Body on the Stage (26 page)

“I sort of assumed they’d put
them on the edge of the stage when they left,” said Mark. “I
suppose that’s wrong, is it?”

“They’d become trophies, boys.
Precious souvenirs of a naughty night out. Those boxers and briefs
would go on display in office cubicles all around the town, and our
wardrobe budget would take a hammering to replace them. Tell you
what, I’ll see if we can get some disposable items you can throw to
the crowd, but for the rest of your gear, make sure your bits and
pieces land in a pile behind you that’s practical for a stage hand
to run out and collect in a blackout. If you throw shoes over that
side of the stage and jacket over this side and your shirt up the
back, it’s going to make a long and messy scene change trying to
retrieve them all. Got that?”

“Yes, Cathy,” they chorused.

Dennis hid a smile. She was so
good at handling the guys. But the thought of the heavies that had
come looking for her earlier made his smile disappear. She wouldn’t
be able to charm those two, no matter what.

When they left the theatre that
night he looked around carefully to make sure the street was clear
of lurking hit-men.

“Can I give you a ride home?
It’s late, and I don’t like to think of you cycling home in the
dark.”

She looked at him. “I have
lights and a fluoro vest – I’ll be fine. And if you’re worried
about those two heavies, I promise I’ll take the back streets and
make sure I’m not being followed. Don’t panic on my behalf, but
thanks for your concern anyway. It’s nice that you care.” She
leaned over to give him a light kiss.

“What time are you going in to
work tomorrow?” he asked her casually. Her eyes sharpened.

“Probably about six-thirty.
Why?”

“Oh, I just thought I might come
in early and do my workout before going to the office, just to get
it out of the way. With rehearsals filling the evenings it’s a bit
hard to fit it in at the end of the day.”

“But I thought you hated early
mornings.”

“Well, it’s only for a little
while, isn’t it? Once
Ladies Night
is over, I’ll have my
evenings back.”

She smiled. “I’m so glad you’re
planning to keep up with the gym even after the show finishes.
That’s great! We’ll make a fitness fanatic of you yet.”

Her comment derailed his train
of thought. He’d got so used to working out now that he’d never
even considered stopping when the show ended. He liked how he
looked and felt now. Of course he wouldn’t want to go back to the
fat, unhealthy lump he’d been before.

“Anyway,” he said, getting back
on track, “I’ll see you in the morning then. Six-thirty. Great.” He
waved her away, then looked at his watch. Best he go home to bed
pretty smartly if he was to be up so ungodly early next morning.
His new life was turning out to be full of novel experiences.

When his alarm went off at six
am, he rolled over, thumped the snooze button and buried his face
in the pillow. He zoned out for a few minutes, drifting back
towards sleep, until the thought of Cathy unlocking the gym and
being rushed by two thugs sent a jolt of adrenalin through his
system. He levered himself upright and padded off to the bathroom,
rubbing his face and fighting to wake up.

He arrived at Intensity at six
twenty-five, yawning hugely. The street appeared deserted. As he
pulled in to the kerb he saw Cathy arrive on her racing bike. She
took off her helmet, shook her mane of red hair free and beamed at
him.

“You made it then,” she laughed
as he locked the car. “I was wondering if you’d manage it.”

“No worries.” He took a deep
breath. “Ah, isn’t it fresh at this time of day? I love the smell
of oxygen in the morning, don’t you?”

“It’s all right, Dennis, you
don’t have to be quite so brave. Here, come on inside, I brought
coffee for you. I thought you might need it.”

“Oh you wonderful woman,” he
said fervently. “You’re a life-saver.” With the lure of strong, hot
coffee in his nostrils he almost forgot to check out the street for
unwanted thugs. At the last minute he stopped in the doorway and
looked around. No other pedestrians walked the streets, and the few
vehicles that were moving at that hour of the day drove straight
past with no air of menace about them. He relaxed and bounded up
the stairs in search of his reward.

He found the coffee made a big
difference to the level of his workout, with a boost of energy that
sent the heaviest weights skywards almost effortlessly. He rowed
two kilometres in under ten minutes, feeling terrific all the
way.

