Free The Best Bad Dream by Robert Ward

an auditory hallucination that you asked me to give up my vacation to come down there and help you and your completely untrustworthy criminal girlfriend in a kidnapping case. I'm telling you, Jackie, I think I need to go to the ear doctor.”
    Jack started laughing.
    “There's nothing wrong with your ears, Osc. The next Southwest plane leaves at ten o'clock.”
    “Oh, Jack . . . I don't believe you're doing this.”
    “Okay, Osc, you don't have to. You enjoy your vacation, which you wouldn't be having anyway if I hadn't saved your ass that time in Cartagena.”
    “I can't believe you're bringing that up.”

    “I know it's a cheap shot, but that's how desperate I am.”
    “Shit, amigo. That is so low of you. But I'll be there. You bastard.”
    “Love you, too, Oscar.”
    Jack hung up, ashamed of himself but greatly relieved. He had half the day before Oscar arrived, and there was a lot he wanted to see at Blue Wolf.
    The Blue Wolf Lodge was a slick place, with modern steel and glass buildings and a medical wing where celebrities and CEOs got face-lifts and tummy tucks while they looked out at the mountains.
    As Alex Williams showed him around the place, Jack saw people getting treatments called Adobe Mud Wraps, green-tinted Turquoise Facials, Cornmeal Wraps, and Volcanic Clay massages. Other people, mostly older women, were having their feet pummeled gently by so-called Mystical River Stones, and still others were having their lymph glands massaged.
    The whole deal seemed like a giant hustle to him, and he wasn't getting any closer to finding Jennifer Wu.
    “Look, Mr. Williams,” he said. “I appreciate your showing me around. But what I really need is to find the Holdens. Phil and Dee Dee.”
    “Of course,” Alex Williams apologized. “Sorry, I got a little carried away.”
    “No problem,” Jack said. “I wish I was here on vacation.”
    “No, you're right. I'll get you to them right now.”
    They walked across the “campus,” as Williams called it, and Jack saw the vast and otherworldly cactus gardens and the Desert Rose Meditation Center. Finally, he and his friendly host wandered out to the parking lot, where tour bus after tour bus arrived with old couplesin them. They came with crutches, canes, walkers, fancy wheelchairs, and oxygen tanks. Soon they had formed a line and were trundling along to check in at the Soul and Spirit Center.
    “Let me guess, my friend,” Alex Williams said. “You're a little skeptical about all of this?”
    Jack laughed and admitted that he was. “I see a lot of desperate people, closer to the end of their lives than they would like to admit. They come to these places for some kind of mud-wrap miracle.”
    Williams shook his head.
    “No,” he said. “We don't promise them that. Just renewal. It can be long-lasting or it can be short-term, depending on how serious they are.”
    “Or how much money they spend?”
    “Yes, that, too. Healing doesn't come cheap. Nor do the therapies we use. People study years and years to learn the disciplines we teach here. A great native healer, for example, has to undergo a long apprenticeship under a licensed medicine man from his tribe. It's no less than the kind of education taken by a Western practitioner.”
    Jack smiled as a stunning pair of pearl-colored clouds moved overhead.
    “Well, let's just say I'm more of a fan of Western medicine than you are.”
    But Alex Williams wouldn't give in.
    “You're wrong there, too. I have a medical degree from Harvard. What we try to do here at Blue Wolf is integrate both traditional Western practices and the best of all the other traditions. Remember, Asian, Mexican, and Indian cultures were all around thousands of years before we were and know many things we've yet to discover.”
    Jack nodded his head, though Williams had scarcely convinced him.

    As the older guests trudged past him to check in, Jack felt that he could see the desperation on all of their faces, and a terrible fear in