Zoo City (9 page)

   "That's where the magic happens," she says, wafting a hand sales-model-style at the bunker. "The Moja studios. If you ask nicely, maybe Odi will give you the tour." She winks, adorably. "Be right back!" and clip-clops away into the cool dark of the house.

   The pool is an enormous old-fashioned square, with mosaic tiles and a classical water feature of two maidens pouring out a jug of water. But the tiles are chipped, the lapis-lazuli blue faded to a dull glaucoma. The brackish water is a vile green, a skin of rotting leaves cloying the surface. Lichen has crept over the two maidens. Moss clogs the folds of their robes and the crooks of their elbows, blanking out their features like a beauty mask gone wild. Like someone ate their faces.

   I shrug Sloth off onto the table. He sprawls on his belly and curls his long claws through the ironwork curlicues. The Marabou folds herself into one of the dainty chairs, leaning forward so as not to put any weight on the Stork strapped to her back.

   "You ever take him off?"

   "It's a she. And only when I sleep."

   "What happened to her legs?"

   "She had a run-in with another animal. She came off worse. It wasn't a dogfight, if that's what you're thinking."

   "I wasn't. I'm surprised it doesn't happen more often. Herbivores and carnivores all mixed up together. We should probably segregate."

   "Mmm," she says, her attention drifting.

   "What was the book?" I say, just making conversation. But the Stork raises its head sharply, looking down its beak at me.

   "The book?" Marabou is off-hand, in stark contrast to the Bird's reaction.

   "One of your lost things." I concentrate on the strands, but this time the image is frustratingly blurry. I can't read the writing on the gun anymore or make out the detail on the gloves, and the book could just as well be a piece of old brick. I fudge from memory. "The cover is torn. The pages are mouldy and swollen with damp. Something about a tree?"

   "Is that how your talent works, you can see things?" She looks amused. "How practical. I don't know what the book was called. But one of the other girls used to read it to us in the container."

   "Container?"

   "They shipped us over. Packed like tuna fish." She strokes the Stork's throat and it rucks its head in appreciation. "Some of the tuna fish died. I started a different life."

   "I could try to figure out what the book is. If you wanted. You could get another copy."

   "What if it is not as good as I remember? Some things are better left lost."

   "I hope you're not talking about my girl!" Mr Huron, I presume, emerges onto the balcony with a flourish. He's not so much a barrel of a man as a bagpipe, all his weight loaded in front, straining a t-shirt that bears the legend Depeche Mode Rose Bowl Pasadena 1987. He's balding on top, but he's grown the rest of his hair and pulled it into a thin scraggly ponytail. The genuinely powerful, unlike the Vuyos of this world, don't give a fuck about making an impression.

   "Sorry to keep you waiting. Amira. You're looking lovely. Botox working for you? Maybe you should try some on the bird. And you, you must be the new help," he says, engulfing my hand in his giant paws, like Mickey Mouse gloves. "Only kidding," he winks. "Mostly."

   With a little moan, Sloth clambers off the table and into my lap. He's seeing what I'm seeing, belying the bigshot producer image – a black tumour of lost things hanging over the man. A tumour that's eaten an octopus, but the fat black tentacles have been amputated, so all that's left are stumps. Dozens of them, squirming obscenely.

   It's one of the worst hack jobs I've seen. There are ways to cut the threads. A good sangoma can do it. But they'll eventually grow back thicker and coarser than ever. In the shadow of his black halo, his skin looks sallow, his jowls sunken, his eyes bright and flat.

   "What's wrong with your animal?" Huron says, collapsing into one of the chairs and fingering a hole in his t-shirt.

   "He's just shy around strangers," I say, stroking Sloth's head to calm him down.

   "Amira and Mark brief you already?"

   I have to force myself to look at his face rather than the writhing black stubs around his head. I concentrate on his fleshy lips, the large nose, slightly skew, as if he once broke it in a rugby game or a bar fight. "Actually, Mr Huron, I'm still waiting to hear what this is about. Before I make up my mind as to whether I even want to be briefed."

   "Call me Odi, please. Short for Odysseus."

   "Sure. Odi."

   We're interrupted by Carmen holding a red plastic tray that looks like it was moulded out of the same material as her shoes. She sets down a clipboard and a pot of evilsmelling tea.

