There was Molly’s eye, like a great, speckled, green jewel flecked with emerald rays. The machine began to read the branches of tiny veins and muscles, making a pattern in its computer memory. It made pipping noises as it assimilated the information.
Then, all of a sudden, the eye in front of it changed. The machine began again, pipping away as it read the iris. When the eye changed once more, quicker than before, the machine started yet again. The eye shifted, the machine shifted. When the pupil in the eye grew larger, the machine adapted to the growth. The pupil shrank, the machine shrank its data. The jewellike iris started to turn. The machine was confused. It hadn’t been programmed to read turning eyes. And now the green flecks in the eye were flickering. The machine’s temperature went up as it searched its silicon memory to find instructions on what to do. The eye began to pulse, the computer pipped faster, the eye started to twist and pulse at the same time, the computer started to panic. Its temperature was soaring, its chip was bending, its reading device was … was … All of a sudden the computer couldn’t remember what or where the reading device was. Suddenly all it could compute was how perfect the eye in front of it looked. Its silicon chip felt as warm and comfortable as the day it had been made. The computer liked this eye. Liked its iris. It was better than all the other irises it had ever read, put together. The computer relaxed and gave instructions to itself to open up completely.
PING CLUNCH, PING CLUNCH, PING CLUNCH, PING CLUNCH, PING CLUNCH, PULLYOONK, PULLYOONK, PULLYOONK, PULLYOONK.
Four hundred safety-deposit box doors opened at once. And simultaneously, five steel-barred gates on the deposit rooms unlocked themselves.
Molly took her eye away from the machine. And admired her work.
“Now that’s what I call style,” she said.
Rocky accompanied Mrs. Brisco back to the lobby of the bank. There he ordered the thirty-five hypnotized people to go to the basement and make a human chain from the safety-deposit boxes all the way to the bank truck in the garage. Mrs. Brisco provided Molly and Rocky with basketball-sized burlap sacks and lots of big brown envelopes. Immediately the two of them set to work.
The strong rooms were stuffed with a daunting amount of treasure. Each of the rooms had eight columns of ten boxes.
Each box had a small metal tray in it that could be pulled out, and every one of them, Molly and Rocky soon discovered, was different. There were trays with large single rubies carefully laid out on velvet. There were others with tiny fingernail-sized packets stuffed into them like sardines. There were trays full of pearl necklaces and others covered with diamond rings. Some held leather, silk, or suede pouches. Each pouch was filled with gems. There were trays of expensive antique jewelry and specially cut jewels. Molly and Rocky emptied each tray, putting its contents into a separate brown envelope, doing one column of boxes at a time. Ten full brown envelopes filled every basketball-sized sack.
Finally the last of the sacks was passed on to the human conveyor belt and transported to the garage. There they were loaded by the gorilla.
It was exhausting work. Millions and millions and millions of dollars’ worth of jewels left the vaults. But eventually every last one had been lifted and packed, and a pile of plump bags sat expectantly in the back of the truck. It was one o’clock.
Molly and Rocky assembled the sweaty hypnotized subjects back in the lobby and duly blanked all their minds.
“All of you will wake up when you hear the clock outside strike two thirty,” Molly said. “You will all tell the police that an armed gang of robbers with stockings on their heads robbed the bank and, well, each of you will have your own story to tell, like how frightened you were, and what they said to you, that sort of thing, um … and until two thirty, you can all sit on the floor and, er … sing songs. The last thing is this. You will have no memories at all of my friend here and me.”
The people in the lobby all obediently sat down and began to sing songs. Molly thought how sweet they looked, like kindergarten children. Then she and Rocky jumped into the front of the security truck with the hypnotized driver, the garage door opened, the truck left, and the door shut behind them.
It was a nerve-racking drive from Shorings Bank to West 52nd Street, because the gorilla was not in complete control of the truck. But soon, near the docks, they located the rundown building that was Nockman’s warehouse. Molly tried to read its graffitied exterior while Rocky hopped out to open its shabby doors.
Then the transplanting began. The loot bags had to be repacked into Nockman’s brown truck. When the job was done, the guard sat down, red in the face from all the effort, and Molly gave him a drink.
