“My music will be all you remember about me,” she said. “You can go now.”
When the waiter had left, Molly picked up her phone. “I’m ready to go to Madrid now, Miss Sny. Arrange it.”
Gerry craned his neck to watch a plane flying over their small hovel. Seven nights had passed since they’d been caught, and with every day they had become more miserable.
“Look where we are, Petula! All shut up and forgotten about. It’s like we’re going to live in this ’orrible room for years and years and maybe we’ll get out of here when Rocky an’ me are wrinkly old men. You’ll be dead, ’cos dogs don’t live as long as people. An’ where will we bury you? Maybe we’ll die ’ere, too.” Gerry shivered. “Wish they’d bring us another blanket.” He paused. “I wonder where Molly is.”
Just as he said this, Gerry noticed a small mouse pop its head out of a tiny hole in the corner of the room.
“Pssst. Look, Rocky!” he whispered.
They all sat very still and watched as the mouse disappeared again.
Rocky took the spoon that he had eaten his lunch with and knelt down. Nervously he began to scrape at the bottom of the wall.
To his delight, it crumbled. Gerry grabbed his spoon and the two of them set about frantically scraping and digging.
For the rest of the day the boys worked. By late that night they had made a hole big enough to squeeze through.
Petula followed them. They were all out.
To their left was the sea, to the right a road, and there, a little way along it, beside a bus stop, was a phone box. Luckily Gerry remembered Toka’s phone number from when the Japanese boy had given it to him in Quito and Rocky had a few yen in his pocket.
“Toka, it’s Gerry,” he blurted out.
“Gerry? Gerry, where are you? Are you OK?” came Toka’s voice over the phone. “I’m coming to get you.” Beep beep beep went the telephone line, signaling that the money was about to run out. “Where are you?”
“Umm, I don’t know, in a phone box.”
“Good, don’t worry. I track number. I come to get you. Wait there. Don’t worr—” The line went dead.
Gerry, Rocky, and Petula hid behind some rocks where they could see the road but not be seen, and they waited. Every minute felt like ten for they were convinced that their escape would be discovered.
In the early hours of the morning a van drove quietly into the fishing village. It had a picture of a sumo wrestler with some Japanese writing on its side. Toka jumped out of it and Gerry, Rocky, and Petula rushed out to greet him. He helped them into the van. The old grandmother sat in the backseat. She hugged the boys and her eyes were brimming with tears. The driver, her old friend who was the master of the sumo academy, was at the wheel. He turned around and winked at Petula, then put his foot on the accelerator.
“Thank you. Thank you,” Gerry and Rocky said repeatedly. They’d never been so grateful in their lives.
Twenty-two
Mr. Proila stood in his penthouse apartment in Tokyo, a glass in his hand. A large screen rose up out of a sideboard at the end of the room. He sat down in front of it and took a sip of vodka.
Moments later a black-and-white view of a sitting room came up on the screen. A view that was taken by a concealed camera in one corner of the ceiling.
Mr. Proila watched the screen for a while. Nothing happened. He picked up the controls and began to stab at them. The film on the screen skipped forward. A girl now walked into the room very fast. Quickly she shut the door and leaned against it. Then she put her hand in the air as if celebrating something. It was Molly. Mr. Proila jabbed at the controls and slowed the speed. Molly seemed to be talking to herself. Mr. Proila read her lips.
“Good, good. You were brilliant . . . of course,” Molly was saying.
He watched as Molly admired herself in the mirror. “Boring,” Mr. Proila said. “A prima donna loving herself.”
He fast-forwarded the film again. Molly took off her necklace and tweaked her hair. She took something from her pocket and stroked it for a bit, talking to herself all the while.
“Get yourself some company!” Mr. Proila said. “You’ll go crazy if you talk to yourself so much.” He speeded ahead to the end of the film. “OK, so that was Moscow. Let’s see if Rome tells me any more about you.”
Again a hotel room appeared on the screen, this time filmed from a side angle. Molly came in, danced around a bit and then once again admired her jewelry. When Mr. Proila slowed the film down, Molly was once again talking to the item.