At seven o’clock the little old
lady he’d met in his first week came in and began her workout. As
he went past her he angled a look at the weight she was lifting on
the adductor machine and was pleased to see it was less than he was
currently working with. At last, he’d caught up with the
septuagenarian! She took his smile as an invitation to talk.

“You’ve done very well since I
saw you last. Good for you!”

“Thank you. It’s all Cathy’s
doing really. She’s great, isn’t she?”

“Somebody taking my name in
vain?” Cathy appeared behind him and put a hand on his shoulder.
“Ruthie, I don’t think you’ve met Dennis, have you? Dennis, Ruthie
is a three-time triathlon champion, training for an Everest
expedition.”

His jaw dropped. “Really? That’s
amazing! No wonder you’re able to lift such weights. Now I don’t
feel so bad at being such a weakling when I first started.” He
smiled deprecatingly. “You made quite a dent in my male pride, but
I can live with it now that I know you’re an elite athlete!”

“You keep working on it,
Dennis,” she said. “We’ll make a muscle-man of you yet, won’t we
Cathy?”

“Oh, I think he’s pretty much
right already,” said Cathy with a grin. “Shaped to perfection just
the way I like.”

Dennis looked from one to the
other. “Hello - I’m right here, ladies.”

“Well you shouldn’t be! Stop
standing around chatting and go finish your workout!”

“Ha! You tell him, Cathy!” The
old lady chuckled, winking at Dennis. He knew when to beat a
strategic retreat and left them to their conversation.

After his workout the hot shower
felt wonderful. He let the powerful spray wash all the sweat away
and ease his aching muscles. It was a good sort of tiredness and he
knew he’d feel the benefit from the early session all day.

As he was towelling off
afterwards he heard loud voices coming from outside the locker
room. They sounded male and very threatening. His heart pounding,
Dennis eased the door open a crack to see what was going on.

The two heavies had baled Cathy
up behind the reception desk and were leaning on it, shouting and
thumping it with their fists.

“We want to know! You’d better
tell us right now or things will start getting broken – and not
just windows.”

Dennis closed the door silently
and looked around for any kind of weapon. Cathy was in danger and
he intended to protect her, no matter how unlikely a hero he might
be. An abandoned towel hanging on a peg gave him an idea. He
grabbed it, wet it under the shower, and rolled it quickly into a
pointed shape. He tried a few flicks against the wall and was
pleased to see the impact it made. Outside the door the villains’
threatening shouts were still resounding through the building.

Dennis burst out of the locker
room with an angry roar, running straight at the smaller of the two
men. He lashed out with a savage flick of the towel that caught the
man in the face, sending him staggering backwards holding his hands
over his eye. He tripped and fell, hitting his head against the far
wall, and lay groaning faintly. Dennis spun round and faced the
taller man, twirling the towel in readiness for another flick, but
he was too slow and it was wrenched from his hand when the man
darted forwards and grabbed it. The only weapon left was the towel
round his waist. Without hesitation he whipped it off and spun it
into a point. The tall man stared for a moment then started to
laugh.

“Oh look,” he sneered, “it’s the
naked ninja!” But before he could say any more there was a
resounding clang as Cathy swung a fire extinguisher at his head,
sending him sprawling on the carpet. He heaved himself to his hands
and knees immediately, so Dennis realised there was little hope of
subduing him and attempted to drive him out instead. He started
flicking the towel deftly along the man’s waist and down towards
his groin, causing him to scramble to his feet in a hurry.

“Get out, you bastards!”
screamed Cathy. “I’ve called the police!”

The tall man hauled his groggy
companion to his feet and they both staggered off down the
stairs.

Dennis untwirled the towel and
tucked it hurriedly around his waist amid applause from the early
morning gym patrons.

Some minutes later other
footsteps echoed on the stairs as two uniformed policemen entered
the building. They took in the scene with some confusion.

“Who called for assistance?”
asked one.

“I did,” said Ruthie. “You took
your sweet time getting here, young man. We could all have been
murdered on the spot. It’s just as well Dennis and Cathy here were
able to subdue the attackers and chase them off – pity you weren’t
here in time to arrest them.”

There followed a prolonged
series of interviews.

When the policemen had gone
away, finally satisfied with their answers, Cathy and Dennis sat
down in her office to gather their thoughts.