“Thank you very, very much,” said Rocky, feeling sorry for him. “Now, you must drive the empty truck back to the bank, but you won’t wake up or get there until three o’clock. You won’t remember this address. You will tell everyone who asks that you were made to unload the stolen stuff into all sorts of different cars-Mustangs, Cadillacs, and station wagons. And you’ll say that afterward you were tied up and blindfolded, that when you finally broke loose, you found yourself on … on … Ninety-ninth Street, and you drove back to the bank from there.”
The gorilla grunted, and then slurped his water, spilling half of it down his chest as he drank. Soon he was gone.
Molly sat nervously on a chair, waiting for Nockman to arrive.
Twenty-eight
At quarter to two precisely, the door of the warehouse creaked open. Nockman, in his sheepskin coat, and wearing his antihypnotism device, entered. He shut the door behind him. His body shook slightly. He wasn’t one hundred percent sure of Molly. However, he had to make it look to her as if he were in complete control. He took a deep, raspy breath.
There she sat on a chair. He couldn’t see her too well with his squirly spectacles on, but it was definitely her. His footsteps sounded squeaky with his earphone contraption on, and his own voice sounded like Mickey Mouse as he spoke. “So the vehicle’s full?”
“Yes. It’s got everything from the vaults. Every last pearl.”
Nockman was amazed. This girl was better than he’d thought. But he didn’t let his astonishment show. “And the job went according to plan?”
“Completely. They all think they were robbed by a bunch of armed bandits. And your truck has everything in it. You’ll see.” Molly studied the fake professor as if he were an insect under a magnifying glass. He really was a low-down dirty louse, and he looked at Molly like a louse might look at a human it was about to suck blood from: without compassion.
“Good,” he was saying. “You’re learning. Next time you can rob a bank without my help. Now, what about the book? That was part of the deal, too.”
Molly reached behind her and picked up the silk-wrapped parcel. He grabbed it and roughly pulled the silk off it to check it was the real thing.
“Mine,” he said greedily. “All mine.”
Now he was itching to get away. He climbed hastily inside his truck. The vehicle shook as the engine started up, and exhaust spluttered into the warehouse.
“I’ll call you when I’ve gone through my checklist,” he said hurriedly. “Now, open the door.”
“How is Petula—is she all right?” Molly asked, standing on tiptoe and speaking to him through the front window.
“Fine, fine,” lied Nockman. “She’s been eating well, steaks and bacon and chocolate cookies.”
“Chocolate cookies?”
“Yeah, and the sooner you open this warehouse, the sooner I’ll call you, and the sooner you’ll be seeing her.”
Molly saw Nockman out and watched as he drove his brown truck away along West 52nd Street.
As soon as Nockman left, he tore off his squirly spectacles and the earphones from the voice-scrambling device. The truck’s gears ground noisily as he fumbled with the stick shift. Then, with his heart racing, he drove. Although he knew he would easily be off the island of Manhattan before the robbery was even reported, he felt nervous. Beads of sweat were drippi
ng from his forehead into his eyes, making his vision blurred. He cursed every traffic light and swore at anyone who wanted to cross the street. Soon, though, he was driving into an industrial park in Brooklyn, to his gnome-filled warehouse, safe from prying eyes.
Having driven safely inside the building and locked the doors behind him, he slumped against the concrete wall.
“Boy, oh boy,” he said out loud.
He sank down in a plastic armchair, surrounded by garden gnomes. He poured himself a glass of whiskey and took a slug. He lit a cigarillo and, breathing out a cloud of smoke, sat back with his feet up on the table.
Then he began to laugh.
Inside the truck, hidden behind a stack of cartons, Rocky heard Nockman laughing.
From inside her room Petula could sense that Nockman’s mood had changed. She barked.
“Aw, shut up, you stupid animal, or I’ll shut you up,” Nockman shouted. He opened the back of the truck. Rocky shrank behind his boxes.
