"I'm a little confused. If she's into metal and punk, hanging out at rock venues, why is she in an Afropop band?"
"Why are you writing a story for Credo Credo? 'Cos it's a step up, right? Today it's Credo Credo; tomorrow, like, Dazed and Dazed and Confused Confused or whatever your thing is." or whatever your thing is."
"Any idea why she's not answering her phone? She flaky like that?"
"Not if she wants to talk to you. And she'd want to talk to you you, believe me. She's hungry for coverage."
"Part of the step up."
"Yeah. Can you take this back, now?" he whines, shoving Sloth back at me. He's finally figured out that zoo doesn't mix with paisley.
Back at the booth, Gio and Juliette have returned, and the girls have been replaced by a quartet of ski-masked youths with microphones. These can only be the Tsotsis. "Having a good time?" Gio says, his mouth right up against my ear because the Tsotsis are raucously loud high-wire kasi kasi hip hop acrobatically riffing off hip hop acrobatically riffing off maskandi maskandi folk. folk.
"It's been educational," I shout back.
"Wanna get out of here?" Gio breaks out his best mischief smile. "Seven and a half minutes to my place."
"I'll take a ride back to Zoo City." I grin at his expression. "Don't worry. Your chances of being shot are only one in three." And then I'm blinded by a camera flash as Dave reappears and snaps a close-up.
"Say paparazzi," he says.
It turns into a group outing. The chance of a guided tour is too much for Dave to resist.
"You been into Zoo City much?" I ask him.
"Well, our offices are nearby. And I picked up Lily Nobomvu once about seven years ago, hitching from her crack dealer's place on Kotze Street," Dave says. "Covered in bruises. Her manager was beating her up. She seemed happy enough, though. Asked me to lend her a hundred bucks when I dropped her off in Parktown."
"Odi Huron, by any chance?"
"That's the one. Dodgy motherfucker, by all accounts." Dave leans forward between the seats to take photographs through the windshield, of the trees hung with plastic bags like Christmas decorations, the prostitutes outside Joubert Park posing under the streetlights (the working ones, anyway) like their own personal spotlights.
"You know they never found her body? She could still be out there."
"Lily? You mean like Elvis? I can see them cruising truckstop bars on Route 66, playing drinking games with grey aliens." Gio giggles. "Hey, didn't Odious have a bar? Remember, Zinz? Bass Station?"
"I remember being too drunk to remember anything about Bass Station. Like I don't remember anything about
206 or Alcatraz."
"Oh, Bass Station closed down years and years ago," Dave says. "There was a robbery that went bad. Couple of people died, if I remember correctly. Maybe that's why it took Huron so long to make a comeback."
"We should go to Counter Rev, sometime. You'd like it," Gio interrupts.
"Sounds like hipster hell."
"Alright, you'd find it interesting, then. Anthropological."
"Turn left and pull over at the sign for His Believers," I say, indicating the billboard for the charismatic church.
"This is the stuff you should be doing," says Dave, suddenly very animated. "Why are you writing about pop bands when you could write about Zoo City from the inside?"
"But would people read it? Dogfight exposes and vice?"
"What's a dogfight?" Gio pipes up.
"Use your imagination."
"I'm seeing glitz and blood, money on the table, fur in the ring, mobsters with glamour models on their arms watching from the sidelines."
"Minus the glamour and glitz, add a heavy dose of illegal, and you've got it."
"To the death?"
"Not unless it gets really ugly. We do try to avoid the Undertow as much as possible."
"Sounds like a good night out. Maybe we should do Counter Rev and then an evening at the dogfighting."
"Or not."
But Dave won't let up. "More like insight pieces. Scenes from the street, what it's like to live here."
"It's kak kak, Dave. What more do you want to know?"
"Just think about it."
"So, can I walk you up?" Gio asks as we pull over.
"You probably shouldn't leave your car alone in this neighbourhood."
"It's cool, I'll stay," Dave volunteers.
"You can walk me to security. Longer than that, and I can't speak for Dave's safety."
There is a small group of men, teens really, sitting on the steps leading up to Aurum Place opposite. Spare time and beer make them dangerous. Candlelight flickers in the windows of the squatter blocks where the electricity has long since been disconnected. A thudding bass line ramps up from the chop-shop in the alley. Testing the sound system. In the distance, sirens, the occasional gunshot. Gio flinches, pretends he hasn't. We reach the security gate and I turn to say goodnight. Gio pouts.
"I don't get to come up?"
"Next time. Maybe."
"It was good seeing you."
"Like old times." This is not necessarily a good thing.
"So Counter Revolutionary? Saturday? Consider it research."
"How about tomorrow?"
"Done." He moves to kiss me. I pull my head back just enough to thwart the intention.