Death By Carbs (4 page)

THE HIJACKERS

 

 

Wednesday 7:41am

 

 

‘You take his head and I'll take his feet,' Thabo said.

‘Why do I have to take his head? You take his head, I'll take his feet,' Papsak whined.

‘Fine,' Thabo sighed, ‘you take his fucking feet then.'

‘Fok, why's he so bliksem heavy?' Papsak swore.

‘He's dead, not empty,' Thabo said through gritted teeth as they heaved the body out the ambulance and laid him on the floor of the workshop.

‘He's just some old mlungu,' Thabo said, pulling the beanie off the dead man's head. ‘Check his pockets.'

‘Why do I always have to do everything, why don't
you
check his pockets? I'm smoking,' grumbled Papsak, stepping back and lighting a roll-up.

Thabo clicked his tongue, then knelt next to the body and rifled through the dead man's front pockets, pulling a face when all he came up with was a small blue sweet in clear wrapping with the Spur logo on it, and a toothpick in the right pocket. He got luckier with the left front pocket, where he found a cell phone. He examined the Samsung, which had a fully charged battery and no missed calls, then slipped it into the inside pocket of his jacket before calling Papsak back over.

‘Help me turn him over,' he shouted.

The two men turned the mlungu over and Thabo felt in his back pockets, pulling a wad of cash out of the left-hand one. He whistled slowly, and then sat back on his heels to count the money.

‘How much is it?' Papsak asked, moving in closer.

‘Oh, now you're interested, tyhini!' Thabo said.

‘How much? It looks like a lot.'

‘Give me a second.' Thabo counted furiously. ‘It is a lot. It's like, like, like. . .'

‘Yes?' said Papsak, breathing down Thabo's neck.

‘It's ten grand,' Thabo said after he'd taken his time and counted it twice.

‘Yohhhhhh!' Papsak said, doing pantsula on the spot. ‘With the five grand we got from Moe, we'll definitely be able to buy the gusheshe from Lefty now.'

‘At last, my friend. Tonight we drive!' Thabo grinned.

‘Hamba, we'd better go get the gusheshe before Lefty sells it to someone else,' Papsak said.

Thabo folded the wad and stowed it in his inside pocket next to his new cell phone. Then the two men fist-bumped.

‘Wait, what are we going to do with him?' Papsak asked, nudging the body with his toe.

They stood peering at it, the mood suddenly serious.

‘I don't know. I've never had to get rid of a dead mlungu before,' Thabo said.

‘Dump him, maybe?' Papsak asked.

‘Where?'

‘I don't know. On the street out there?'

‘In Epping industria? No way! What if someone sees us?' Thabo
said. ‘There are cameras everywhere now. Haven't you seen Big Brother?'

‘No, bhuti, you know I haven't got a dish at home. Have you got any better ideas?'

‘Why don't we take him with us to Lefty's? We can buy the gusheshe and ask Lefty what to do. He's a man who knows how to get things done.'

‘Maybe he'll even buy the mlungu from us to sell for muti or something. Then we'll have even more clips.'

Thabo nodded slowly. ‘But how will we get him to Lefty's shebeen? He weighs like an elephant. Do you know anyone with a car?'

Papsak shook his head.

‘What about your Uncle Sifiso?'

‘No way!' Papsak shouted. ‘He'll tell Mama, and she'll turn me in-
s
ide out. Then you'll have two bodies to deal with.'

‘Well then, how are we supposed to get him to Lefty's?' Thabo
asked.

‘Taxi?'

 

THE CEO

 

 

Wednesday 8.15am

 

 

Trevor walked a few blocks from the SnackCorp headquarters, then ducked into an alleyway. He checked over both shoulders to make sure nobody was following him, then dropped the brown paper bag with the two slices of toast into the stinking bins at the back of a Chinese restaurant. If anyone discovered him turfing their flagship product
back at the office, he'd be in big trouble. Looking to make sure nobody had seen him, he returned to the street.

Instead of going back towards his office, he walked in the opposite direction, casting constant anxious backward glances.

He finally reached the public telephone booth he'd scouted out a month ago, when he'd first started planning this thing. It had been
harder to find a public payphone than he had thought. Very few re-
mained in any big city these days, and the few that could be found were broken or had been vandalised. Nowadays everyone had cell phones. Public phones represented old, unloved technology – only useful for someone who needed to make an illicit call, and didn't want to leave a paper trail by RICA-ing a cheap cell phone. Someone like Trevor.

