Zoo City (11 page)

   "No shit, man," Des says. "That place is ill. All full of whining junkies with the shivers."

   "Abnd zombies," Arno adds, hopefully.

   "Don't you guys have some place to be?" S'bu snaps.

   "No, man. We're here for the duration."

   "Seriously, I think I heard your moms calling."

   "Dude. Uncool."

   "Madoda. Take a hint and hamba."

   "Fine. Come on, Arno, let's go aim for hadedas on the fourteenth hole."

   "Bud I like hadedas."

   "Gijima, fatty boomsticks. Can't you see I'm in the middle of an interview?"

   Des grabs the set of clubs leaning against the wall by the fridge, and heads out, not bothering to pull on a shirt. He gives S'bu the finger as he goes. Arno follows, dragging his feet, but taking his beer with him.

   "You guys don't strike me as the golfing type," I say, stomping frantically on the remaining clockwork insects. Unfortunately, not before one bites me. A red haze over my POV indicates that I've been infected. Antibiotics required. "Where's a medpack when you need one?"

   "Yeah, it's all right. I prefer playing on console. Being Tiger Woods and shit? The medpacks are red plastic dropboxes, white cross."

   My health is dwindling, one point at a time. I'm down to 22 per cent. "So which rehab did you go to?"

   "Listen, just 'cos we're both in recovery doesn't make

   us best friends or nothing."

   "I did mine in prison. Involuntary."

   "That where you get the Sloth?"

   "Well, just before. But yeah, close enough. He helped me get through it."

   "There!"

   "What?"

   "Medpack."

   "Got it." I steer awesomely muscular black guy over to the first-aid box handily wall-mounted next to a fire alarm. Nearly missed it, thanks to the red throb of my infection. 'What about your sister?"

   "What about my sister?"

   "I mean, was she there for you?"

   "There for me?" He gives me a skew look, but still manages to frag the tentacle-faced frog creature that pads down the wall. "No. Song's there for herself."

   "So you were just smoking weed? Little hectic to go to rehab for that."

   "Ha. Tell that to Mr Odi."

   "Uh-huh." From his earlier reaction, I thought maybe he'd been to Donkerpoort, or one of the other fundamentalist hellholes that rely on the scare-em-clean-withbeatings-and-a-Bible model of addiction therapy. It's straight cold turkey. Kids chained up outside, naked and shivering out the sweats. Methadone is for weaklings. And if you're really bad, they'll bring out the dogs.

   "Wasn't so bad, I guess. It's the detox therapy the old man's into that kills me. Lentils and colonic cleansing and shit," S'bu says. "Boss!" A grotesque spindly torso lumbers towards us. I lash out with my whipblade, slashing right through its chest and into its ribcage. The split halves reel obscenely, trying to reconnect. Then the cracked ends of the ribcage start lengthening, until the split chest becomes a mouth full of gnashing teeth.

   "Gross. How did Songweza find it?"

   "How does the Song find anything?"

   "You tell me."

   "She was cool with it. You know what they say? I'm only here because of her. That she's the talented one."

   "I don't buy that – crap! Sorry."

   I've died, impaled on the spiny teeth, my corpse spewing great fountains of blood as the boss lurches around, trying to find S'bu's punky schoolgirl.

   "Don't worry, I'll reload." S'bu pulls up the menu and instantly skips tracks on history back to a moment when we were both alive and well.

   "Wish they had a 'restore saved game' for the real world."

   "Tell me about it," he snorts.

   "What point do you wish you could go back to?"

   "You first."

   "The moment before I got my brother killed."

   "Heavy," says S'bu, but I can tell he's impressed. And this is what I've come to, breaking out my worst personal tragedy to pry open a teenager. If I hadn't already hit my ultimate low, this would be a close contender.

   "And you?"

   "Before we signed."

   "That's the worst thing that's happened to you? Seriaas?"

   "I dunno, maybe we should have signed with someone else."

   "Odi's a pretty intense guy."

   "Yeah."

   "Rehab must have been really shitty."

   "Yeah." He squirms. "It's more like his philosophy? It's worse than straight-edge. Like, there's no fun at all."

"You seem to be doing okay."

   "Yeah, right," he rolls his eyes up at the thumping noises coming from above. "That guy needs to take a chill pill, you know? Maybe literally."

