Zoo City (27 page)

The house has actually deteriorated since my last visit. It seems darker, dingier, and that smell of old people and vase-water has gotten worse. Carmen looks skinny and pale in a lime-green sixties-style handkerchief bikini. When she serves a tray of that disgusting tea, I notice that her fingernails are dirty, like she's been digging in the carrot patch all morning. Her Rabbit lies sprawled listlessly under her deckchair.

   But the real shock is Huron. He is looking particularly odious in a faded Oppikoppi '99 t-shirt that rides up to reveal his hairy belly. There is an old scar that hugs the curve of where his hip would be if his stomach wasn't in the way. Or rather a series of scars, slightly curved like surgical staples. Or teeth marks. His cheeks have sunken to flaccid jowls and, most telling of all, there is a drip on a wheelie-stand hooked up next to his ironwork chair. Above his head, the black tumour of sawn-off tentacles is thicker and squirmier than ever.

   "I don't know why you felt you needed to see me," he says, antagonistic behind his oversized sunglasses.

   "I actually wanted to see Songweza. Check that she's okay."

   "After you cocked up the job, you mean. Check that you're still getting your full payout. So nice of you to care."

   "Nice of you to pay me so well to do a job you were perfectly capable of doing on your own."

   "What can I tell you? I hire good people. They got there first. Don't worry, you'll still get your fee."

   "That's very generous. I take it it's more of a shut-yourface pay-off than anything I really earned."

   "Take it however you want," he says and slurps his tea noisily.

   I lean forward across the table. "I'd ask if we could talk privately, but I think Carmen might want to hear this."

   "Carmen's a big girl," he says.

   "This is what I think. You've been sleeping with Song. And Carmen and anyone else within reach. Song ran away, maybe planning to blackmail you, maybe spill the story to the press, which would have been extra juicy considering you're also moving drugs through your club. It's a guess, but I figure the Marabou and the Maltese facilitate that. It's a kind of procurement, right? And you've got them doing a lot of international travel. Does that include drug smuggling? 'Cos I've sampled some of the wares coming through Counter Rev, and it was good shit, let me tell you. Wasn't that what got you into trouble with Bass Station?"

   Huron opens his mouth to retaliate and I hold up a finger to silence him. "I'm not finished. Song's rehab boyfriend Jabu was probably helping her, maybe even instigated the whole thing, but you scared him off, so she turned to Ronaldo, the bouncer, in desperation. You had him beaten up already. I reckon the Maltese and the Marabou went back for round two and this time they got Song's whereabouts out of him. Might have even killed him. But hey, what's a missing Moroccan bouncer in the grand scheme of things? And I reckon you'll do the same to anyone else who gets in the way."

   There is a long pause. Then Carmen says, "Excuse me," in a strangled voice. Her cheeks are bright pink. She picks up her Bunny and clip-clops into the house.

   "You've gone and upset her," Huron says, not looking particularly bothered.

   "It's upsetting stuff."

   "This notion of yours," he says, pinching his thick bottom lip. "What should we call it – the Polanski-Sopranos Theory? It's original. Not bright. Not true. But original. Aren't you worried I'm going to put out a hit on you?"

   "Believe me when I say I haven't got anything left to lose."

   "So, what's next? You go to the police?"

   "With what evidence? One half-baked Polanski-Sopranos Theory? No, I'm just letting you know that if anything happens to Songweza Radebe – anything else I should say – then I will go to the police. Inspector Lindiwe Tshabalala is an old friend. She'll listen to what I have to say." By "friend" I mean "one-time interrogator" of course, but I figure I can afford to be a little liberal with the truth.

   "These are wild accusations. I might have to take this to my lawyer."

   "Do what you have to."

   "Do you have a physical address I can have the restraining order sent to?"

   "Your people know where to find me. But so long as Songweza stays singing fit and healthy, I won't trouble you with the slightest, littlest thing, Mr Huron."

   "You assume I don't have my own insurance policy on you."

   "Like the 1.5 million you've taken out on each twin?"

   "You've been doing some research, little girl."

