to us humans to be humble and trust. My fear for Ben overcame my instincts. I apologize." He looked at me. "You have a healing power as well, don't you? But it is" - his stone-faced expression crumbled - "tied to things this old Indian has no business inquiring into. As for my amigo, Ricardo ... I don't know what to make of you at all."
Ric slapped the man on the forearm.
"Forget the mystical stuff, Tallgrass. That made for tales around campfires on our stakeouts, but we have dead cartel muscle here and the attack at the Augusta Theater to figure out. Also, where that damned El Demonio is and what he wants so badly he'll expose the long-reaching tendrils of his drug operation."
"What about the Augusta?" I asked.
"Quicksilver tracked El Demonio's car to the theater parking lot," Ric explained. "Tallgrass and I went in to question the staff, and they were acting like ... zombies."
"Real zombies?"
"That came later. No, they were just intimidated people who'd been roughly interrogated. Turned out some invading mob types were after certain old movie reels one of their sponsors found in the debris in the theater basement and took away to examine on his own."
"One of their 'sponsors,'" I repeated.
Ric's grimace confirmed my guess. "Right. Tallgrass's pal Ben Hassard. We decided to come back here to figure out what was so damn precious in those old film reels, but when we tried to leave, we discovered the parking lot was being watched."
"El Demonio's men."
"We should have been so lucky." Ric eyed the carnage on the office floor. "No, his henchmen were all here already 'interrogating' Hassard. El Demonio had left some other forces at the theater."
"Zombies," I guessed. "How'd you get away?"
"This is crazy, but with the practice Quicksilver and I got repulsing zombies at the Cold Creek Drive-in, we did okay." Ric lowered his voice. "I lost my contact lens, deliberately, and found I could, ah, use it to polish up the silver discs on Quicksilver's collar. I could focus and then bounce the ... effect. It's the weirdest thing, Del. It's like I can dowse for the dead with my silver eye now. I can find them, raise them, or - since we've encountered some really rapacious ones - suck the undead life out of them. Don't tell Tallgrass. He thinks we just fought hard and got lucky and had a dog with a mystical amount of wolf in him on our side."
I didn't know what to make of Ric's account any more than Tallgrass had.
Mulling it all over, I watched as Quicksilver stepped back to lick his big paws and start swabbing his nose and mouth blood-free. Ben struggled to a sitting position, his hands wiping his unhurt face and running over his equally sound arms and chest.
"It's a miracle," he said. "I dreamed I was in the hands of devils with their hellfire pitchforks and then I was touched by an angel with the most beautiful blue eyes in all of heaven." He gazed at me like a freshman nerd meeting a prom queen.
I was not about to tell Ben his real "angel" needed a major shave and a claw-cut.
"What did those devils want?" Ric asked, using the dazed man's terms of reference.
"Some old film cans that were found in the basement of the Augusta Theater during renovation."
"Why would you know right away about what was found there?" I asked.
"I underwrote most of the Augusta Theater restoration. Having another tourist attraction nearby would enhance the Wicked Wild West concept. My backers and I planned to rope in Dodge City's tourist exhibitions too, make it into an auto-tour ending at Emerald City. You know, from fantastic Kansas history to extraordinary Kansas fantasy. Saloon shoot-outs to a genuine restored movie palace to the biggest Kansas-set move of all time."
"Ben," I said, sort of gently, but not too. "I know what was found in the Augusta's basement, and that you realized its value and skedaddled with it to someone who could get you the CinSims you so desperately needed for the Emerald City."
Tallgrass watched his friend like an outraged hawk. "You stole something from the civic restoration project? Something valuable?"
Ben shrugged unhappily, still rubbing his restored arms and shoulders. "It was just an old film, Tallgrass. I needed something new for the Emerald City, something modern like the bigwigs in Vegas have. CinSims."
"Those animated celebrities?" Tallgrass asked with disdain. "We could do that with a wax museum and animatronics."