   "Don't worry, it's non-alcoholic." Huron pours a cup and hands it to me with a smirk.

   "You've done your research."

   "Yes, I've heard all about your nasty habit. But it's not just you. Moja Records has a policy. No drink. No drugs. No neural spells."

   "No interference." I take a sip gingerly. It tastes as foul and pungent as it smells.

   "Buchu and mustard seed. Good for detoxing."

   "Lovely." I smile and heap in five spoons of sugar. It makes the brew only marginally more tolerable. What does it take to get a decent cup of tea? "I'm not sure I can even help you, Mr Huron."

   "Call me Odi. Really." He puts an envelope on the table. "Open it."

   I do. Sloth cranes his head to see. It contains a cluster of crisp blue R100 notes. I put it back on the table.

   "What's this?"

   "Two large, just to hear me out. If you like what I have to say, you take the job and consider this an advance. If you don't, you take the money, you don't repeat any of what I told you, we're all friends."

   "This all seems very serious. Are you sure you have the right girl here?"

   "Mark and Amira think so."

   "Just in case I'm getting the wrong end of the microphone here – you do know I can't sing?"

   "Like that ever got in the way of a pretty girl getting a record deal. Autotune is a beautiful thing." He laughs, but his eyes are cold. "Let me assure you, you are here for your other skills." He watches me closely. I take the envelope and slip it into my bag, ignoring Sloth scratching at my arm, the halo of black stumps waving around Huron's head.

   "All right, good. Now, you're no doubt familiar with iJusi." He waves his hand impatiently at my blank look. "The twins? Song and S'bu?"

   The name sounds vaguely familiar, another life glimpsed on the TV at Mak's, maybe on the cover of an old Heat magazine at the spaza shop. A boy and a girl. Twins. Beautiful. Wholesome.

   Huron sighs, exasperated. "Well, you can do some research."

   "Has something happened to them?"

   "Officially, no. Absolutely not. Everything's just fine. They're keeping a low profile because they're in studio, writing new songs. The new album drops in three weeks. We've got a big party planned."

   "And off the record?"

   "Songweza is missing."

   "Run away? Kidnapped?"

   "Either is possible. She hasn't been home for four days, according to her house mother."

   "Is that unusual?"

   "You see the thing about iJusi, although you wouldn't know this, is that they're a little ray of sunshine in an ugly, ugly world." He pinches the corner of his lower lip and rolls it between his thick fingers. "They're good kids. Role models."

   "And you want to keep it that way. No nasty real-world taint for Papa Odi's little girl."

   "Amira said you had an ugly mouth." The stumps lash and twist.

   "I prefer to think of it as a fast mouth. So, there's no boyfriend? Girlfriend, maybe?" I push.

"Plenty of time for that later."

"Because she's a good girl."

"You see. We understand each other."

   "I don't understand why you're talking to me, rather than the cops or a private investigator. Four days is a long time. She could be dead."

   "Now, Zinzi, that's not very discreet. Police. PIs. If the tabloids get a sniff…"

   "I get it. You're making a mistake, but I'll take your money. How much are we talking?"

   "If you bring her back before the official launch and intact?" He smiles thinly. I know what that means. Sweet. Innocent. Un-animalled. "R50,000." Sloth takes a sharp breath at the amount. All very serious indeed.

   "Make it two hundred, I'm your girl."

   "Eighty-five."

   "One fifty. Plus expenses. Don't worry, Mr Huron, I'll submit receipts."

   The Marabou looks pained. Huron gives me a slow, evaluating look. The tentacles pause, like they're holding their breath.

   "Odi, please." And we share a conspiratorial grin. Or maybe we're just baring our teeth at each other, like chimps competing for dominance.

   "Odi? There's a phone call for you," Carmen pops her head out the door, plaintive, like she thinks we've taken up too much of his time already. She is cradling a black Rabbit, stroking its ears. It does explain the fossilised chocolate raisins in the dining room. Who knew that Odi Huron's eccentricities included cultivating a personal menagerie of zoos? I can't help wondering what she did

to get her Bunny.

   "Ah, thank you, Carmencita," Odi says. "I think we're done here. Amira and Mark will brief you and make all the necessary arrangements. Whatever you need."