“Happy Christmasbirthdayanniversary to me!” Nockman shouted, grabbing two sacks and hauling them out. He carried them over to his plastic armchair and carefully tipped one out onto the table. Ten heavy brown envelopes thudded onto the Formica top. Nockman smiled greedily, puffing at his cigarillo. Sitting down, he ripped open an envelope. From inside the paper a cluster of rubies, hard and blood colored, twinkled up at him.
Rocky crept to the end of the truck and peered around the edge. There sat the sluggy Nockman drooling over a packet of gems, and beside him on the table was Hypnotism and his antihypnotism kit. Nockman smiled as he poked at his treasures.
Rocky couldn’t do the eye trick, like Molly. He could hypnotize people only by talking to them. All he had to do was wait and hypnotize Nockman when he finally fell asleep.
Nockman smiled again as he counted. He dropped his cigarillo on the floor and ground it out with his foot. Then he put on his earphones and his swirly glasses and walked over to the truck.
Rocky scuttled back to his hiding place.
Casually, Nockman pressed a button and elevated himself on the truck’s electric lift. Then, in a sudden movement, he heaved the boxes from in front of Rocky and seized him by the wrists. “Nice try,” he said menacingly, pulling him roughly off the truck. “You stupid fool. I saw your reflection in the side of my glass.”
Nockman was flabby, but still he was much stronger than Rocky. Nockman tied his wrists behind his back and gagged him. He dragged him across the warehouse floor and roughly cast him into the back room with Petula. Rocky fell backward onto the hard floor.
“Make yourself comfortable,” Nockman spat, shutting the door and locking it. He approached the truck suspiciously. If there were any more rats on board, he’d catch them.
And then he heard a faint noise above his head. Someone was climbing in through the roof.
Twenty-nine
Molly knew Petula hated chocolate cookies. And from the way Nockman had boasted about how he’d been feeding Petula, Molly just knew he hadn’t been. She trusted him about as far as a slug could jump. She knew she had to follow him.
So when Nockman drove the brown truck to the end of 52nd Street and was turning the corner, Molly stepped out of the warehouse door and ran as fast as she had ever run in her life to the next avenue to hail a taxi.
Nockman’s truck was almost out of sight when she climbed into a yellow cab, but luckily the driver was speedy and soon they were tailing him.
Molly felt like a spy. If the situation had been less critical, she would have enjoyed this. Instead, her hands were so sweaty they were practically dripping, and by the time her cab arrived at the Brooklyn warehouse, her mood was very grave.
She watched carefully as, in the distance, Nockman stopped. Once her cab had gone, Molly stepped behind a Dumpster and spied on Nockman as he drove inside.
“Got you,” she said under her breath.
The muffled thud from upstairs had sent Nockman into a panic. He had a sudden vision of a squad of crime-busting police closing in for an ambush. He didn’t know the intruder was only Molly, who had managed to scramble up a tree, clamber through a half-open skylight on the roof, and drop quietly into an upper room. Frantically he threw the bags of gems, the hypnotism book, and the antihypnotism device into the back of the truck and slammed it shut. He heaved himself into the cab and hit the ignition.
Molly heard an engine start and realized in a panic that Nockman was leaving. She rushed down the stairs, but already the vehicle was changing gear. Nockman put his foot on the accelerator. By the time Molly reached the pavement outside, it was too late. With a screech, and spewing exhaust, the truck sped away.
Molly dashed out onto the street, but the diesel fumes made her cough and the truck was too fast. She was left standing in the empty street surrounded by old, deserted warehouses and trees.
She’d really done it now. Rocky must still be in the truck, and Nockman would find him. And what about Petula? Nockman would never call Molly now. Molly moaned. She felt sick to the core.
Molly realized that the only safe way out of this now was for her to tell the police everything. She’d have to; otherwise Rocky could be in real danger. As for Petula, there was still a faint hope that she was in this building. Molly sprinted back. Once inside, she found a door and heard scraping noises and muffled cries coming from behind it. Molly burst into Petula’s—and Rocky’s—prison.
Petula leaped at Molly and Molly hugged her. Then she pulled the gag off Rocky’s mouth. Rocky started talking as soon as he could. “Molly, I’m really sorry, but he saw me and grabbed me and …” Rocky was shaking as he spoke.
