Body on the Stage (18 page)

“What, arms and legs as well?”
asked Ricky. “Don’t women want us to look manly? We’ll look like
teenagers if we have no body hair at all.”

“That’s why you’ve been working
out, dear, so you’ve got a manly shape. Believe me, those
well-muscled arms and legs are a lot more inviting to touch when
they’re smooth and silky.”

“Touch?” said Warwick, frowning.
“Who’s going to be touching us? Surely the audience isn’t allowed
to get that up close and personal, are they?”

“You’ll be in amongst them,
won’t you? It’s only natural they’ll try to grab a feel here and
there. Don’t look so worried, there are techniques I’ll teach you
for dealing with all that.”

Dennis grinned to himself. That
was a side of performing in public he hadn’t considered. Those
actors were going to be very, very exposed – and at close quarters,
too. He shuddered and made his way through to the safer environment
of the timber bay where ordinary blokes faced normal problems, like
selecting knot-free wood or finding the right type of screwdriver
bit.

“Oh dear, they are a bunch of
show ponies, aren’t they?” said Gazza, on hearing about the actors’
grooming directives. “Wonder if they’ll get implants and
liposuction to achieve the perfect body.”

“I’ve never had any complaints
about mine,” said Tony staunchly. He looked down at his belly. “The
missus says she likes something to grab hold of. That’s why they
call them ‘love handles’, isn’t it?” He slapped at the solid fat.
“It took me years to break her habit of trying to feed me salad but
she finally caved in. Now there’s always ice-cream in the freezer
and plenty of sausages ready for a barbecue. Life’s too short to
worry about what you eat.”

Dennis bit his tongue to keep
from making a comment. He’d come to realise the value of healthy
eating but he didn’t want to lose his place as one of the guys. He
smiled to himself, thinking it was almost like getting religion or
becoming an insurance salesman – if you showed too much zeal nobody
wanted to risk talking to you.

“Of course if you worked a bit
harder instead of sitting at a desk from nine to five you’d be able
to eat all that and still be a lean machine like me,” said Gazza.
“You desk jockeys’ll be keeling over with a coronary while I’m
still running up and down ladders all day.” He hefted a length of
timber towards Tony. “Here, think quick!” Tony caught it easily and
added it to the stack on the floor.

“So Doc, how are things at the
gym? You still being whipped into shape by your very own personal
trainer? Does he sit beside you sipping decaf soy lattes while you
do a hundred push-ups? Must be bloody annoying.”

“Actually, the guy who did most
of our training has disappeared. It looks as if he was fiddling the
accounts then just took off a couple of weeks ago – I guess he
thought he’d be found out.”

“Any idea where he’s gone?
Sounds like he needs to be tracked down and stomped on heavily,”
said Gazza. “Do you think he’s round town still?”

“Unlikely. We found his passport
when we searched his apartment, but I reckon he’ll be travelling on
a false one and will probably be in another country by now.”

“Ah, but that’s what he wants
you to think,” said Tony. “It’s a classic double bluff. He knows
you expect him to leave town so you won’t be looking nearby. He’s
lying low round here somewhere until the heat dies down.”

“It’s a point of view,
certainly,” said Dennis, thinking that Tony had been watching too
many bad movies. “Seems unlikely though. If he’s dishonest enough
to rig the accounts then he’d have no qualms about using a false
passport, would he?”

“Yeah, but how easy is it to get
one?” asked Gazza. “They’ve tightened up all the loopholes now so
you can’t just write away and get one in the name of some dead
person. Unless,” he mused, “he had gang connections or knew some
really good forgers. Did he seem the sort of guy who had friends
like that?”

“Actually no, he didn’t, he was
pretty clean-cut. Small and lightweight, the sort of guy a gang
member would snap in half to pick his teeth with. Maybe you’re
right, maybe he really is hiding out somewhere around Whetford.
It’s the sort of sneaky thing I could imagine him doing.”

“What say we go look for him
this weekend? We’re up to speed here and could spare a couple of
hours to check out the likely places. I reckon the Hook Valley
campground would be a possible, with all those little huts and
cabins for rent. A guy could lie low there and stay unnoticed for
weeks if he had plenty of supplies with him.”

