Zoo City

'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,' Benoit 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.' Benoit'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 Benoit. '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.

'Stay and have a drink with us,' he says.

I raise my tonic water. 'Sorted, thanks, nicey-nice. And cut it out,' I add, as I feel something like insect feet brushing against my temples. His Vervet is leaning forward, tense, suddenly focused through the glaze of alcohol. An animal at work.

'Cut what out?' he says innocently, as if he weren't extending little magic suckers towards me, but the skittery sensations fades away and the Monkey leans back in disappointment. She gives D'Nice a dirty look and goes back to fumbling with the beer.

'You've been hitting them heavy, Zee-zee,' D'Nice says, but he's trying to deflect attention because Emmanuel isn't in on his party trick.

D'Nice is the opposite of nice. His shavi is soaking up little moments of happiness, absorbing them haphazardly like a sponge. He lies about it, of course. A lot of zoos have a cover story for talents more deviant than normal. If you ask him, D'Nice will tell you his talent is scavenging information and, admittedly, he does a lot of that too. He lifts it off the street and flips it for cash to whoever is paying – but his snitching isn't magically enabled.

You'd think if you were a seratonin vampire, you might internalise some of that happiness. Not D'Nice. As far as I can tell, Benoit is his only friend, or at least the only person who can tolerate him for longer than twenty minutes sober.

'You know me, D'Nice. Party animal. Speaking of which, I think yours has had one too many.' The Vervet topples the bottle.

'Fuck's sake,' D'Nice says, grabbing for it, but not before the Vervet has managed to pull it over, dominoing three other glasses and the remains of my tonic water in the process. Emmanuel leaps up with a shout, knocking over his chair in the scramble to avoid spillage. There is the crash of glass. D'Nice is yelling, alternately at the Vervet for being an idiot, and for Mak to bring a rag to clean up the mess – and a new round, while he's at it, on the house 'cos it wouldn't have happened if the table wasn't wonky like all the shitty reject furniture in here. Mak disagrees with the diagnosis, loudly, which gets Carlos, the very large, very bald Portuguese bouncer involved. Emmanuel wisely uses the opportunity to take a slash or get

another drink and melts away.

The chaos gives Benoit and me a moment to converse like grown-ups.

'You okay?' he says, being the kind of smart, sensitive guy who picks up on not-so-subtle hints. Not so smart and sensitive that he's discerning about his friends and roommates, but hey.

'As shitty days go, this one's been raw sewage so far.'

'What happened with Mrs Luditsky?'

'She died. Murdered, if you want to be technical. I was practically there and the connection just… withered up.' Saying it, I feel the kick in my gut again. Like a lost heart attack that's wandered into my intestines by mistake.

'Is that where you've-'

'Cops. Three hours. Total bullshit. Oh, and they need you to go down to the station in the next couple of days and give a statement about my whereabouts this morning.'

Benoit doesn't say anything. His hand goes absently to the burn scars on his throat where the skin is Barbie-plasticky and shiny under the collar of his t-shirt.

'Sorry, Benoit. I know it's a pain in the testicles.' His thumb traces tight little spirals up his neck to his jawline, and I lose my patience. 'Is it your papers? Because I thought your extension came through last week. If it's a hassle, I can ask one of my other lovers to cover for me.'

Benoit smiles wanly. FL, the idea of other lovers would have been more than credible. But since Sloth I've been so monogamous I make the demonstration banana that Aids educators use to show how to put on a condom, look slutty.

'I got a phone call,' he says.

'From?' But I know. I know exactly who it is.

'Come on, Zinzi. My wife. My family.'

And there's that feeling again. Twice in one day. Heart attack in the guts. A wrenching squeeze and twist. From the other side of the room, Sloth looks up with an enquiring squeak. I give the tiniest shake of my head.

'That's great, Benoit. You must be…' There are a lot of words I could fill in here. None of them quite match the cocktail of emotion burning a hole in my stomach right now: a mix of Stroh rum and sulphuric acid. And who knew? Who knew that she'd be alive after all this time? Not me. Because I don't do missing persons.

'Ai. Who died?' D'Nice says, directing Emmanuel to set down the fresh round of beers he's brought over from the bar. D'Nice pushes one in my direction.

'You shouldn't pick up stompies. You might burn your fingers,' I snap.

'Benoit tell you his wife called?' D'Nice says, slyly. So much for discretion. 'Great news, hey?'

'Unbelievable,' I say. The heart attack has moved up to its proper place, like a poison flower in my chest. 'Amazing. I have some stuff to do. I'll catch you later, Benoit.'

I lean over to kiss him. His mouth tastes sweet and yeasty. I wonder if it's one more thing I'm going to have to swear off.

7.