   "I'd like my money now, please."

I hand over the cash to Vuyo in the lobby of the Michelangelo. It's the most upmarket hotel I can think of that's still vaguely accessible. I've dressed accordingly in a sundress and dark sunglasses with a red faux snakeskin briefcase I purchased from the Sandton City luggage shop for the occasion, together with a brand-new phone. I can afford it. And for some moments in your life, it's worth making a scene. Especially the kiss-off.

   I sit beside Vuyo on one of the couches in the sumptuous flash of the lobby and flick open the briefcase on my lap, not caring who sees. I'm feeling reckless.

   "All here plus the fee for the recent extras. Do you want to count it?"

   "I trust you," says Vuyo, calmly flipping the briefcase shut. "We're rehearsing for a movie," he says smoothly to an overweight man in a Cape Town t-shirt goggling at us.

   "You shouldn't," I reply.

   "Can I say that I am sad?"

   "You could. It won't make a difference."

   "I am sad. We worked well together."

   "I worked. You ambushed."

   "Ah. But I knew you would rise to the occasion. You are a hard-headed woman, Zinzi December. Sometimes you need a push." He still hasn't reached for the briefcase. "This isn't a sting, I hope. No cops about to swoop down?"

   "I thought about it," I confess. "But I'm too busy trying to dig myself out of the plague pit that's my life right now."

   He leans in close to me. "This money? I will give it back to you doubled. Another R500,000 a year from now. Come work with us. You're an asset to the Company."

   "There's more chance of Sloth sprouting wings and starting his own airline. Not that I don't appreciate the offer. I'm trying to get clean."

   "Zinzi. What are you going to do? Keep digging up trinkets for old people for spare change?"

   "Something better. Or worse. Depends on how you feel about the media. I'm hoping for better."

   "Well, if you ever need a dentist…"

   "I have Ms Pillay's email address."

   He stands up to shake my hand and, just like that, I am cut free.

   Or not quite.

There are 3,986 new emails in my inbox, unread. I set up an auto-reply to all of them.

This is a scam.

No one is going to give you millions of dollars for nothing.

Save your money.

Spend it on ice-cream.

Go out to dinner.

Take your loved ones away for the weekend.

Pay off your credit cards.

Have an adventure.

Blow it on skydiving lessons or drink or hookers or

gambling.

But please, don't send it to me or anyone else involved in this ugly little fiction.

And next time, don't be so fucking naive.

   Vuyo is going to be pissed. But not pissed enough to have me killed. Not when he doesn't have an animal yet. And hey, there will be others. Moegoes are easier to come by than e.coli in a fast-food kitchen.

   I add a final line, even though it's a petty revenge, far less than he deserves, even though it might implicate me, or at least my anonymous pseudonym, Kahlo999.

Questions? Please contact Giovanni Conte gio@ machmagazine.co.za

It takes a long time to send 3,986 emails, watching the status bar count them off. There is a deep satisfaction in this. A satisfaction that is dented when one of the addresses bounces. It takes a techno-naif to fall for a 419, but they're usually not so unsophisticated that they can't even get their return address right.

This is the mail system at host smtpauth01.mweb. co.za.

I'm sorry to have to inform you that your message could not be delivered to one or more recipients. It's attached below.

For further assistance, please send mail to postmaster.

If you do so, please include this problem report. You can delete your own text from the attached returned message.

The mail system
: Host or domain name not found. Name service error for name=inventedzoocity.com type=A: Host not found

Reporting-MTA: dns; smtpauth01.mweb.co.za X-Postfix-Queue-ID: D4AF5A024B

X-Postfix-Sender: rfc822; [email protected] Arrival-Date: Sun, 27 March 2011 21:51:59 +0200 (SAST)

Final-Recipient: rfc822;

Original-Recipient: rfc822;[email protected] 

Action: failed

Status: 5.4.4

Diagnostic-Code: X-Postfix; Host or domain name not found. Name service error for name=
type=A: Host not found

From: Kahlo999

Date: Sun, 27 March 2011 21:51:59 +0200

To:

Subject: RE:

This is a scam.