“Between us we can do this,” she was saying. “Working together, I am brilliant!”
“Now you’re a split personality, are you?” Mr. Proila said disgustedly. “Stars, they’re all the same—self-obsessed.”
He fast-forwarded to Paris. Everything was very similar—too similar. Mr. Proila was beginning to find the whole business tedious. He was about to whizz to the end of the footage in New York when something on the flickering screen caught his eye. He slowed the film right down.
Yet again Molly was talking to herself, but now Mr. Proila saw that the shiny object between her fingers wasn’t a piece of jewelry at all—it was a coin. A coin that he recognized. The coin she had had at the cockfight. Molly was rolling the coin through her knuckles, tossing it in the air, and talking to it.
“OK,” she was saying, “I’ll do that. And what about tomorrow? Shall I do a long show?” Molly flipped the coin again and smacked it onto the back of her hand. “Heads! Good. OK, I’ll do it. Thank you for helping me. I adore you.” Mr. Proila shrugged. So she was superstitious and used her coin to help her to decide what to do. He was about to press the Off button when he saw some extraordinary words come from Molly’s mouth.
“With the music we make together,” she was saying, “nothing can stop us. We’ll control every single person on this planet. Except hairy hermits in mountain caves who don’t listen to music, but who cares whether they are hypnotized or not!”
Mr. Proila pressed Pause and stared, stunned, at the screen. “I don’t believe it! It can’t be true.” He rubbed his eyes. He rewound the tape and watched the footage again.
“. . . except hairy hermits in mountain caves who don’t listen to music, but who cares whether they are hypnotized or not!”
Mr. Proila watched as Molly carefully put the coin away in her pocket. He knew he was on to something.
Pouring himself another drink, he rewound the tape right back to the beginning. Now he meticulously began to study the film.
In Moscow, he saw that Molly was stroking the coin. In Rome, she congratulated the coin and Mr. Proila watched as she tried the coin in different purses. “No, that doesn’t suit you,” she was saying. “This one’s too leathery. None of them is good enough for you, you perfect thing.”
In Paris, Mr. Proila now saw that she was talking to the coin again, not to herself. In Madrid, Mr. Proila lip-read as Molly spoke to the coin more desperately.
“I mustn’t let anyone find you,” she was saying. “You’re mine—mine alone. You know I’m your mistress, don’t you? You’d electrocute anyone who touched you, wouldn’t you? Like the Japanese granny. Stupid woman. She shouldn’t have touched you. She deserved to be burned. She won’t try to steal you again. You can only belong to someone else if I give you to them, or if I lose you, can’t you? And I’ll never do either of those things—so we’re together forever and forever!” Molly hugged the coin to her cheek and shut her eyes.
Mr. Proila’s eyes widened as he watched. To start with, he kept saying, “Weird, just weird!” He wondered whether the vodka was making him imagine things. But the more he watched, the more he found himself facing an undeniable truth. Molly believed that the coin she carried helped her make hypnotic music.
Now Mr. Proila saw that Molly’s behavior was paranoid and nervous. She was sitting scared in her room, glancing this way and that as though expecting an invisible attack.
“That coin is getting to you, li’l girl.” Mr
. Proila chuckled. “Looks as if you should let someone else look after it.” He switched the monitor off.
As the screen dropped back into its concealed home, he tipped the last of the vodka into his mouth.
“The question is, how do I get you to part with it?”
Twenty-three
A few days later a black jet landed in Tokyo Haneda Airport. The sleek aircraft taxied off the runway to a special hangar, where Molly disembarked. A white Bentley awaited her. Molly climbed inside, with Miss Sny, and was whisked away.
Fans lined the road from the airport. Molly ignored them.
“So, Miss Sny. I expect sales of my CD have done well this week?”
“Oh yes, Miss Moon.”
“And my bank account is filling up even more?”
“Yes, it’s b-burgeoning, Miss Moon.”
“‘Burgeoning’? Why are you trying to use fancy words, Miss Sny? They don’t suit you. You’re not that clever. Burge-what-ing? What does that even mean?”