He picked up the receiver, slipped a coin into the slot, checked over his shoulder once more, then dialed the number he'd taken care to memorise. His adrenalin surged, and for a moment he thought he might lose his barely digested LCHF breakfast.

The number rang and rang and rang, until finally a robotic voice message kicked in: ‘The person you have dialled is not available at present; please leave a message after the tone. Beeeep.'

‘The eagle 'as landed,' Trevor whispered into the handset in a
cockney accent supposed to disguise his voice, just in case the recorded message was being stored or the phone was tapped. Who knew what technology was up to these days? He wasn't sure who would possibly
be interested in listening to a call made from a random public pay-
phone in Cape Town, or why anyone would want to track down this particular voicemail message, but he reckoned you could never take too many precautions in a situation like this. Where the cockney accent had come from, he wasn't sure. He also did a pretty good Spanish accent, and quite a decent Irish one, too. Maybe he could have been an actor, he thought, adding it to his growing list of parallel-universe careers, all of which would have saved him his current trauma. ‘I repeat,' he muttered in his best East End cockney, ‘the eagle 'as landed, guv'nor.'

Trevor hadn't expected the call to go to message, so he hadn't really planned what he was going to say. ‘It's all over the internet, mate,' he trailed off, feeling foolish, his voice quavering. ‘Our project seems to 'ave gone smoothly. Soooo, I've got my pager wiv me, so you let me know when and where and 'ow you'd like to meet, to make final payment for the, for the . . . the photo-shoot,' he said. ‘Like we agreed, orright? It
was you though, innit? Just checking. I mean, I know we said next week, so you're a little early, but . . . success, yeah? Well, let me know.'

The phone bleeped, indicating that the message recorder had come to an end, whether he was finished speaking or not. And then there
was nothing left in his ear but the rush of his heartbeat and the drone of the dialling tone.

Trevor stood on the pavement staring at the cars streaming by, but not really seeing anything. He'd done it. He'd actually done it, and soon his problems would be over. He'd never actually considered what life would be like once the deed had been done. It was surreal. His knees shook with a mixture of nerves and adrenalin and elation and fear and shock and disgust. Relief, too. So many emotions squeezed into one moment, his head was spinning. And he was starving. He could murder a croissant.

 

THE CO-AUTHORS

 

 

Wednesday 8:17am

 

 

‘Hey man, Marco, did you hear?'

‘Shaun? What?'

‘Are you sitting down?'

‘No, I'm at the restaurant prepping bok choy. What is it?'

‘It's Noakes. You should probably sit down.'

‘You're freaking me out. What's going on, Shaun?'

‘You haven't seen the news?'

‘Jesus Christ, just spit it out! You're scaring me.'

‘Noakes is dead.'

‘What the fuck are you talking about?'

‘The domestic worker found his body in his kitchen last night. He was still alive, but in critical condition. He died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.'

‘No! I can't believe it! What happened?'

‘They're not sure. But there's a picture doing the rounds on the internet, one of the neighbours took it on their cell phone at the scene before the ambulance arrived, so it's dark and a bit blurry.'

‘Was it a home invasion?'

‘They're not sure yet; but they don't think anything was stolen.'

‘Wait, what does that even mean? Are you saying that someone might have murdered him, like on purpose?'

‘It's possible. Like I said, they're not saying. I can't believe you haven't heard about it yet. Twitter is going nuts. In fact, the entire internet is on fire.'

‘I was at the market first thing, and I just got to the restaurant, and it's crazy here,' Marco said. ‘They don't know how he died? How is that possible?'

‘Well, that's the other thing. They can't do an autopsy to determine cause of death.'

‘Why the hell not?'

‘Well, this is the insane bit. The latest news is that the ambulance taking him to hospital when he died was hijacked, with the body in it.'

Marco staggered and sat down, still clutching the phone to his ear. ‘What?'

‘Yup. They don't even know where he is now,' Shaun said.

‘Fuck. This is unbelievable. Do you think whoever killed him hi-
jacked the ambulance?'

‘To get rid of any evidence before an autopsy was done? Maybe.'

‘My head is literally spinning. Have you spoken to Xolisa and Shireen y
et?' Marco asked.

