Lauren Beukes - Zoo City

Sloth makes a grumbly sound in the back of his throat, his claws padding my arms like a cat. This is why I can't play poker. Nothing like having a giant furry tell to ruin your bluff. I try to keep my grip on the door handle casual as the car races up Empire and barrels through another orange light. Sloth buries his face into my neck. I focus on the newspaper headline posters to fight back carsickness. CORRUPTION CASE POSTPONED. HOMELESS MAN BURNED TO DEATH. AIRPORT DRUG BUST.

"I still don't like little dogs," I say.

"That's okay," says Maltese says, remarkably chipper. "You won't be working for us anyway."

"I might not be working for anyone at all. This is just a look-see."

"You're such a tough guy. I love it."

We pull up to a boom marking the entrance to a gated community. The uniformed guard has a Rat in his pocket, its pink snuffling nose poking out just above the Sentinel Armed Response logo. Zoos do okay in the security sector, especially with Sentinel, which is the largest and therefore, as a matter of practicality, the most open-minded armed-response company in the city.

The Dog bristles, and as the guard leans down to look in the car window, it springs up, in a frenzy of yapping and snarling. The Rat blinks at the Dog, whiskers twitching, but it doesn't budge.

"Down, biscuit! I'm sorry, Pierre. You know how excited he gets."

"It's João, Mr Mazibuko. But it's no problem."

"Gosh, I'm sorry . You'd think I'd remember such a handsome boy. I promise I won't forget again." He looks at the guard calculatingly. "I don't suppose you can sing, by any chance?"

"Mark." The Marabou's voice is sharp and low.

"No, of course not, how silly of me. Never mind, Felipe.

João. Whatever your name is. Can you let Mr Huron know we're here? If you don't mind doing your job, sweetie?"

"Yes, sir." Unfazed, the guard takes a smart step back from the car, speaks into his radio and then raises the boom to allow the Mercedes through. There's something about the way he does it, a staccato snap to his movement that says ex-military. That's the thing about Africa. There are a lot of wars. A lot of unemployed ex-soldiers.

The car pulls away, a little more vigorously than required, under the boom, over a speed bump and into the rotten heart of leafy suburbia. The suburbs are overshadowed with oaks and jacarandas and elms. Biggest man-made forest in the world, or so we're told.

The grassy verges on the pavement are more manicured than a porn star's topiary, running up to ten-metre-high walls topped with electric fencing. Anything could happen behind those walls and you wouldn't know a thing. Maybe that's the point.

"Huron. Odi Huron? As in the bigshot music guy?"

"The producer, yes," Marabou corrects me.

"As in Lily Nobomvu."

"A tragic loss."

"Bit of a Howard Hughes thing going on there."

"He has a condition," Marabou says, with an elegant half-shoulder shrug that her Stork imitates, like an avian Siamese twin on a one-second time delay.

We turn down a cul-de-sac, past an open plot, wildly overgrown and worth five million at least, and pull up outside a comparatively low brownstone wall overgrown with ivy, real ivy. The ironwork gate reveals rolling lawns leading up to a Sir Herbert Baker stone house, which must date back to the early 1900s, with a small rugged hill or koppie rising behind it. It sticks out in this neighbourhood like a hairy wart on the face of cool modernity.

"And a lost thing," I press.

"Person," Marabou corrects.

"And this person is…?"

"Oh, sweetie. Patience is a virtue. Virtue is a grace-"

Marabou chimes in, the old rhyme sounding weird in her East European lilt: "Grace is a little girl who never ate her face."

"Washed her face," Maltese corrects automatically. They have the well-grooved antagonism of siblings or a long-time couple. Marabou ignores him, and he continues, "He's a wonderful man, sweetie. You'll like him."

"No little dogs then?" I say.

" Definitely no little dogs." Maltese presses a remote and the ironwork gate creaks open to allow us entry to the sprawling property.

We drive round the side of the house to a newly built four-car garage squatting in ugly counterpoint to Sir Herbert Baker. One of the doors is open, revealing a wellmaintained Daimler in dark blue with wood panelling. Clearly Huron travels in style, which is funny, because the impression I had was that he didn't travel at all. A heavy in a chauffeur's hat is washing down the rims of the wheels. He stands up when he sees us approach and indicates to Maltese to park on the left. Then he takes the bucket and stalks away into the garage, slopping soapy water in his wake.

"Friendly guy."

"Friendly isn't in his job description," Marabou says. She opens the back door and slides out of the car, cradling the Stork's naked head against her chest to prevent it hitting the door-frame.

Maltese stays behind, drumming the edge of the steering wheel with his thumbs. "You guys go ahead. I'm going to see if John can't give the Merc a bit of a spit and polish while he's got the bucket out."

"His name is James," Marabou says.

"Whatever. I'll catch up."

"The entrance is this way." Marabou leads me round the side of the garage and up the sweep of driveway to the house. Close up, the property is practically derelict. There are weeds with thorny leaves and dandelion heads nudging up between the paving stones, setting them off kilter. The rolling lawns flanking the driveway are dry and yellowing, patrolled by a lone ibis, poking around for bugs in the grass. The tennis court far down near the bottom of the garden has holes in its fence and cracks in the concrete. The net sags over the centre line like a beer boep on an ageing athlete. The scent of yesterday-today-andtomorrow hangs heavy in the air, the purple and white flowers in late bloom. Sloth mutters in the back of his throat. I know what he means. It feels abandoned.

I needle Marabou for the hell of it. Plus, I'm curious. "So what does 'procurements' mean exactly? Corporate headhunting? Rare antiquities? Hostage negotiation?"

"It can mean anything you want – a lot like your line of work, Ms December." The Stork makes a guttural croaking, throat sac jiggling.

"Oh, come on. What were your last three jobs?"

"Discretion is one of our guarantees. As it is yours, I hope?"

"Money makes all things possible," I agree. "So, you're not even going to give me a hint?"

"We are like an exclusive concierge service. We do what the job requires. For Mr Huron we have escorted musicians on tours and facilitated deals, most recently with a German distributor, where we accompanied the artist to Berlin."

"Sounds more like A amp;R than 'procurements'."

"Before this, we smuggled a shipment of seventeenthcentury crucifixes out of Spain in a container packed with ceramic tiles."

"Really?"

"Maybe. Maybe I am lying to get you excited. How would you check?"

She presses her finger to the doorbell. The door is a dark heavy wood with a stained glass rosary window. Inside the house, a chime trills and echoes. A moment later, the door swings open, revealing a woman in a cardinalred pantsuit and a blonde bob. She seems delighted to see us, smiling like she's had a sunbeam shoved down her throat. "Oh, wow, hey. You're super early. Odi's just finishing up something."

"Carmen is one of Mr Huron's protégés," Marabou says in answer to my raised eyebrow.

"Oh yaa, sorry," Carmen says, giving me a flash of white teeth. 'Are you, like, media?"

"Not anymore."

She loses interest instantly, although her sunbeam wavers only briefly. "Well, come on in. If you want to head out to the patio, I'll bring you guys some tea."

She turns and clatters away on a pair of shiny red platform heels, leading us through a house that seems too fusty for such a bright and cool young thing to be breezing through. Faded Persian carpets laid over wooden floors mute the clop of Carmen's shoes. The furniture is overbearing, heavy teaks and yellowwood railway sleepers. Sloth hugs me tighter, and I catch a snatch of a rank mineral smell, like week-old vase water.