   He stands up, all business, downs his drink and throws out the ice towards the pool. The blocks go skittering over the cracked tiles and plop into the water, sending greasy ripples across the surface to stir the leaves. By the time I look up, Odi is disappearing into the house. And I didn't even get the studio tour.

   Sloth is pissed with me. I can tell by the way he clambers onto my back, stiff and cross. "You have a better idea?" I hiss at him.

   "What was that?" the Marabou asks mildly, staring at the pool, at the lichen-blinded maidens and the ripples breaking at their bare feet.

   "I was wondering if this is the best idea," I say. "There must be more qualified people."

   "More qualified, but maybe less discreet. And harder to vanish if everything goes wrong."

   "You know, I'm pretty sure no one mentioned any vanishing."

   "You do this thing, you disappear. No questions asked. Back to Zoo City and your own small world."

   "I see." But I'm thinking about her lost gun.

   "Shall we? You should probably be getting started."

   The Maltese is waiting in the car upfront. It's been polished and waxed to within an inch of its warranty. The interior is awash with pine air-freshener and just a hint of ammonia. The combination makes Sloth sneeze. Which means I was wrong about the guy. I was convinced "spit and polish" was a euphemism for sex. But I have no doubt that dear Odi is nailing sweet little Carmen sideways and backwards. Maybe even now.

   The Maltese – Mark – seems eager to get going. The car is idling, he's already strapped in and the Dog is standing on his lap, its paws on the steering wheel. It yaps once, impatiently, like this is a Formula 1 pit-stop and we're holding up the race.

   "How was that, sweetie? Was he everything we said?" Mark says, putting the car into gear as I close my door.

   "And more!" I say, in chipper imitation of Carmencita. "I'm on the case and I've been put in my place."

   "Don't take it personally, sweetie."

   As the car pulls away down the drive, Huron appears in the doorway. I turn to look back over the headrest, past Amira and her creepy bird. He's rocking back on his heels, his hands embedded in the pockets of his jeans, just the picture of laidback cool. It's a junkie look. That desperately pretending that everything is hunky-dory, you're not stressed at all about anything in the world, when inside your jeans pockets, your hands are clamped into sweaty fists, fingernails leaving grooves in your palms. If Huron's grooves were an LP, they would be playing the Johnny Cash cover of Nine Inch Nails' "Hurt". And the tentacles would be waving along in time.

CALEB CARTER

HM Barwon Prison

Australia

"I didn't have the Tapir when I got here. She came on the second night, after I was jumped by a couple of the 4161s from Melbourne. Lucky my mate Len was already inside, and knew their game. He gave me a shank when I arrived, and it ended up in the neck of this one guy, a tattooed fuckwit called Deke.

   "That night, at about the same time Deke was dying in a hospital in Geelong, the Tapir appeared outside my cell. I heard her scratching at the door of solitary confinement. Scared the hell out of me. The guards said she was still covered in jungle mud when they found her.

   "I mean, there's cameras everywhere. And this thing's from a different continent. How come no one saw her arrive? How did she get here? If she can walk through walls or fly or something, why can't she carry me out of here?

   "Anyway, I love her. They let me look after her good, take her on walks around the yard. She's a stupid-looking creature and she's dopey as shit, but when the guys here see her at my side, they remember what happened to Deke. They remember not to fuck with Carter."

ZIA KHADIM

Karachi Central Jail

Pakistan

"They keep our animals in cages in another part of the prison. We don't see them. When they want to torture us, they put them in the back of a car and drive away to Keti Bandar. The pain is unbearable, you scream, you vomit and you say anything.

   "My Cobra was with me when I was arrested. I was nine. The police saw me walking on the street with my Cobra round my neck, and they grabbed me. They said I robbed a house. I didn't do it, but they beat me until I said I did.

   "When they brought me here, they threw my Cobra into one room with all the other animals. The animals would bite each other and get infected and die. The Undertow would come every night for the prisoners. Too many people died. Now they keep the animals in cages, but they still don't let us see them, not unless we give a big bribe, a month's salary for a guard. I don't have that money.

   "I haven't seen my Cobra since I was arrested. I'm now fourteen years old."