   "You think you would have got where you are without Odi pushing you?"

   "Nah, man, I appreciate that, it's the keep-it-clean crap. I'm fifteen, yo. We're not little kids anymore. And I'm not even that bad. Songweza's the one who lands us in the shit the whole time."

   "Where do you think your sister is?"

   "I dunno. Jolling with her friends?"

   "Any friends in particular?"

   "Hey, what's this interview about, anyway?"

   "The band."

   "'Cos it sounds like it's about her."

   "Can I level with you?" I say, jumping into the abyss.

   "Sure."

   "I've been hired to try and find your sister. The interview is just a cover."

   "Fuck!" He flings his controller across the room. It narrowly misses the TV and smashes into the wall beneath the katana. The back pops off, spraying batteries across the floor.

   "I'm just being honest with you."

   "Oh, now you're being honest with me? So all that other bullshit was just, just… shit?" He looks like he's about to cry.

   "No, I've really been to rehab. I really killed my brother," I say calmly.

   "Whatever. Hey, lady, ever occurred to you maybe Song doesn't want to be found?"

"Or you don't want her to be found?"

   "You are one whacked crazybitch. What, like I… I killed her or something?"

   "Did you? No. I don't think that. But if she ran away with her boyfriend or whatever, it sounds like you wouldn't mind so much if she didn't hurry back."

   S'bu shakes his head. "Lady, we have an album about to drop." He grabs a jacket slung over the back of the chair and heads towards the door, wiping at his eyes. "Where are you going?"

   "Same place as Song. Out."

   Sloth swats my arm in reproach. Like I meant to make the kid cry.

   He storms out of the house, past Mark and Amira, who are sitting on the stairs, clearly listening in.

   "And screw you guys too."

   He slams the door.

   "Didn't go so well, then, sweetie?" Mark says. His Dog pants happily, mocking.

   "I've had worse interviews." This is true. The time I rocked up high to interview Morgan Freeman, for example. "You still trashing the place, or can I take a look?"

   "Knock yourself out."

   "Interesting ploy, the journalist," Marabou says, stroking her Bird's shrivelled head.

   "You'd be amazed at how people open up when they think someone cares. Listen, don't wait up. After this, I'm thinking of taking in a round of golf. I'll expense a cab home."

   Maltese sneers. "One day on the job, and she's too good for us."

   I watch them out the door and then set to snooping. I skip the kitchen, which, surprisingly for a house full of teen boys, doesn't require Health Department intervention, and head upstairs, stepping over an amp at the top. There are more instruments lining the passage. A bass guitar, a tangle of microphone cable. Deck the halls. It's not clear whether they're normally out here, or part of Mark and Amira's redecorating scheme.

   The first room is hotel-anonymous. A monotone motif with a black and white print of Namaqualand daisies above the bed. Guest room. I move on to the next: two single beds pushed to opposite corners. Clothes are strewn around the room, cushions have been thrown on the floor, the mattresses upturned, the camo-print beanbag leans on its side. There are posters of Megan Fox and Khanyi Mbau taped up, spreads from fashion magazines, all featuring menswear, and a business plan mapped out on a whiteboard underneath a sketch of an old-fashioned Nintendo video game controller and the words "War Room".

   Fashion label launch Jozi fashion week, last week in August (realistic???)

   Logo meet with Adam the Robot

   Put out brief on t-shirt designs on 10and5.

   Gorata Mugudamani to sort publicity?

   Distrib!!!! Cross-pollinate w music stores?

   Int?

   Choose ringtone tracks. Re-mix?

   SOLO?!?!? Heather Yalo

   Can we do a fragrance? Market research.

I take notes. Move on.

   Bathroom #1. A scramble of boy stuff. Five different flavours of deodorant, slick electric razors, electric toothbrushes, shaving cream, moisturising balm, exfoliator, anti-wrinkle eye cream – all for fifteen year-olds. A shower with a curtain featuring mildew and Hawaiian flowers. Sodden towels puddled on the Italian tiles. But otherwise remarkably clean. No skid marks in the toilet. Nothing living in the bath. Well stocked on toilet paper.