“Well that was interesting,”
said Cathy. “I’m very impressed with your martial arts skills,
Dennis. What do you call that – Towel Kwan Do? I wish I’d thought
to pick up my camera!”

“Oh really? That wasn’t quite
what I had in mind for my after photo, I have to admit. I think
your fire extinguisher made a better weapon though.”

“No, not as good as your towel,”
she giggled. “Honestly, did you see his face? He just couldn’t
believe his eyes!”

“Yes, I get that a lot,” he said
with a grin. “That’s how I got to be so good at self defence – I’m
forever chasing women off who want to ravish me. There are always
queues of them outside my door – it’s such a bore. They just can’t
get enough of me.”

“That’s quite understandable,”
she said.

“Really?” He stood up and moved
closer.

“Yep, really.” She rose to her
feet and gazed into his eyes. He felt his thought processes
derailing rapidly as she melted into his arms.

“Um…”

A few minutes passed.

“Anyway,” said Cathy eventually,
“to get back to more serious matters – what are we going to do
about these two heavies who seem intent on demanding information
that I just don’t have? Those two cops didn’t seem particularly
helpful, did they? I got the feeling they thought it was a case of
disgruntled customers causing trouble, and since there was no
damage and no injuries to any of us they weren’t going to follow it
up.”

“Maybe we should tell Jack
Matherson. If it’s related to Vincenzo’s case then he’d be
interested, I’m sure.”

“Yes, of course. He’ll want to
question them about the murder, they’re such obvious suspects.”

The opportunity came sooner than
Dennis had expected. He found Jack talking to Jessica in the Green
Room that night, leaning on the kitchen counter while she dried
glass mugs with a tea-towel. Dennis picked up a mug and filled it
with cold water at the sink, using it as an excuse to loiter in the
area while he drank it so he could join in the conversation at an
appropriate moment. Jack was using a very patient voice to
Jessica.

“No, we can’t station a cop at
the theatre’s door 24/7, I’m sorry. Not going to happen. We’ll
respond as promptly as we can to any emergency calls, but that’s
the best I can promise.”

“So this is how our tax dollars
are spent, is it?” She reached out and tugged at his heavy jacket.
“You guys with the defence training and the Tasers get nice solid
stab vests, and we poor unarmed civilians have to fend for
ourselves.” She shook her head. “Shame.”

He took her teasing in good part
and Dennis assumed he must be well used to it.

“Actually, Jack – if I might
just butt in here,” he said, “if it’s the two guys that came here
last night that Jessica is worried about, she may be right.” Jack’s
head came up and he fixed Dennis with a steel-blue gaze.

“Oh yes? Go on, Dennis. What can
you tell me?”

“Well, the same guys came round
to the gym this morning. I didn’t hear exactly what they were
saying but they had Cathy pretty shaken up, and, well, we had to
use a bit of violence to get them out of there. They were very
threatening, although I have to admit they didn’t actually do
anything.”

“Interesting. You’d recognise
them again?”

“Oh hell yes! I saw them here
last night in the light of the doorway, and got quite close to them
this morning.” He smiled thinly. “If you do catch up with them, the
tall one will have a striking pattern of triangular bruises along
his left side and a lump on the side of his head. The shorter one
will have a bruised eye and a bump on the back of his head.”

Jack’s eyebrows shot up. “Did
they inflict any injuries on anyone at the gym? Cause any
breakage?”

“No, they didn’t. But I’m sure
they would have, if we hadn’t got them out of there. We thought
they might be connected with Vincenzo, trying to re-establish
supplying steroids at the gym. They might even be the ones who
killed him if their deal went bad or something.”

“You think they’re involved in
illegal drug use and murder? We’ll definitely want to know about
that.”

Dennis shrugged. “It’s just a
theory.”

Jack nodded thoughtfully. “Not a
bad one at that. Let me have our guys look into it. There may be a
pattern showing up in other establishments. We’ll put our ears to
the ground. Meanwhile, try to avoid any more vigilante activity,
will you, even if it was in self-defence. It’s the sort of thing
that can screw up a perfectly good court case and let the scumbags
go free. We don’t want that, do we?”