We watch Cheryl and Jerry pull out of the parking lot packed with X5s and A4s in their white VW Polo rental, and wave cheerily until they pull around the corner.
"You are a good girl," Vuyo says, imitating Cheryl.
"Shut up, Vuyo."
"We should do this again."
"I want twenty per cent."
"Next time, maybe."
"This was a one-time-only event. I'm not doing a re
peat performance."
"I have R94,235.82 that says different."
"I'll write more formats."
"I'll double your interest rate."
"I don't care."
"What was your brother's name again?" he says slyly. "The dead one?"
"Fuck you."
"And your lover? That handsome mkwerekwere? Benoît, is it? Be careful, Zinzi. You know what happened last time you fucked with gangsters."
Vuyo gets into one of the X5s. I memorise the licence plate. It's undoubtedly fake, but I'm a packrat for information. I rap on the window. He slides it down. "What is it?"
"Give me a ride."
"Get a car," he says and pulls away, wheels spinning.
6.
Makhaza's Place is already vibey at three in the afternoon. This is a reflection of the lack of recreational facilities in the area. Although Mak's popularity in a neighbourhood packed with bars and churches can be ascribed to two things: the Lagos-style chicken, and the view. The bar is situated on the second floor of what used to be a shopping arcade back when this part of town was cosmopolitan central, with its glitzy hotels and restaurants and outdoor cafés and malls packed to the skylights with premium luxury goods. Even Zoo City had a Former Life.
There was big talk about comebacks and gentrification a few years ago, which led to months of eviction raids by the Red Ants, with their red helmets and sledgehammers and bullhorns, and bright-eyed landlords buoyed up on the property boom bricking up the lower storeys of buildings. But the squatters always found a way back in. We're an enterprising bunch. And it helps to have a certain reputation.
Mak's is situated in what used to be an oversized display window looking out over the street. It was modelled on Macy's, rotating exhibits of aspirational fashion and lifestyle products, roomy enough that they once put a convertible Chevrolet in here as part of their Christmas display, Santa in shades and a Hawaiian shirt at the wheel.
Mak kept some of the mannequins for the ambience; a double-amputee guy in sharp-pressed corduroy pants, a lime sweater vest and a fedora, and a woman with a pockmarked melamine face to match her moth-eaten white mini-dress and go-go boots, both arrested in some forlorn pose of retro cool. The patrons don't dress half as nice.
I shrug Sloth off at the holding pen by the door. He sways himself onto the branch of a dead tree hung with fairylights and already well populated. A doughy Squirrel quickly stuffs the remains of a chocolate bar into her mouth and chitters reproachfully at Sloth, then bounds higher, past a preening Indian Mynah and a Boomslang looped casually from a fork in the branch, as motionless as the mannequins.
"Don't get too close, buddy,' I warn Sloth. Unofficially, there's a code of conduct, but animals are still animals. And animals can be assholes, too. The Mongoose is curled up in the corner in the sawdust. He slits his eyes open, then pretends to go back to sleep.
Benoît and two of his boys, his roommate Emmanuel and that sgebenga D'Nice, are in the usual spot by the foosball table. I pick up a tonic water at the bar (the closest I get these days to the full equation of gin amp;), and drop down next to them in the corner booth. The aircon is on the fritz as per usual and their beers are sweating. D'Nice's Vervet Monkey is sitting on the table surrounded by at least two rounds of 750 ml empties, toying with a coaster nicked from the Carlton Hotel circa 1987.
The TV is blasting some godawful crunk rap thing, jiggling sweaty bodies intercut with gritty images of a city burning. Giant fireballs light up the Las Vegas skyline. The singer, wearing a leopard-print vest and chains, skulks between the girls with a Hyena padding beside him. The animal snarls in close-up, baring yellowed teeth. It's an act so dramatic, it causes the girls to burst into flames too. Luckily, it doesn't seem to bother them too much. Flames lick over their taut gyrating bellies, fiery arcs tracing the curve of buttocks peeking out from sprayed-on hot pants.
"That for real?" I say, indicating the TV by way of greeting.
"You're kidding." Emmanuel is deeply shocked. He's a sweet Rwandan kid, only twenty, working piecemeal jobs. Doesn't have an animal, but there's no rule saying it's obligatory. We're all about tolerance in Zoo City. Or mutually assured desperation.
"Give me a break, Emmanuel. I'm thirty-two. I don't know this shit anymore."
"Cha! Zinzi! How do you not know Slinger?"
"What kind of a name is Slinger? That's so metal."
"You hurt me. Your words. They physically hurt me."
"You haven't seen me try to hurt you, Emmanuel."
"Yes, it's real!" he says, defensively. "Nigga took a bullet to the face and lived to tell. Bounced off the side of his skull, shattered his jaw, they had to wire him up, reconstruct the whole thing."
D'Nice chips in, waving his beer, slopping it around. "You know a hyena's jaws are stronger than a lion's. Got to get through skulls, to the marrow." The Vervet Monkey perks up at the sight of the spillage. She drops the coaster and leans forward with great deliberation.
"Skulls don't have marrow," Benoît says. I realise they're all already slightly drunk.
"You know what I mean," D'Nice mutters. The Vervet Monkey wipes her paw through the puddle of beer. She raises her hand to her face and examines it before licking her palm. She shivers at the aftertaste. Then licks her hand again, pink tongue searching out the cracks. Did I say slightly drunk?
"Listen!" Emmanuel says. "So Slinger's not standing for that, right? Gets out of hospital, half robot with all the metal bits they've had to graft into his head, and goes looking for the niggas who did this to him. Finds them in some strip joint in South Central. Walks right through the front doors. And bam! bam! bam!" Emmanuel mimes blowing the motherfuckers away with an imaginary gun so gigantic he has to hold it with both hands.
"Takes them out, like eight of them. Half don't even get a chance to react, the other half get as far as reaching for their guns, maybe standing up before he blows them away. Strippers running out of the building naked and screaming and stuff, all covered in blood!"
"You know, I think I saw that movie."
Emmanuel's grin drops from his face like a kicked puppy, bounces on the pavement and tumbles into the gutter with a little pitiful yelp. On the TV, Slinger and his Hyena have given way to a Mouseketeered kwaito duo, a boy and a girl, all sweet teen provocado.
"Zinzi, stop being a mean old cynic." Benoît's breath smells like three, maybe four rounds of lengolongola. "I'm sorry, Emmanuel. I can't take her anywhere."
"Ha. Like you do take me anywhere. Sorry, Emmanuel. Didn't mean to disrespect your boy." I punch his arm to show no hard feelings. Emmanuel looks less downcast – in fact, looks like all is entirely forgiven, and to show just how forgiven I am, he's going to regale me with more riveting details of Slinger's totally-not-fabricated biography. I cut him off as he takes the breath that will power the next paragraph of Slinger trivia, throwing a proprietary arm over Benoît. "So, you boys talking business or can I take this one away?"
"What's the rush, Zee-zee?" D'Nice is one of those guys who assign nicknames unasked for. He's also one of those guys with his fingers gravy-deep in all kinds of dodgy pies. He's wearing a woollen beanie, his mouth hanging slightly open, like always, which makes him look stupid. But you'd be stupid to underestimate him.