“Rock, I’m so sorry, this was all my fault,” said Molly, undoing the ropes around Rocky’s wrists and hugging Petula at the same time. “I’m so glad you two are okay. I thought I’d lost you both—I really did.” She reached into her pocket for a small can of dog food that she’d been carrying and, peeling back its lid, tipped the chunks of meat onto the floor. Petula gobbled them up frantically. Then Molly poured some mineral water into her cupped hand from an emergency bottle she’d brought along. “I can’t believe it. I don’t think he fed Petula or gave her a drink at all,” she said disgustedly. “Poor Petula!”
When Petula had finished drinking, Molly picked her up again and held her close. It was wonderful to feel her warm in her arms once more. “I’m sorry, Petula,” she said. “I won’t ever let that happen again.” And Petula nuzzled into Molly’s jacket to feel as safe as she possibly could.
Then both the children stroked her and thought about Nockman.
“So he’s driving as far away as he can now,” said Rocky.
“Yeah,” said Molly, “and feeling nervous, I bet….”
She and Rocky grew silent for a moment and looked out the door, imagining Nockman on the highway. Then, curiously, they both began to smile.
“Mmmn,” said Rocky. “No doubt he’ll have to stop at a gas station, to fill up on fuel. He’ll buy himself a Heaven bar.”
“And maybe a can of Qube,” suggested Molly.
“Then he’ll get back in the truck and drive on.”
“And on and on and on,” echoed Molly.
“And then?” asked Rocky.
“Then he’ll get tired.”
“And then?”
“Then he’ll start to feel he’s dropping off, and he won’t like that.”
“No, because he won’t want to stop driving, will he? Because he wants to get right out of New York State…. So then?”
“So then, to keep himself awake, I suppose he’ll turn on the radio,” said Molly.
“Let’s hope he does.”
Nockman drove away from the warehouse fast. Every police car he saw made his rash itch, even though, he told himself, he knew that his truck had no reason to look suspicious. But still Nockman was a bundle of nerves. He drove as fast as he could away from New York City, sticking to the smaller roads, looking in his rearview mirror constantly, chain-smoking and sweating like a hot chees
e. After two hours of torment, Nockman began to feel confident that he wasn’t being tailed. He loosened his shirt and turned onto the interstate highway.
He drove on and on for hours, until he had driven so far that his fuel-tank dial was pointing to empty. He pulled up at a gas station, filled up, and bought himself three Heaven bars and four cans of Qube. Then he tramped back to his truck and off he set again.
By nine o’clock Nockman was starting to feel tired. This worried him. He didn’t want to fall asleep at the wheel and crash. He imagined the truck cracked open on the highway like a very expensive Easter egg, all the gems and jewelry spewed over the road. But he didn’t want to stop to rest. He must keep driving. He’d pull up somewhere soon and drink an extra-large coffee; that would keep him awake. In the meantime he decided to turn on the news.
“Drive time,” sang a jingle on the radio.
“Yeah,” said a chirpy announcer. “We’ll be keeping all you drivers across the east coast of America wide, wide awake, now you needn’t worry about that, so relax while you drive…. We’re the station that gives you motion! And boy, oh boy, have we got entertainment for you. We’ve got hours and hours of grrrrrreat music. In a second we’ll bring you the news, but first a short break….”
Nockman felt a lot better. This was just the sort of station he needed, and he was very excited about hearing the news because his robbery would be reported. As the radio played commercials, he shifted up a gear.
“I’m in Heaven, Heaven’s in me,
I knew I’d get to Heaven eventually.”
Then a voice sang out, “Hey you, you want to have a taste of heaven? Pick up a Heaven bar!”
Nockman took another bite of his Heaven bar and felt very happy. He listened to a Qube ad.
“Qube if you’re cute … Qube if you’re rude … Everyone loves you ‘cause you’re so Qube.”
Nockman opened a can of Qube, took a sip, and smiled. He was going to be so, so popular now. He’d never been popular in his life, and the idea of it made him tingle with pleasure.