"I've been thinking about that. Your tuna-fish story."
"Yes?"
"You don't strike me as the tuna-fish type. You're more of a shark. Were you really inside inside the container, Amira? Or were you on the outside, arranging passage? Another kind of procurement?" the container, Amira? Or were you on the outside, arranging passage? Another kind of procurement?"
"And I I think you are a stupid girl with crazy ideas in her head." She jabs a long finger into my direction and stalks towards the car. I watch the Merc pull away, back towards the suburbs. think you are a stupid girl with crazy ideas in her head." She jabs a long finger into my direction and stalks towards the car. I watch the Merc pull away, back towards the suburbs.
I'm out past the shark nets now.
I'm met by wolf whistles and monkey whoops from D'Nice and his idiot friends, who are sprawled on the steps outside Elysium, already mostly drunk.
"Hey, Zee Zee On Top!" D'Nice catcalls. "You can ride me reverse cowgirl, baby!" He bucks his hips and pretends to swing a lasso above his head.
"You need to get a job, D'Nice. The beer is rotting your brain."
"Oh, I got one. You're looking at the new Elias. I start on Tuesday."
Upstairs, I find a print-out tacked to my door that explains D'Nice's behaviour, the Marabou's sarky remark. It's from Mach Mach blog, a sneak peek of an upcoming feature (full story in the May issue!) called "Was It Good for Zoo?" blog, a sneak peek of an upcoming feature (full story in the May issue!) called "Was It Good for Zoo?"
There are photos.
Some of them are five years old. Candid. He swore he'd deleted them.
Some are from a couple of nights ago. A kiss pinned against the wall of a grungy building. Dancing at the Biko Bar. Me looking wistful in the backseat of the car, streamers of city lights reflected in the glass. I don't remember Dave taking that one.
The naked pictures are not the worst of it. It's the words.
The copy is a mash-up of truth and invention. Gio writes about all the ways we have sex. Reverse cowgirl included. This, at least, is based on past experience, but he makes up the rest. How Sloth shivers and yowls when I come because we're connected like that. How he gets a little squeamish about it all. Calls it his pseudo-bestiality threesome. A gang-bang really, because the shadow of murder, of my sin, is like a fourth in the bed with us.
Mama always told him to avoid the bad girls, but hey, he writes, in a moment of tender confession, he loved me once.
"Cocksucking pigdog bastard mothercunt!" I kick the door for emphasis, leaving a vicious dent and cracking the paintwork. Mrs Khan pokes her head out of 608, concerned. "Is everything all right, sweetheart?"
"Peachy," I snarl, and head upstairs to Benoit's apartment. He should be back by now. I just hope he hasn't seen it, but D'Nice is sure to have made extra photocopies to shove in his face.
Benoit is sitting in the middle of his floor sorting through a meagre selection of clothes, in front of the sagging nicotine-yellow couch he and Emmanuel lugged all the way from Parktown when they spotted it dumped on the pavement.
The Rwandan kid sees me first. He's taping up a collection of tatty cardboard boxes salvaged from the superette. Everything Benoit has in the world. I could tape myself up in one of them and wait for his return.
"Benoit," Emmanuel says in a warning voice, a voice that tells me everything has changed.
Benoit looks up to see me standing in the doorway. He turns back to his job without comment, but he looks frayed, like a carpet that's been trodden down. The Mongoose gives me an evil look our moment of bonding at the window last night forgotten.
"It's not true," I say, adding in exasperation. "Emmanuel, can you get lost, please?"
"Uh" Emmanuel looks to Benoit for confirmation, but there's none forthcoming: he just keeps folding and rolling his t-shirts. Emmanuel has always been a little scared of me. He sets down the tape and ducks out the door past me. "Sorry," he says, like it's a funeral, and squeezes my arm.
As he finishes folding each one, Benoit places the sausage-roll shirts neatly inside one of those damn checked bags. I kneel down next to him.
"Please don't use that. I have a backpack I can lend you." He ignores me.
"Thanks for the phone. And the tip. I found her. I couldn't have done it without you. I'm getting the cash tomorrow. I can pay for fake papers, for your plane ticket."
"I don't want your money," he says, taking all the rolled-up shirts out again and starting to re-roll them.
"Oh for fuck's sake. Look, Giovanni and I had a thing years ago. He made up the rest. You can tell it's bullshit. That obscene stuff about Sloth coming at the same time"
"Oh, that?" says Benoit. "I don't care about that that, Zinzi."
"Where are you going?"
"Central Methodist Church. It's just for a couple of days until I leave."
"And fight over a piece of concrete floor to sleep on, an edge of staircase? Please. If you've got someone else moving in here already, you can stay at my place. I won't even try to have sex with you."
"I don't think that's a good idea."
"I can't believe you're letting this piece of shit's disgusting slander get between us. A couple of hours ago we're fine, and now this? Over ancient fucking history?" Sloth murmurs in my ear, soothing noises. He hates it when I shout.
"It's not him." Benoit hefts the bag onto the couch and stands up to face me. "It's you you, Zinzi. I used your computer. I needed to email Michelle. The aid worker," he clarifies when I look blank.
"Oh." I sit down heavily on the couch next to his bag.
"I found your scam letters. I wasn't looking for them. But you had replies in your inbox. Many replies."
"So what? If you knew the circumstances"
"Do you know their their circumstances, these people you steal from?" circumstances, these people you steal from?"
"I just write the formats, Benoit. You think this is easy for me? Living on money scrounged from finding a lost set of keys here, a passport there? I have debts to pay." I am aware of how childishly defensive I sound.
"We all have debts to pay!" Benoit raises his voice for the first time, gestures at the open doorway. "All of us here."
"Mine happen to be financial as well as moral."
"I didn't know you were this selfish."
"I'm an addict! It comes with the fucking territory. I'm sorry I'm not as perfect as your fucking wife. And I hope for your sake she's as fucking perfect as you remember. That she doesn't have an animal of her own. Five years is a long time, Benoit. How do you know she even wants you back?"
"I have a message from her."
"And I have a whole outbox full of messages promising untold riches. How do you know you're not just another moegoe moegoe, pinning everything on a dream that's patently impossible?"
"I don't. I just have to go and see how it is, see how to make it work."
"Fine. Whatever. Go live your life. Why do you care about these idiots giving away their money?"
He sits down next to me, the couch creaking mournfully. "It's because I knew a boy like Felipe once. The one who gets shot in the back in your Eloria letter?"
"I didn't know. How could I have known? It wasn't on purpose, Benoit. It wasn't to hurt you."