Chapter Forty-FourI landed on my feet in front of Remo, clutching my boots to my chest. The big cavern where I'd bound myself to him stood empty, save for the chittering and distant cries of the Barnietons–the poisonous blind monkeys.
“Master,” I said, lowering my eyes.
Dressed in a white three-piece suit and oval, also white-rimmed glasses, he looked the same as he did the first time I'd met him in the penthouse of the MGM. The memory and the setting had a quick frisson of fear run through my veins before I could tamp it down, and from the way he shifted and the fleeting flash of glee in his eyes, it was the exact reaction he'd wanted.
“It's been a week, Poppet,” he said, “Tell me what you've been up to. Have you recruited any vessels?”
“Yes, three.”
Remo studied me with his beady, f