‘Yeah, I just got off the phone with Shireen, and I'm with Xolisa. They saw it online. It must have happened too late to make it into the morning papers.'

‘How are they?'

‘Shocked, freaked out, crying.'

‘Christ. . . What do you think this means for us?'

‘Sales will probably go up.'

‘For fuck's sake, Shaun!'

‘What? It's true. That's what happens when a celebrity dies! Michael Jackson sold more albums after his death than he did the entire decade before.'

‘I don't think we should compare the Prof to Michael Jackson.'

‘Fine, whatever. Listen, one of us is going to have to take over as the public face of this whole enterprise now that he's gone.'

‘Jesus, Shaun. His body, wherever it is, is barely cold. How can you even think about something like that at a time like this?'

‘Well, someone has to think about it! It's all of our futures at stake here. We can't fart about wringing our hands because one of us is no longer around. Someone needs to take charge, and I, for one, am up for the job.'

‘Shaun, please tell me you didn't have anything to do with his death. It wasn't you, was it?'

‘What? Wait, you think
I
killed him? Are you out of your freaking mind?'

‘No, but I mean, I have to ask. You don't seem particularly thrown by his death, to be honest. And I know how difficult it's been for us, and you especially, to accept that we're just the nameless co-authors behind the scenes, while he's been the one getting more famous by the day. Nobody calls it the Shaun diet, the Marco diet, the Xolisa diet or the Shireen diet: it's the Noakes diet. Everyone knows that hasn't been easy for you to handle, Shaun.'

‘That's rich! You've been just as frustrated as me. Plus you've hardly had an easy run with that dead-end, money-pit restaurant of yours. I'm sure it'll get a much-needed boost now with all the press we're about to get. You must have thought at some point that it would do a whole lot better if you had more of a public profile.'

‘For the sake of our partnership and our friendship, I'm going to pretend you didn't just say that, Shaun. We should stop this conversation now before one of us says more stuff we might regret. Something traumatic has happened, we're upset, in shock. And we shouldn't be having this kind of conversation over the phone, anyway. You never know who might be listening in.'

There was silence on the other end of the phone for a moment.

‘Fine. The police and the press are going to want a statement from each of us. We should get together to figure out what we're going to say,' Shaun spat.

‘A statement?'

‘Sure, don't be such an idiot! It's a fucking murder, we're his closest business partners, they're going to hang us upside down and give us a good shake, looking for answers to fall out. I'll set up a time, we can Skype with Shireen in Joburg. I'll text you the details,' Shaun said.

‘I can't believe this is fucking happening.'

‘Oh and Marco. . .'

‘What?'

‘Don't talk to the press until we've gotten together and worked out what we're going to say, okay?'

‘Jesus, what do you take me for? Of course I won't.'

 

Marco slammed down the phone, then placed the knife he was clutching down on the counter and breathed deeply. He thought he'd come across as appropriately surprised and horrified, which was important. He didn't want Shaun to know that he already knew about the Prof's death. He'd been practicing his surprised response and his devastated face all morning; it was going to come in handy over the next few weeks, he thought, returning to his bok choy.

 

 

THE EX-PUBLISHER

 

 

Wednesday 9:16am

 

 

‘You're late,' Clive snapped at Frank from behind his stupid face and his stupid tie and his ridiculous glasses.

‘I had business to attend to; it won't happen again,' Frank said to his boss, before muttering ‘fuck off, you adolescent cunt, or you'll be next,' under his breath as he struggled to pin his name badge to his chest with his left hand.

‘Jissus, what happened to your hand?' Clive asked.

‘None of your fucking business,' Frank mumbled.

‘It's bleeding! Are you okay?' Clive walked towards him from behind the bookstore counter.

‘It's nothing,' Frank said, loudly enough for Clive to hear this time, giving up on his name badge and leaving it unpinned and dangling above his shirt pocket.

‘You're bleeding all over the place, and your hand looks really swollen. In fact, it's blue. Are you sure you didn't break it?'

‘I told you, it's nothing. I punched a wall, that's all,' Frank said.

‘What on earth for?'

‘Anger, celebration . . . or maybe I just had an itch.' The sarcasm dripped from Frank's mouth.

‘Come to the office, I've got a first-aid kit. We can put a bandage on it,' Clive offered.

‘I'm fine,' Frank said. ‘Really, I'm better than I've been in ages.'

