A fugitive on the run from the whole of Jo’burg

The most successful radio promotion in Jo’burg history is Highveld 94.7’s The Fugitive. Every day, during the months of August and September, listeners stand the chance of winning tens of thousands of rands if they can physically track down the person posing as the Fugitive from clues provided on Highveld.
During the months of the competition, the pages of The Citizen regularly carry pics of thrilled listeners above captions like, “Hillary Deemter won R75 000 when she tracked down the fugitive at Vodaworld in Midrand yesterday.”
It is quite a phenomenon. Office workers are known to desert their posts to go screaming across town to apprehend “The Fugee” when they think they’ve cracked Highveld’s cryptic clues.
One can also unwittingly find yourself in the vicinity of the Fugitive, and be asked repeatedly, “Are you the Fugitive?” It can be quite confusing for someone who doesn’t know what it’s all about.
Wiaan Nortje knew exactly what the Fugitive promotion was all about. So he should have known better than to show up at Gold Reef City in a black leather overcoat. Especially seeing as he’d been listening to Highveld on the way down to the casino.
The writers at Afterglow, who produce the Metropole soapie on which he was employed as an actor, had been neglecting his character lately. This could be because he kept showing up half-drunk, and possibly because the police came to arrest him on set last month.
Whatever the reason, his past few weeks’ scripts had been full of incidental, “Howzit boet”s and meaningless backslapping, with no sign of a decent plot development for his character, drug-addled ad exec Rivers Jordaan.
Today had been the last straw. All he’d been called upon to do was make up the crowd in the bar when a couple of the other characters got into a shoving match. He hadn’t even needed to be there.
So he’d bunked the soapie and come gambling at Gold Reef City. Bugger it. No one would even notice he wasn’t there.
“Where money is everywhere, but usually just virtual, there you will find me – and my presence won’t be just spiritual!”
That was the cryptic clue to finding the Fugitive today.
And that was the reason excited punters were tugging on his sleeve every three minutes, as Wiaan tried to concentrate on his gaming machine.
“Hey! Rivers Jordaan. Are you The Fugitive?”
“Er, howzit. No, no. I’m not the Fugitive. Nice meeting you, though.”
Bollocks. Bladdy fans. And of course he looked exactly like the bladdy Fugitive too. Great.
Wiaan retreated into the bar and got himself a beer. He noticed photographers at large, roaming around the gaming area. They looked ready to instantly snap whatever lucky person managed to find the Fugitive for tomorrow’s Citizen. Sheez, he realised, he’d have to keep a low profile. If management were to find out there was a celebrity on the premises, he could find himself roped into presenting the cheque! Then he would be well and truly busted by his bosses.
Wiaan took his beer deep into the pit and found a fairly sheltered gaming position under the Fountain of Fortune.
“Hey, skattie! Look, it’s Rivers Jordaan,” he heard someone whispering behind him. That was fine, as long as they didn’t approach him.
He pulled up his collar and hunched over his machine, awkwardly aware that this just made him look even more fugitive-like.
Out of the corner of his eye, Wiaan noticed a scruffy bearded man in a grey sports jacket and an anonymous baseball cap. “Now that’s what I’d expect the Fugitive to look like, he thought to himself.”
For a millisecond he contemplated going over and apprehending the oke. Seventy-five grand is seventy-five grand, after all. But then he thought better of it. Let some other oke get bust for bunking work.
Low-key money wasting was the name of today’s game.
Wiaan pushed the play button on his machine for only about the fifth time that morning and sirens went off. The Fountain of Fortune lit up like a fireworks display and an explosion of neon turned heads the length and breadth of the pit.
Photographers came running from everywhere.
A pit boss in a Gold Reef City blazer came jogging up to shake hands. “Congrats, you’ve won R100 000. We knew the Fountain was going to blow some time today. Now let’s just get a photo of you for the Citizen.”
Wiaan was so bust. In for a penny, he thought, and tapped the bearded man on the should. “Excuse me, are you the Fugitive?”