blasted through the sound system mounted on the wall of the mansion’s formal dining room as Juwan sat alone at the head of the enormous damask-covered table and helped himself to the second of three roast chickens on the pewter platter. Varna had placed him on a strict high-protein and raw-food diet and Juwan’s weight was holding steady at three hundred ninety pounds. He was now limited to two meals a day, one after exercise in the morning and the second at five in the evening. Varna had told him that his previous late-night food binges were the principal cause of his serious eruption of intestinal gas. He was allowed to supplement the two meals with hand-pressed vegetable juice and raw tree nuts. He preferred dining alone. It was hard to conceal his anger when a guest at the table would take something from a serving dish that he had been planning to eat. Juwan’s mother, Black Mamba, supervised the preparation of both his meals every day.