No one is going to give you millions of dollars for nothing. Save your money. Spend it on ice-cream. Go out to dinner. Take your loved ones away for the weekend. Pay off your credit cards. Have an adventure.

Blow it on skydiving lessons or drink or hookers or gambling.

But please, don't send it to me or anyone else involved in this ugly little fiction.

And next time, don't be so fucking naive.

Questions? Please contact Giovanni Conte gio@ machmagazine.co.za

======== From:

Date: Sun, 27 March 2011 21:51:59 +0200

To:

Subject:

I danced until my feet broke off. Until my shoes turned red with blood. I always wanted to be a girl in a storybook.

It's too strange, too poetical to be spam. I open up the Word doc and add it to my collection.

   It bothers me, like a pubic hair between your teeth. Or a ghost in the machine.

   Hey, it's not like I have anything else to do with my life right now. I take my laptop downstairs and four blocks over to the Nice Times Internet Café to print them out. The guy at the shop wraps the hard copies in a brown-paper bag for me, so it's only when I get home and spread them out over the floor that Sloth freaks the fuck out.

   He's been resting on my back, half dozing, but when the pages are arranged on the linoleum, he starts hissing, tugging at my arms to pull me away.

   "What's your problem? Is it this?" I pick up a page, and he hunches his shoulders and bats the page out of my hand. He scrambles off my back and backs into the far corner, behind the bed, bristling like the pages are possessed. Maybe Vuyo was right and this is bad muti, a hack spell from a rival syndicate. Maybe this is the cause of everything, the dark shadows over my life. I dig in my bag to see if I still have that bottle of muti the sangoma gave me. How hard can it be?

   Sloth is not convinced this is a good idea. I'm kneeling in the middle of my apartment, burning imphepho in an incense holder, a spindle of fragrant smoke rising in the air. I've crumpled up the emails in a large empty pot. "Unless you have a better suggestion?"

   He opens his mouth.

   "A better suggestion that doesn't involve going back to Mai Mai," I add quickly.

   His jaw snaps shut. And then he sneezes twice, abruptly.

   "See? It's a sign."

   Resigned, Sloth holds out his lanky arm and I take a pinprick of blood with a vintage brooch from my jewellery box and wipe it off on the most recent email.

   I pour a liberal dose of paraffin over the crumple of papers in the pot, add a splash of the sangoma's cleansing muti from the cough-medicine bottle, and take a swig for good luck. Then I light the email streaked with Sloth's blood and drop it into the pot. Séance flambé!

   What happens instead is that a two-foot-high flame shoots up from the pot, singeing my eyebrows. I fling myself away in surprise and my foot catches the pot. Flaming paraffin splashes over the floor. Sloth screams in alarm and starts crawling for his climbing post, moving amazingly speedily. He clambers up his pole, reaches out and hooks onto one of the loops of rope hanging from the ceiling and swings towards the front door, which is probably the smart option. If I had any sense, I'd be doing the same. Instead, I grab the first thing at hand, which just happens to be my yellow leather jacket, and start beating out the flames.

   The fire resists valiantly, but I finally manage to whack the life out of the flames – and my jacket. The fire dies reluctantly, almost resentfully. Greasy, evil-smelling black smoke pours out of the pot and boils off the floor. Choking and gagging on the smell, I fumble to open the window. And then it hits me.

Dunes of powdery yellow sand. They swell and fall like ocean waves. Something you could drown in. Mounds erupt from the waves, spill termites onto the sand. They are swallowed up again. The waves roll on.

A king without his head. He holds it in his lap. The head rolls its eyes and grins with blood-stained teeth beneath its crown. Take me, take me, take me to your spider den. He is wearing a faded Oppikoppi t-shirt.

Birds circling in the sky, an aviary's worth, all different kinds, cranes, pigeons, hawks, vultures, sunbirds, sparrows.

A flash of an old movie. Soylent Green is people.

A barbed-wire fence. A bright yellow sign. Private property. Trespassers will be mutilated.