“Yeah,” said Tony, “we can form
a posse! We’ll go find this guy and bring him in. We’ll track down
- what’s his name?”

“Vincenzo.”

“Vincenzo? Foreigner, is he? All
the better, he’ll be easier to spot. Right then, meet here on
Saturday afternoon at one o’clock and we’ll ride out for justice.
Yippee-ki-yay!”

Gazza rolled his eyes. “Yeah,
whatever.”

“In the meantime,” Tony
continued, undeterred, “I’m going to make some calls. Who do we
know that could help, Gaz? The concierge at the Rutherton Hotel
owes us a favour, after we supplied crew for that fashion thing
they did. Dennis, give me Vincenzo’s full name and description,
anything you know about him, even his favourite food – he might
have ordered room service and that would give him away.”

“Hell, I don’t know that much
about the guy! He just told me what to do at the gym – we didn’t
hang out together. I’ll ask Cathy, she worked with him. She should
know more about his personal habits. Can I get back to you with all
this? She’ll need a bit of time to think about it.”

“Sure, no problem. So how are
you and the pretty trainer lady getting on, Doc? You looked very
friendly in the Green Room the other day.”

Dennis felt a blush heating his
cheeks. “We’re friends, yes. She seems to think there’s something
under all this fat that’s worth working on, and who am I to argue?
She’s helping me get fit and it seems only fair I help her with
this in return.”

“Good for you, Doc, you’re a man
of honour. And the frontier towns of the west need more like you,
riding out for truth and justice and…”

“Tony, you want to give us a
hand with this bar before you get too carried away? It’s not going
to build itself you know.” Gazza dumped a pile of wood into his
arms.

“Yeah, all right. Hey, do you
think we could put a real pair of swing doors on it, like in the
westerns?”

They wandered off towards the
foyer, still bickering amicably. Dennis followed with a bag of
tools.

At one o’clock on Saturday
Dennis stood outside the theatre, feeling faintly foolish. Perhaps
Tony and Gazza had been joking about looking for Vincenzo. It did
seem a bit far-fetched, now he thought about it. They’d probably
been pulling his leg and he just hadn’t spotted it. He decided to
wait for a few more minutes then disappear quietly and forget about
the whole thing.

Moments later a battered white
van did a fast u-turn in the street and pulled in to the kerb
beside him. Tony leaned out of the passenger window. “Hop in,
Dennis! We’re all set to hunt down your fugitive!”

Dennis pulled open the sliding
door and stepped inside, looking for a seat among the boxes of
electrical cables and equipment. Gazza leaned over the back of the
driver’s seat to greet him.

“Gidday, Doc, just grab a box to
sit on, you’ll be OK. I won’t drive like a maniac.”

Dennis lowered himself onto the
sturdiest-looking container and perched there uncomfortably,
anxious his weight might cause the lid to collapse.

“Good of you guys to turn up,”
he said. “Where do you think we should start?”

“We don’t need to check out the
Rutherton Hotel,” said Tony. “I called the guy there with all the
details you gave me about this Vincenzo character and he was sure
there’d been nobody like that staying for the last two or three
weeks, so we can cross that off the list. There are a couple of
smaller hotels we can call in and look at, show them the photos and
ask around. So is the posse ready to ride out?” Tony was almost
bouncing in his seat with excitement.

“Sure. Let’s do this!” Dennis
felt a surge of optimism. With these guys helping out, it felt like
the problem was as good as solved.

Gazza revved the van’s engine
and they roared off in a light cloud of smoke.

An hour later they had called on
all the inner-city hotels, shown Vincenzo’s photo around widely,
and drawn a blank everywhere. They called in to a bar to plan their
next move over a beer. Dennis bought the first round and set them
down on the table.

‘What the hell are you
drinkin’?” Gazza looked askance at the bottle in front of
Dennis.

“It’s a low-cal beer. Probably
still outside my daily allowance but I figured we might get some
exercise later if we’re doing a search up the valley, so I can work
it off then.”

“Bloody hell. It’s a poor show
when a bloke can’t even have a decent beer when he needs one.”
Gazza shook his head. “Still, I admire your dedication, Doc.”