Miss Sny stuttered nervously. “B-burgeoning—it means overflowing with—”
“Burgeoning—yes, I like that word. It suits me down to the ground. I’ll use it from now on.” Molly pointed a silver fingernail sharply at Miss Sny. “But you, Miss Sny, are never to use that word again. Got that?”
“No, Miss Moon, I mean, yes, Miss Moon. I wouldn’t dream of it.”
By the time Molly got back to the Pea-pod Building, she was very short-tempered. “So annoying not to have my own place,” she grumbled as they stepped into the elevator. “Find me a property, Sny. Suppose I’ll have to talk to those Japanese twits again.”
“Er, oh. Sorry, sorry. I’m so sorry,” Miss Sny apologized. “The boys are working late in the studio, Miss Moon, so they won’t be there. But I hear that someone is waiting for you—a Mr. Scarlet.”
Molly’s eyebrows arched. “Oh, him. I’ll go up alone.”
“Yes, Miss Moon.”
When Molly stepped into the apartment, Rocky was looking out of the window at the glittering night view of Tokyo.
On hearing the door close, he turned. His face lit up. He rushed toward Molly and threw his arms around her, giving her a massive bear hug. Molly, cold as a marble pillar, made a face at the physical contact. Rocky didn’t notice. Grinning, he drew away from her.
“Don’t ever do that again,” Molly said crushingly. “Things are not like they used to be. I . . . I am different.”
“I know, I know—you are brilliant!” Rocky exclaimed. “Your music is genius! I can hardly believe it! My friend—my friend Molly—is world famous!”
Molly interrupted him. “I’m not your friend anymore. You can forget that idea, Rocky. You knew me once, that’s all. I’m an independent person now and far superior to you.”
Rocky’s face dropped. “But . . . but, Molly, what are you saying? We’re like brother and sister.”
Molly laughed. She had been prepared to play guitar to Rocky, but it was obviously unnecessary. He was already putty in her hands. “No, Rocky. I don’t have any family,” she said, with fake sadness. “Neither you nor Gerry nor Petula are family to me anymore. I’m alone, and I like it this way.” Molly turned to the fridge. The idea of friendship made her feel queasy, and she didn’t like the look on Rocky’s face that seemed to be begging her to be friends with him again. On the wall behind him the one-eyed Japanese dolls stared at Molly. “I can’t believe those ugly things are still here,” she commented. “Must get rid of them.”
“Where are Gerry and Petula?” Rocky asked, knowing full well that they were safe in the van with Sobo and the sumo master.
“Who knows?!” Molly answered. “Who cares?!” she added, cracking open a can of mineral water.
Rocky observed her coolly. “I know someone who knows,” he said. “That person thinks there’s something weird going on with you, Molly.” He stepped up closer behind her.
When Molly turned around Rocky was right behind her. He grabbed the collar on her dress and pulled her toward him. She was taken completely by surprise.
“Guess what, Molly, I am not under your power. What is more, I believe you are under the influence of someone or something else. Don’t try to hypnotize me with your eyes. I’m too alert. You won’t be able to.”
Molly looked stunned. She dropped her can of water and clamped her hands over her ears. “You’ve come to hypnotize me, haven’t you? With your voice. But I won’t let you. Anyway you were never very good at it.”
Rocky pulled one of Molly’s hands from her ear. “I’ve come to help you get yourself out of whatever trap you’re in. It’s obvious to anyone who knows you that there’s something weird going on . . . unless they’re hypnotized by this music you play.”
He let her hand go. Molly reached into the pocket where she kept her harmonica. Just a few notes were all that was needed. She’d once liked Rocky, she thought, but now she loathed him, for his interference, for his desire to spoil her future.
Before she could bring the instrument to her lips, Rocky gripped her wrist. He shook it till the harmonica clattered to the floor.
“Something’s helping you play these instruments,” Rocky growled. “It’s not a person, as a person couldn’t give you all this musical knowledge. It’s something powerful. Sobo told me about a weird coin you carry in your pocket.”
“GET O—” Molly started to cry out.
Rocky pushed her backward, at the same time as he reached for her jacket pocket.
Molly struggled and twisted and then she began laughing. “This is going to be funny. You’re going to get such a surprise!”
