right behind her, but I can see it in her eyes, she's not buying it. She knows I plan to do the hero thing and from the way she squares her shoulders, it's plain she's going to stick with me. I appreciate the gesture, but what's the point of both of us dying if the uglies might be satisfied with only one?

“Just go,” I tell her.

We have to breathe through our mouths, the reek's so bad, a combination of the Dumpster and the monster boys coming for us.

Christina shakes her head. “Sing,” she says.

I look at her like she's gone insane. The freaks have got us boxed in now, a semicircle of greasy long faces, eyes glittering with this weird inner glow. The smell of them is almost overpowering. It's too late for either of us to make a break. Too late for anything.

“Sing?” I say.

She nods. “Maybe we can get them going.”

I try to keep myself between her and the freaks. I can see the pleasure grow in them as they savor the moment. I remember the last couple of photos on that damn roll of film I was stupid enough to pick up and get developed. They're going to have some fun with us tonight.

“You're not making sense,” I tell her.

“It's like your friend the priest said.”

Ex-priest, I think. And he's not my friend. He's just some old drunk who could have done a better job of convincing me these monsters are real.

“He said a lot of stuff …” I start to say, but Christina's not listening.

She starts in with the drawn-out refrain from “Gloria.” Her singing voice is high and sweet and it breaks my heart that these freaks are going to silence it forever. But something strange happens with the monsters. They cock their heads and listen. Oh great, I think. Good choice. A hymn to their old boss. That'll win them over. But they start to sing along with her, first one, the others falling in with harmonies, and the sound is unbelievable. It's like sunrise, a cathedral sound filled with light and mystery and the great swelling feeling you get in your chest when something's just too beautiful for words.

Then I realize what Christina meant. Sully's wingless angels. Get them singing, he told me, and they'll get all maudlin and homesick. And maybe too distracted to pull us to pieces.

Christina falls silent, her own pretty singing shamed before these celestial voices. Damned if tears don't come to my eyes as their voices wash over us, echoing and bouncing throughout the alley until it sounds like a choir of thousands. I know we should be trying to slip away, but it's just too mesmerizing. Christina's crying beside me. Hell, even the uglies have tears streaming down their cheeks.

I don't know how long we stand there listening, but finally I stir. I take Christina's hand and lead her past the freaks with their honey gold voices, my heartbeat drumming wildly as we approach, then pass in between two of them. But they keep right on singing, faces lifted to the sky, tears flowing, and we just head off down the alley, walk around to the front of the hotel and walk inside. We get a hard stare from the concierge, and I can't blame him. I know how bad we look, Christina in that dress, both of us disheveled and shaky like a pair of junkies. But I give him as hard a stare back that tells him in no uncertain terms that I'll bust him in the head if he even thinks of kicking us out. He gets real busy with some papers behind his counter.

“Don't take it out on him,” Christina said. “What happened to us wasn't his fault.”

I realize she's right. Maybe he's an officious little prick, maybe he's just doing his job. But I can't take it out on him, my feeling so helpless before the fallen angels.

“Can you still hear them?” Christina asks.

I nod. It's all I can hear, though Christina and I seem to be alone in that. The concierge, the bellhops, the desk clerk, a couple sitting together surrounded by a small tide pool of luggage, none of them give any indication that they can hear that unheavenly chorus. My ears are ringing, like we just got back from a loud concert.

“Look,” Christina says.

It's the guy from the pictures, coming in through the front door into the lobby, big as life and still alive. Of course he's not due to die for another five days, if the date stamps on the photos are to be believed. Christina gets up to meet him, tugging down the hem of her dress.

“Excuse me, sir,” she says.

He gives Christina a once-over that makes me really understand—emotionally, as well as intellectually—how she feels when my gaze gets locked on her cleavage.

I stand up as well, feel like hitting the guy, but Christina plays mind reader again. She puts out a hand to stop me from walking past her.

“What can I do for you?” the man asks, implying there's a great deal and all of it would be pleasurable. What, does he think she's a hooker and I'm her pimp? It's that damn dress.

Christina cuts right to the chase.

“Have you had any dealings with strange beings?” she asks.

It's amazing to see the man's facade collapse, a balloon losing all its air, macho man goes flaccid.

“Are they here?” he asks. Scared now, libido forgotten. “I know we had a deal, but I just need a little more time. Do you know how hard it is to find a teenage virgin in this city?”

Christina's revulsion is plain. I don't even want to know what he needs the virgin for.

“You better start running,” I tell him.

It's funny. He doesn't question us or anything—what we know, how we know it—just bolts back out the door he came in. Christina and I collapse back on our couch and let the soft cushions envelop us.

Christina leans her head against my shoulder. “What happens now?”

“You want to go out there and chance running into them again?”

She shakes her head.

“Me neither.”

I dig a charge card out of my pocket. It belongs to one of the lawyers I work for, couple of grand limit. It's for expenses and normally I wouldn't touch it.

“I'll get us a couple of rooms,” I say.

Christina catches my arm as I start to get up.