‘Okay, but don't get blood on any of the books,' Clive called after him. ‘You bleed on it, you buy it!'

‘I promise I won't bleed on your precious books,' Frank said wearily.

‘And once you've stopped bleeding, I need you to reorganise African Fiction. That section is a disaster.'

‘It's going to take more than a bit of reorganising to fix African Fiction,' Frank mumbled.

‘What's that?' Clive asked.

‘I said, I'm on my way.'

 

It was bullshit, Frank thought as he shuffled the books in African Fiction around with his left hand, his right one dangling uselessly by
his side, the knuckles throbbing. American bookstores didn't have shelves specifically for American fiction. Bookstores in the UK didn't separate books according to their origin. Fiction was fiction; it didn't matter where it came from. It only mattered if it was any good. South African bookstores had been getting it all wrong for years.

If he was in charge he would . . . he had to stop and remind himself that he had been in charge once upon a time, not so long ago, and he'd cocked it all up royally. And then his whole life had fallen apart.

He pushed the thought out of his mind and whistled as he worked. He wasn't going to let any of this bullshit ruin his good mood. This
was
his
day and he felt great, better than great, in fact. He finally had
the revenge he'd been waiting for for two years. Sweet, sweet revenge. The image of that old geezer lying all bloody on the floor would be forever engrained in his brain.

Maybe now that fraudulent Professor would be forgotten. Maybe now that he was dead, people would no longer be bamboozled by his medically irresponsible bullshit. And maybe, just maybe, he would stop being everywhere Frank turned, a constant reminder of his biggest, baddest failure.

Noakes was dead! Nothing was going to get Frank down today, not his shithead boss who was half his age, his dumb-as-a-plank customers, or all those annoying assistants just days out of the womb. He whistled as he finished reorganising African Fiction, then shifted over to Self Help. Books were still his happy place.

He scanned the shelf and shook his head; none of the books were in the right order here either. The
Chicken Soup for the Soul
book needed to be swopped with
How Much Joy Can You Stand?
, which was actually where
If You Had Controlling Parents
should be. He pulled the books
off the shelves one by one with his good hand, and then placed them back in alphabetical order.

Frank paused at a book called,
Are You Living or Surviving?
He balanced it on the shelf and paged through it, turning his nose up at the chapters offering tips on improving health, finances and romance. He replaced the book, then revisited
How Much Joy Can You Stand?
by Suzanne Falter-Barns.

‘I don't know, Suzanne,' he said to himself, ‘right now I'm pretty fucking joyful.'

‘Excuse me. . .' a voice cut in, interrupting his train of thought. ‘Do you work here?'

Frank considered shaking his head, but then remembered he was in a great mood, so he nodded.

‘Oh goodie,' the middle-aged woman said. ‘I'm looking for a nice book, what would you recommend?'

‘What are you looking for?' Frank asked. ‘Fiction or non-fiction?'

‘We're going on holiday, and I have to have something good to read,' the woman said, clutching the pendant on her chest between her fingers and spinning it on its chain. ‘Definitely fiction.'

Frank turned to the fiction shelf. ‘This is great,' he said as he tugged a new Kate Atkinson novel off the shelf awkwardly with his left hand and handed it to the woman.

She examined the back cover for half a second, then scrunched up her nose and handed it back.

‘Too serious,' she said.

Frank fumbled as he replaced the book with his left hand. Then he pointed at the latest Marion Keyes. ‘She's great,' he said, not wanting to pick it up with his left hand if she wasn't sure she wanted it – everyone knew Keyes wrote heavy books – literally, not figuratively. ‘It's the perfect holiday read, so they say.'

The woman slipped it off the shelf herself and eyed the front cover for a millisecond before replacing it. ‘I just don't know,' she said, her voice a kettle-boiling whine. ‘You don't have that new
Fifty Shades of Grey
book everyone has been talking about, do you?'

Frank sighed, led her wordlessly to the front of the store, and handed her the latest spin on the bestseller. A million copies sold in its first week. The injustice of it threatened to ruin his good mood for a second.

The woman took the book from him without thanking him and made her way to the till. Frank shook off the encounter and started whistling again as he followed her.

