Zoo City - By Lauren Beukes Page 0,77

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 Benoît'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.

Benoît 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 Benoît has in the world. I could tape myself up in one of them and wait for his return.

"Benoît," Emmanuel says in a warning voice, a voice that tells me everything has changed.

Benoît 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 Benoît 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, Benoît 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 Benoît. "I don't care about 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." Benoît hefts the bag onto the couch and stands up to face me. "It's 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 circumstances, these people you steal from?"

"I just write the formats, Benoît. You think this is easy for me? Living on money scrounged from finding a lost set of keys here, a passport there? I have