Rocky ignored her. His hand delved into the first pocket—empty—and then into the one where the coin was. As soon as he touched it, he yelled and retracted his hand. In pain and shock, he let go of Molly.
Mr. Proila sat in his apartment, watching all of this on his special screen. He’d heard from Miss Sny that Molly was returning to Tokyo, and so he had set up three concealed cameras in the boy band’s apartment. Now he watched Molly leap away from the boy who had been her friend and retrieve her harmonica. He saw the boy snapping earphones over his ears and then diving for Molly again. It was clear to Proila that the boy was in a weak position, for if Molly dislodged his earphones he would be vulnerable to her powerful music. When she dived for his head, he only just managed to dodge her. And then he fled.
Rocky ran as fast as he could out of the apartment, into the elevator, and out onto the street.
There was the wrestling school van, with the sumo wrestler on the side. The back door opened and Gerry and Petula peered out.
“Not good?”
“No!”
Rocky jumped in, banged on the front wall of the van, and with a screech they were off.
Up in the apartment, Molly was furious. “Let him see how far he gets! He’s nothing. He’s pathetic!”
Mr. Proila strode in. “Molly!” he gushed. “I turned your music up loud and felt its power! You’re incredible—you’re a superstar.”
Molly ignored Mr. Proila. She was too angry to listen to him.
“Oh, oh! It was superb,” Mr. Proila enthused. “I’ve never experienced anything like it. In fact”—his face crumpled with emotion—“in fact, Molly, no art has ever moved me as much. Your music is phenomenal—I felt it.” He pressed his hand to his heart.
“Not now!” Molly snapped. “Damn!” she spat. She slumped onto the sofa. Then she eyed Mr. Proila suspiciously. “You felt my music?”
“Yes! Yes. I turned it on loud. I felt its rhythm through the speakers. Its vibrations through the floor, through my feet. You are . . .” Mr. Proila acted as adoringly as he could. “You are a genius. An—an angel!” He looked at Molly’s cross face. “But you seem upset. Can I help?” he asked innocently.
Molly sighed. “I wish you hadn’t done that,” she said disappointedly. “I liked you so much more when you weren’t besotted. Now you’ll be just like all the rest. But,” she said slowly, considering him, “you can do
something for me. There was a boy here just now. I need to track him down. And then, maybe, I’ll need to get rid of him. Can you do that for me?”
“Of course,” Mr. Proila said agreeably. “I’ll see to it. I’ll call security.”
“And by the way, Proila,” Molly added, not losing an opportunity to get what was hers, “I want all the money that I’ve made so far put in my own bank account today.”
“It’s there!” Mr. Proila exclaimed. He paused. “And actually, I wonder whether I might suggest something for you? I would like to plan a tea ceremony for you, Molly. Not an ordinary tea—a Japanese ceremonial tea. Since experiencing your music,” Mr. Proila went on, acting as though he was being as thoughtful as he possibly could, “I’ve realized we must mark this stage of your brilliant career. I know how fine things appeal to you—things of quality and high artistic achievement—and I think a Japanese tea ceremony would satisfy your taste. Only those of the highest sensibilities can appreciate its subtlety and sophistication.”
Molly nodded. “Yes, anything of great beauty helps me,” she agreed.
“Oh, I am so glad,” Mr. Proila said, smiling.
“Remember, I am always at your service.” He bowed and walked backward out of the apartment and into the elevator. “And I will find that boy for you. Do you have a preference for how you’d like him disposed of?”
“I’ll choose the method when you’ve caught him,” Molly declared. “And I’ll have that Japanese tea this afternoon.” She muttered to herself, “I’ll probably be so highly irritated by then that I’ll need some high culture to soothe me.”
“Certainly, certainly,” said Mr. Proila, popping out of the elevator and bowing again.
“And, Mr. Proila, you look like some sort of bobbing car ornament when you do that. Cut it out. It doesn’t suit you.”
Mr. Proila backed into the elevator and straightened up. The elevator door shut.
Inside it a look of sly malevolence darkened Mr. Proila’s face. He jabbed at the elevator button. “Gotcha!”