‘Hey,' Siya greeted him, or maybe it was Mark, or Phil, or Khanya, or who cared? The myriad revolving-door university students who part-timed alongside him in the bookstore were all the same. They all seemed impossibly young, and Frank couldn't be arsed to remember their names. It wasn't like he was going to hang out and discuss the latest Vladislavi
ć
with any of them.

As a forty-six-year-old man working as a sales assistant in a massive chain bookstore, he knew he stood out like erotica in the kiddies section, and he knew the other staff all talked about him behind his back, but he couldn't give a fuck. Especially today: today, he couldn't even give two fucks.

‘You're in a good mood,' the stripling assistant commented.

Frank carried on whistling.

‘I haven't seen you in a good mood since . . . well come to think of it, I don't think I've ever seen you in a good mood,' the boy said.

‘Yeah? Well, first time for everything,' Frank said.

‘Did you see the news about that Banting guy?' the kid asked.

‘I heard.' Frank gave a small self-satisfied smile.

‘It's crazy, right?'

‘Wild.'

‘Just awful!' the perky girl assistant with the short dreadlocks chimed in.

‘Too terrible,' Frank added, unable to stop his small smile developing into a wide grin.

‘I wonder who offed the poor guy?' the boy said.

‘It was me,' Frank said, straight-faced, looking the kid right in the eyes.

The boy looked at him with surprise, and then burst out laughing.

Frank continued to stare at him, unwavering, willing the boy to challenge him.

‘Ha, good one, Frank,' the boy said, slapping him on the shoulder.

Another woman entered the store and made a beeline for the tills. She had dirty-blonde hair that reminded Frank of his wife – or rather, his ex-wife, even though this woman was much heavier than Sylvie had been when they finally divorced. This customer carried her weight in her belly and her hips, just like Sylvie had. Her jeans stretched mercilessly at the seams.

Frank wondered where his ex-wife was right this second. She was probably getting ready for her gym session. After her workout, she'd head off for a spot of lunch, something healthy no doubt. No more junk for her. Then she would fetch Chloe from school and take her to ballet class, and then she'd probably go fuck her gym-instructor boyfriend for an hour in the fucking house Frank had paid for. She was looking incredible these days, but then she had really put in a lot of effort. Fuck, he hated her and her now perfect tight ass and incredible divorce-settlement-shop-bought tits. Fuck her.

‘Hi,' the woman said. ‘I'm looking for that Banting book. Do you have it?'

‘I think we've sold out,' the boy told her apologetically. ‘We've got more coming in on order.'

Frank whipped his head around. ‘What!' he yelled.

‘Sold out again?' the perky girl piped up. ‘Sheesh, that's like the hundredth time this year, dude.' She had a ring in her nose, like a bull.

‘Yup, we've had a major run on them this morning, because of the news of the Prof's death, I guess. We've already sold, like, twelve or fifteen copies at least, and we've been open less than an hour.'

‘Oh, you've got to be fucking shitting me!' Frank said.

‘Yup. Amazing what a little death will do for sales,' the boy said as he restacked the adult colouring-in books on the counter. Another stupid craze that made Frank want to shoot himself in the head. ‘I called some of our other branches. They've sold out everywhere: Canal Walk, the Waterfront, even the airport.'

‘Jesus!' Frank bellowed. ‘That's it. I can't do this anymore.' He stepped out from behind the till counter.

‘Where are you going?' the kid looked confused.

‘I need a drink,' Frank said.

‘But it's not even ten yet,' pointed out bullring nose.

‘You know Clive will fire you if you walk out in the middle of a shift, hey?' the boy called out after him.

‘Kid, it won't be the first job I've been fired from,' Frank announced. As he walked towards the door of the store, he swiped his hand across the main display table, knocking the neatly stacked piles of bestsellers and new arrivals onto the floor with a clatter. He paused, turned, and punched the life-sized cardboard cutout of Tim Noakes in the face. He shouted as pain shot through his damaged fist, and up his arm. He hopped up and down, swearing and nursing his hand for a moment, then he dropped his hurt arm and continued punching the cutout with his left hand, over and over again, until it collapsed. Then he stamped all over it, bent and tore at the head, screaming, ‘Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!' The young assistants and the customers stood inside the doorway watching him, their mouths gaping.

At last Frank levered himself upright and stomped off through the mall.

‘It's fine, I'm leaving, I'm leaving!' he shouted, as he passed a security guard walking towards the commotion, speaking into his radio. ‘I need a drink anyway.'