Carole Douglas - Silver Zombie

Too bad I didn’t have a venue to report anymore.

Quicksilver nudged his head under the loosely curled hand at my side and whimpered. He either agreed with me about the sad decline of professional news reporting in the post–Millennium Revelation world, or he wanted a puppy biscuit.

RIC WAS COUNTING on me to be a quick study, so I did my Wizard of Aahs fan-girl bit and filled them in.

First I had to go through the “dazzle” phase.

The Wizard of Oz, known for its spectacular Technicolor, was on my list of key black-and-white movies because it started with the classic Kansas farm and tornado scenes. Color technology was literally being expanded that very year, 1939, to become the forever-future format.

All black-and-white photo and film freaks felt nothing had the impact of a stark yet incredibly nuanced noncolor palette. Black resulted from all colors of the rainbow put together. White was the absence of all color. These perfect partners produced a new rainbow in shades of gray.

Like all near-Millennium babies, though, in real life I jonesed on opulent color in reel life. So the first glimpse of the Emerald City finally sold me on Oz, the motion picture. The studio artists, beset more by a tight schedule than the MGM budget, had blended a Disney cartoon castle with the blown-glass bubbles of futuristic space communities and had shown it all through green-colored lenses.

Add the nitrous-oxide, high-pitched voices of trilling Munchkins to the sound track, and I was in heaven.

Today, I gazed in real life at a double rainbow halo arching over seventy-some stories of gleaming gemstone-green glass towers. Then the genius of it hit me. The Emerald City was the quintessential green project. It was fantasy-futuristic for our times.

So cruising around the stunning structure again to park in the mostly deserted lot, we considered what to do.

“I don’t get,” Ric told Tallgrass, “why we’re here to snoop. Anybody who’d use domestic cows as drug mules and souped-up zombies on speed as herders wouldn’t be involved in an airy-fairy project like this Cloud Cuckoo-land extending umpteen stories above us.”

“Two big little words,” Tallgrass answered. “Money laundering. Fantasyland always comes down to profit, and don’t we Native Americans know it.”

WE ALL PILED into Tallgrass’s extended-cab pickup for a strategy session, me and Quicksilver all ears, Tallgrass laying it out on the dashboard computer.

He flashed a promo photo of the immense Emerald City.

“They haven’t even thought of gambling palaces this spectacular in Dubai or Macao,” Ric said.

“And it’s ‘native’ to the region legendry,” Tallgrass said with irony. “Also much glitzier than the usual Indian casino with Powwow Bars and teepee men’s rooms.”

“Wait,” I interrupted. “When I was first reporting there was a huge civic fight against opening an Indian casino in Wichita. The civic powers wanted gambling operations and all the negatives that go with them to stay in Oklahoma.”

“The ‘powers that were’ decades ago wanted all the Indians relocated to Oklahoma,” Tallgrass said, “and that’s where all the oil happened to turn up later. We up-prairie tribes lost out. Several U.S. tribes have sued for the right to establish casinos on land off the tiny reservations left to them. And won. After all, it was all ours once.”

“Borders make for murderous neighbors,” Ric said.

“I’ll give you the last say on that, amigo, ” Tallgrass told him. “Your forebears, though, still have a nation despite the drug cartels. We Indians don’t.” He eyed me over his shoulder. “But we will have a nice Native American casino on the fringe of this new Wichita ‘megalopolis’ east. Kind of a sideshow like the Oz movie’s Professor Marvel is in.”

Ric and I exchanged glances. The western part of the state could barely support a dilapidated drive-in revival. How was the eastern side of Wichita supposed to draw a steady tourist influx?

“Who are the underwriters?” I asked.

“Megacorporations,” Tallgrass said. “They come in and things happen. When they’re through with us, you won’t be able to fly over Kansas without seeing a new neon galaxy spread over our waving fields of grain. Hell, we’re going to get our own CSI TV show too. Bet you could write up an episode about the serial cow murders, Miss Delilah, and make a pretty penny.” Tallgrass chuckled.

“TV scripts don’t pay that much,” I said. “You’re sure about this CSI thing?”

“It’s been previewed on the local station, WTCH.”

I was still frowning with unhappiness at the idea of Hector Nightwine Productions invading my former home-town while Tallgrass continued to bemoan—and brag about—the high-profile new enterprises coming to Kansas in general and Wichita in particular.

“This is way beyond the government having to lay out tax money to get business hiring. The international arms of your Vegas conglomerates are involved. Gonna call the concept ‘Wicked Wild West.’”

“Ah.” I got it. “A little Dodge City and a lotta Dorothy Gale.”

“Yup. Emerald City under glass is built where all the fertilizer plants used to be and stink up the air for miles around.”

“That is kind of genius,” I said. “Oz under the Ozone Dome. Everything would have to be licensed, though.”

“These hotel-casino outfits have billions to burn.” Tallgrass was cruising his Favorites menu for visuals. “Munchkins, flying monkeys, talking scarecrows and tin men, witches and wizards. They all fit in with the times. Sort of a metaphor for who we’ve got representing us in Congress these days.”

“Still the same old cynic,” Ric said, laughing. “Why hasn’t there been national news on this new gambling Mecca on the prairie? I can see there’s not much between Vegas and the Gulf Coast and Atlantic City, but aren’t you Wichita folks right on top of Branson, Missouri, and all the established country music theme parks?”

“One word,” Tallgrass said. “It almost sounds Native American. Old theme parks are ‘hokey,’ amigo. This new stuff that’s going up is big, slick, costly, and tapping into the American Dream.”

“What dream?” I asked.

Tallgrass winked at me. “About little country girls making it in the big city.”

“Like Dorothy Gale in the Emerald City. I get it,” I said. “What’s your involvement with this project?” I asked, sniffing a story.

“Me?” he said, spreading palms so dark and seamed I couldn’t even detect the major head, heart, and life lines scribed on them. They had to be there. Didn’t they?

I wouldn’t let his pseudo-innocence and time-inscribed palms distract me.

“Like you said, Tallgrass,” I went on, “the Kansas tribes are reduced and scattered, and the reservations are handkerchief-size. What’s left of the Kickapoo and Kiowa would need someone they could trust, but sophisticated to the ways of the white man’s chicanery. Someone with native blood—and FBI experience—to investigate the big boys so their fringe casino project doesn’t get taken or fail to pay off the tribe.”

Ric was eyeing our negotiation-cum-mutual interrogation, and enjoying it. Watching allies from his past and present interact, even spar with each other, said a lot about each of us.

I was not about to let him down by looking gullible.

“Yeah,” Tallgrass conceded. “I looked more than anyone expected into the major backers. And you.”

That had both Ric and me taking deep breaths.

Tallgrass picked up his remote control. “Ricky here told me he was bringing you back.”

Ricky?