   Bathroom #2. Dramatically smaller. The first hint of Song. A bottle of perfume on the counter. A punky black bottle with the name Lithium etched in white, like chalk scratchings. Blue nail polish. Eyeliner. More eyeliner. Four different kinds of mascara: coal, black, ultra-black and green. Eyeshadow in jewel colours. Gothpunk Princess Barbie. I spritz the perfume into the air. It smells like petrol and dead flowers. Sloth sniffs the air appreciatively. Clearly there are tones in there that human noses just can't appreciate. There is a glass jar of dried green leaves. I crush some between my fingers. It's fragrant. Not dope. Possibly muti. But for what? If only traditional healers would label shit. I wrap some up in a tissue and fold it into my pocket.

   More helpfully, there is also an unopened pill container marked "Songweza Radebe" and "Flurazepam", "dosage: 1 per day with food." I look it up on my phone. It's a generic, used for anxiety or insomnia, especially for those with manic depression. The date on the label is Friday 18 March. So one day before she runs away, she gets a prescription for heavy-duty anxiety pills. Makes it seem like the script wasn't her idea. Interesting.

   Next door is a full-on bedroom studio with egg-boxes studding the walls, mixing-decks, a computer facing the tiniest voice booth you ever saw, but at least semi-pro, if I'm any judge of expensive. And I am.

   Adjoining the studio is the final bedroom. This has been creatively adapted. It's barely a metre across because a slapdash drywall has been erected in the middle of the room, forming the back of the recording booth next door. A double bed takes up most of the remaining space, under a block-mounted poster of Barbarella gazing into the depths of space, managing to look yearning and bold all at once. The cupboard has been thrown open, and clothes dumped recklessly on the bed among a spread of comics. There are more comics crammed into every available space on a long, low bookshelf that runs the length of the window. I skim through a few. Swamp monsters and teleporting houses, a muscled guy wearing the Union Jack.

   A collection of movie monsters are posed all along the top of the bookshelf. On instinct, I pick up the one that looks like an upside-down dustbin with rows of studs down the side. As I do, it says "Exterminate!" and I nearly drop it. The head comes right off. There's a bankie of dope inside. And it's quality, if I'm any judge of substances. And I am.

   I put the little robot's head back on, leaving the dope where it is, and replace him carefully between Arnold Schwarzenegger, metal chassis gleaming from under ripped plastic skin, and a manga girl with a mane of bright pink hair and boobs popping out of the leopard-print bikini that matches her tail and ears. But I do take one of the A5 soft-cover notebooks ferreted away between the comics. It says lyrics on the cover. And © S'bu Radebe. I roll it up and slip it into my bag.

   As we're heading back towards the stairs, Sloth chirrups. "My thoughts exactly," I say, stepping back into the anonymous hotel room, which is not in fact a guest room. I open the cupboard and face an array of pretty preppy clothing. White sundresses and Afro-chic numbers by Sun Goddess and Darkie and Stoned Cherrie. Perfect for a hip teen kwaito queen. But not for a Gothpunk Princess Barbie. There are empty hangers, like a gaptoothed smile. Wherever Song went, whoever she went with, she had time to pack.

   I ransack the room for lost things, digging under the mattress, in the back of the cupboard. There are only dust bunnies and some spare change, a hair band. Nothing lost. Nothing to lead me back to Song. Which means I'm stuck with the investigative journalist angle.

"Uh-oh. Fweag aled," Arno says nasally as I approach. He's looking considerably less stoned, likely courtesy of the pain in his nose, although his eyes are still bloodshot.

   "Just ignore her. Maybe she'll get the hint." Des lines up the tee, once, twice, and then swings hard, neatly chipping out a clod of earth to join the other clods of earth gathered around his trainers, which are not regulation golf shoes. But then, neither are mine. I've left distinctive tracks across three holes: the common kitten-heeled hustler.

   "You play golf now as well as Blood Skies?" Des says, mockingly.

   "No. I hate golf. It's the genteel version of seal-clubbing, only not as much fun."

   "What do you want?"

   "Background stuff. Colour."

   "Is bad a whide joke?" Arno bristles.

   "As in painting a picture of iJusi's life. The people they hang out with, what goes down."

   "You're bod gonna wide about de guns ding, are you?" Arno looks worried.

   I laugh. "What was that?"

   "It was the dope. He gets lank paranoid. Doos." Des smacks Arno upside his head.

   "Don't worry, I'll make that incident 'off the record'." I take out my notebook and pen, and look at them expectantly. "So tell me about you guys. How do you know S'bu?"