Whiteslaw felt ice in his veins.
“We’re not sure how many there are, mind you,” Jack added nonchalantly. “Maybe a thousand more. Maybe ten thousand.”
“Impossible!”
Jack clammed up for a short while, then turned off the tunnel into a side tunnel and brought the mole to a quick stop. Outside the black glass the frenetic sizzle of lightning vanished. The mole rocked gently forward, then back.
Jack raised the shaded glass, and they looked out into a cavern too big for the headlights to see across. The mole had emerged nose first from the cavern wall, and as they nodded gently, Whiteslaw looked down in horror at the cavern floor far below.
“It’s safe—I welded an anchor on the fly so we wouldn’t drop,” Jack said. “See ’em down there?”
Whiteslaw saw people down there. More albinos, but different. It was hard to tell what was different because they were scurrying around in a blind panic.
Well, no, the senator thought, not a blind panic at all. “They have eyes,” he observed. “Exposed eyes.”
“Cool, huh? I stumbled across them accidentally on one of my trips. Saw the big open place show up on my mapping system and I checked it out and here they were. There’s a couple hundred of them, and I’m God to them now. Watch.” He maneuvered a searchlight on the exterior, revealing a ten-foot high drawing of a toothy worm with lightning coming out of it. It had the head of a man.
The drawing was done in blood. Underneath the drawing was the name of the god, in very crude but antique-looking letters.
The wall read, “Jack.”
“I told them my name,” the kid admitted sheepishly. “They think I’m the greatest. Always making me offerings, see?”
A trio of men emerged from the terrified mob, leading one of their tribe on a leash. They led the prisoner into a stream of water that fell from the ceiling far above. The caked mud sluiced off, revealing a female albino.
“They give you women?” Whiteslaw asked incredulously.
“Yeah, and these are some hot cave-babes. Way nicer looking than the blind ones down below. And when you’re a god they do anything you tell ’em. Want one?”
Whiteslaw thought about it, then decided finally, “I’d have no place to keep it.”
Jack shrugged and announced on the loudspeaker, “Hey, people, I shall return in less than one sleep.”
They backed out of the cavern and continued on their journey to the surface in silence. Whiteslaw found the image of the cave girl stuck in his head. Once she was showered, she had turned out to be a porcelain-skinned, pink-eyed young beauty. She had gazed up at the earth drill with a mixture of adoration and excitement, eager to be of service to her god—or any other deities he hung around with.
“So, anyway, I just found them. Haven’t even told Pops yet,” Jack explained. “The point is this—think how many I might find if I start really looking. Couple hundred here, couple thousand there. The population adds up fast that way, Herbie.”
“Will you tell your father about any of them?” Whiteslaw asked, just for something to talk about.
“Maybe. Maybe not. Pops is being kind of a wet blanket these days. Keeps giving me the cold shoulder cause I haven’t solved the assassins problem yet.”
“The assassins can be dealt with,” Whiteslaw said, as if they were of no consequence. “You’ve done spectacular work as far as I’m concerned.”
“Very upstanding of you to say so.”
“You’re welcome. You know, Jack, your father has been tremendously useful, but it’s pretty obvious that you’re the real brains of this outfit. Without you, Fastbinder wouldn’t keep his hold on the albinos. He couldn’t execute raids of the surface. All his accomplishments are really because of you.”
Jack beamed. “I got news for you, Herbie. Without me, my dad couldn’t even get out of his cave! Only I can make JED work.”
“You’re really the king of the Underworld, Jack,” Whiteslaw observed.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Jack Fast said.
Chapter 12
Breck Kasle and his brother, Jeremy, waved goodbye to their new best friends. As soon as the old Asian and the mean-eyed Gloomy Gus drove off, Breck scrambled for the phone and rang up Trina over at the Bank and Trust.
“Is that money really there?” he demanded.
“Yeah, Breck, ’course it’s there.”
“I mean, they can’t cancel the payment or anything, right?”
“Naw, Breck, it’s not like they charged a purchase, see. They actually got cash from their credit card and had it put in your account, see? So they can’t be taking it back.” She whistled appreciatively. “Mother of pearl, Breck, what’re you two crazy bachelors gonna do with that kind of money?”
Breck was all smiles as he thumbs-upped his brother, who showed all his teeth. “I’ll tell you what we’re gonna do—Jer’s gonna build the solidest vintage recreation vehicle that ever was or ever will be.”
“Sure, but what’re you gonna do when you’re not making the RV? Like tonight, for instance? A celebration is in order when you come into cash like that.”
“Well, now, Trina, you got a good point.”
“My sis and I are free if’n you boys would want to have a little party an’ celebrate your newfound wealth. You know my sister, Sophie? Sophie’s always saying what a cutie Jeremy is.”
They made a date for dinner and dancing at the Four Corners Restaurant. So what if them girls was going after him and his brother for their money? It was just Sophie’s bad luck that she wasn’t in the right place at the right time to take this opportunity. Then she’d have been the one to get stuck with the ugly brother. But Breck did know Trina and Sophie well enough to be sure they weren’t gonna let a money-grubbing opportunity such as this one slip away, even if poor Sophie got stuck with gross old Jeremy.
Trina was a lucky gal, Breck thought, seeing as how he had the cleaner fingers and the more complete set of teeth and even some culture under his belt.
That was why he was the one who dealt with the public and did the RV selling, except for today. It was an unspoken understanding that Jeremy was, well, not a people person. Repulsive, in fact, but also an artist. Still, Jeremy’s skills would have never seen the light of day if it weren’t for his handsome, smooth-talking brother selling his creations.
Everybody he knew, Breck Kasle thought, was lucky to have Breck Kasle in their lives.
Remo tried finding out what exactly Chiun had contracted the grease monkey to do. It cost a lot of cash. Not that Chiun couldn’t afford it, and not that it mattered at all anyway since the entire sum was electronically transferred from the credit card account of one Bucky Chang, a sixty-seven-year-old podiatrist from Madeira Beach, Florida, who did not exist. CURE would pay the bill, but Remo wanted to know what the money was actually for.
“I have a feeling I’m gonna be living in it, whether I want to or not,” Remo complained. “I have a right to know, don’t I?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Keep your eyes on the road.”
“I keep getting distracted by all that yummy-looking corn they grow around here.”
“Don’t bother trying to raise up my goat.” Chiun turned to his iBlogger for the next twenty miles.
“Hey, Chiun,” Remo said then, “you think Smith was on to something about these mine shaft killings?”
“You mean about them being possibly the work of the earth-drilling German from New Mexico?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
“Why not?”