Death By Carbs

by Paige Nick

  Earlier that morning, Trevor had considered the road paint business; people would always need road paint. Well, as long as there were roads. And before that, in the changing room at the gym, he’d eagerly considered the towel business (although he would definitely make them bigger, he thought – everybody made towels too small these days). There was also the running shoe business, and at this point, even the showerhead business seemed attractive. Surely those industries would be less stressful than the one he was in right now? Hell, working as head of public relations at Eskom would be less stressful.

  It wasn’t even eight am yet, and Trevor had already weighed up at least ten different career alternatives to being the Managing Director of a company that manufactured bread, baked goods and snacks.

  It was sheer dumb luck that he’d managed to find his way into a dying industry. What an idiot. These days, carbs were the enemy. Bread sales had taken a serious beating as a result, and were at an all-time

  low. When Trevor had first started out as VP of sales at SnackCorp,

  seven years earlier, it had been the heyday of bread. Carbs were king. They’d all cruised to some exotic destination for their annual corporate bosberaad to play golf and pat each other on the back. Company life was a year-round, all-you-could-eat buffet of prawns, strippers, congratulations, narcissism and booze. And carbs. Truckloads of carbs.

  But not anymore. Sales figures had plummeted, stocks had hit rock bottom, and the board was tightening belts left, right and centre. And now, three mass retrenchments later, they were still running scared

  and pointing fingers. Unless Trevor came up with something fast, it looked like they were going to use him as the next scapegoat. Trim the fat (ironically), lose the dead weight. And then what? Who in South Africa was going to hire a short, short-sighted, slightly overweight, fifty-six-year-old white man?

  Trevor needed this job; he had his ex-wife’s maintenance to cover. And what about his Merc, and the penthouse? Trevor scratched at his balding scalp, then self-consciously tried to rearrange the wisps of

  hair that remained. It didn’t help that SnackCorp had a forty-nine per cent shareholding in the Central Soda Company. Sugar and carbs:

  just great. He’d backed the only two lame donkeys in a horse race. Why hadn’t he gone into the xylitol business instead? Then life would be sweet. But he had a plan, and he felt a warm surge of hope as he considered it. If all went well, an upturn was imminent.

  Trevor picked up a piece of toast off his plate and examined both sides of it. It was a slice of SnackCorp’s low-GI wholewheat, and it was perfectly toasted on one side, but slightly overdone (read: burnt) on the other. He checked that his office door was closed, then pulled a brown paper bag out from the bottom drawer of his desk, and slipped the

  piece of toast into it. He put the second piece in after it, folded the lip of the bag and placed the sack on the edge of his desk to deal with later. Then he tucked into the rest of his breakfast from the office canteen: eggs, bacon, tomato, mushrooms and avocado.

  That fucking Real Meal Revolution or Banting, as people had taken to calling it, was killing him slowly and saving his life quickly – at the same time.

  Here he was, on the verge of a ruined career, potential homeless-

  ness and Mercedes-lessness on the one hand; but on the other, he’d lost twenty-five kilos in under a year – thanks to Banting. He still had another fifteen kilos to go before he reached his goal weight, but he

  had to admit it was working for him. He felt lighter, healthier and

  more energetic than he had in years, plus his eczema had magically cleared up. Whenever anyone asked what his weight-loss secret was, he attributed it to the running and swimming he now had to do every

  day at the gym as part of his carefully constructed cover-up. But in truth, he knew it was that fucking diet; the very thing that was slowly strangling his company and hanging him out to dry.

  He’d started the whole thing out of curiosity more than anything else. He’d created a fake profile on Facebook with the intention of following a few of the Banting groups that were becoming more and more popular. He considered it research. Classic Sun Tzu strategy from that famous book, The Art of War. Know your enemy and your customer and your rivals, and all that nonsense. He needed to know what people were saying about his products. He’d also wanted to prove to the nervous nagging voice in his head that Banting was just another fad that would soon pass. But that had been well over a year ago. And he’d slowly been sucked into all these people’s posts. Their highs and lows and triumphs and failures – and the spats too, of course. People seemed to lose all manners and judgement once they had a monitor as a barrier between themselves and real life. But the overwhelming truth he’d discovered was that there seemed to be so much weight being lost by so many people. Thousands of fans who were evangelical in their belief in this lifestyle, with the before-and-after selfies by the bucket-load to prove their success. These posts had become irresistible to Trevor, whose belt had been stretched out beyond recognition by all those good bread years at SnackCorp.

  And so shortly after he joined the Banting for Life group, he’d decided to try Banting for himself, in secret of course (the b-word was strictly banned at SnackCorp). Motivated partly by research, partly fear, and partly simply the size of his gut.

  Trevor sifted through the morning papers as he ate his breakfast, mopping up the last of the yolk with a piece of bacon as he worked his way through Business Day and every column inch of depression it brought with it. His spirits sagged as he scanned SnackCorp’s plummeting shares. He hadn’t thought they could get much lower than the previous week’s dismal showing, but this morning they had exceeded all his worst fears.

  Of course there were other factors involved, one being the one-

  million ton drop in maize supplies in the last year. The drought in the Free State and North West had caused irreparable damage to maize prices and consumption in South Africa. But one of the biggest factors impacting on sales of bread, rice and similar products was, without a doubt, coming directly from the top end of the market. A drought would eventually end, rain would come as it always did, and maize would grow, but the more serious issue was these Banting converts. They were growing in size and power daily, and once they stopped buying ninety-eight per cent of SnackCorp’s products, and began seeing the positive results, they were unlikely ever to return to their former purchasing habits – and when these people went, they were taking their families with them. His target market was literally shrinking. He’d had to man up and do something about it. He’d had no choice.

  When Trevor was done with the papers, he turned to his laptop and logged on to Facebook. It was his morning ritual: the bad news first, scouring the papers and the stock prices, and when that was finished, over to Facebook, which always cheered him up. The irony of how much he enjoyed the Banting groups that were doing his business in wasn’t lost on him. He navigated straight to the Banting for Life page, and scrolled through the posts and comments that had been added since he’d been online the night before.

  He yelped, then covered his mouth with his hand. He shot to his feet, his chair rolling back along the floor. Still standing, now leaning over his computer, Trevor went to Google and typed in Noakes’s name. He scrolled carefully through every relevant piece of news he could find, his mouth dry.

  The phone on his desk rang, but he ignored it. Then his cell phone rang. He ignored that, too. When it finally cut off, the phone on his desk started ringing again. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the pager he’d bought last month. Ancient technology, but perfect for his purposes. There were no new messages. Still ignoring the bleating phone on his desk, Trevor snatched up the brown paper bag and hurried out his office and down the green-carpeted passageway. The feng shui office design consultants, who’d cost him a hundred k just two years ago, said that green would have a ‘calming effect’ on his employees and ‘would boost
productivity.’ Well, he wasn’t bloody well feeling very calm right now. He pressed the lift button and shifted from foot to foot as he jingled the change in his pocket. Someone from sales greeted him, but he didn’t reply. He rose on his tiptoes, and then dropped back down again while he waited for the lift. He pressed the button four or five more times, knowing that it wouldn’t bring the lift any faster, but needing to give his trembling fingers something to do.

  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-

  side 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 emotion
s 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?’