Tony set his bottle back on the
table. “Right, we can either go check the ritzier hotels further
out of town, or we can keep on searching the more isolated areas up
the Hook Valley. Gazza’s idea of Vincenzo hiding out at the Hook
Valley Camp might not fit the luxury lifestyle you said he wants,
Dennis, but I think it’s still a possible option. And it won’t take
long to do a quick walk around the area. Like you said, it’s good
exercise.” He took another swig of beer. “Not that I condone that
sort of thing, of course.”

The van ground slowly along the
narrow road up the Hook Valley, passing willow trees trailing idle
branches in the swift-flowing stream. At one point a side road
branched off with a ford across the river, and Gazza paused to
check the water level.

“Looks like there’s been a bit
of rain in the headwaters. There’s a fair amount coming through
here.” The causeway was almost submerged in the middle with foam at
the downstream edge where the brown water eddied strongly. “Good
thing we’re not here for a swim. I bet it’s freezing.”

They moved on up the valley
towards the camp area, pulling in between its concrete gate pillars
and parking across from the office.

“I’ll go see if they recognise
the photo,” said Dennis. “Tell them we’d like to look around.”

Minutes later he returned to
Tony and Gazza. “She didn’t remember anyone like him but said we
can look around as much as we want. The place is pretty quiet at
the moment.”

“Right then, let’s walk right up
to the top end and work our way back.”

Gazza led them up a gravel path
among tall dark pine trees, walking for almost ten minutes until
they reached the furthest cabin tucked away behind a screen of
ferns beside the river.

“I bet the mosquitoes eat you
alive up here,” he muttered. “Damn silly place to come for a
holiday, I reckon.”

They peered into the windows of
the cabin but it was clearly unoccupied.

“Check the riverbank,” said
Tony, “there might be footprints in the damp mud.”

“Who are you being now, the cop
hunting The Fugitive? You watch way too much TV, mate.” Gazza shook
his head but led them down to the river where they fanned out and
did a quick search along the waterline. Dennis stepped carefully on
the faint pathway formed between scrubby low bushes, making sure he
wasn’t obliterating any footprints. The ground was mostly rocky but
there were one or two pockets of silt trapped where puddles had
drained away. Following the swift stream, he saw no sign of other
foot traffic. The dark brown water gurgled and splashed beside him.
He was about to turn back and join the others when a patch of
bright green just under the water caught his eye. It wasn’t a
natural colour and he assumed it was a piece of litter washed down
by the rain, but just to be thorough he went closer to check. It
was a piece of material, sticking out from under a branch, with a
light covering of silt trapped in the folds. Further under the
semi-opaque brown water there were lighter patches of something
showing. Something about the lime green material made the hair
stand up on the back of his neck. A closer look revealed what
looked like a Nike logo at the bottom edge.

“Guys,” he called, staring
fixedly at the object. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Hey,
guys? Come here a minute, will you?”

Belatedly he looked down to see
if there were any footprints beside his own, but the stream had
washed the pebbles clean and his damp marks were the only prints to
be seen. Tony and Gazza stepped onto the shingle beside him. He
pointed.

“What have you got here, Doc?”
Gazza bent over to get a closer look.

“I saw the green in the water.
It’s material of some sort, like a shirt I’ve seen Vincenzo wearing
around the gym. Can you see what it’s stuck on?”

Tony passed Gazza a willow stick
and he poked gingerly at the green material. It seemed to be
stretched over a solid shape. He probed further, feeling the
outline of the pale patches. He pulled back and shuddered
involuntarily.

“I could be wrong, but I think
we might have found our fugitive.” He pulled out his cellphone.
“Best we call the cops, I think.”

He looked to the others for
their agreement and punched in the number. Dennis was secretly
pleased to see the tremble in Gazza’s fingers, figuring that if
even he was shaken, it was okay to feel like a wet lettuce leaf
himself. Gazza gave the police accurate directions to reach their
location and nodded at the instructions he received in return.
“Yep, got that. Will do. Yep. OK, see you shortly.” He pocketed his
phone and looked at the others. “They want us to keep back but stay
within view of the area to guard the spot. Leave as little trace as
possible, so step back in the same footprints you made to get over
here. We can wait by the back of the cabin.”