Zoo City - By Lauren Beukes Page 0,8
shower. There are pink streaks down the bathroom sink.
The display cabinet is overturned. There are drag marks in blood across the floor. Someone trying to crawl away.
There is the shrapnel of china figurines everywhere. And I mean everywhere. A cherub's rosy buttock in the TV room. Little Bo Beep smiling blandly up from the kitchen tiles, decapitated, among the splintered remains of her little lamb.
Mrs Luditsky is sitting on the floor, slumped against the couch, her legs splayed out in an A. Her head lolls backwards and to one side at an uncomfortable angle. If it weren't for the wrinkles and the wounds, she could be a sloppy drunk, a teenage girl at a house party after one alcopop too many. She is wearing a voluminous silk blouse soaked in blood. It gapes in the places where it has been sliced through, revealing a beige bra and bloody gashes. She is wearing one slipper. The toenails on her other foot are painted a dark plum. Her eyes are open, as cold and glossy as Little Bo Peep's. Her crème brûlée hairdo is half crushed against the arm of the couch.
"I'm going to venture it wasn't stale biscotti," I say. Nor gunshot. Tshabalala exhales through her teeth and glances at the door.
"That," she says, tapping the photograph, "is not your everyday burglary. Seventy-six stab wounds? That's personal."
"Was anything taken?"
"We're checking with her housekeeper. She's still in shock. Why? You got something else you want to hand over?"
"The TV? The DVD player? Other jewellery?"
"You're the one with the ring in your pocket," Inspector Tshabalala smirks.
"I didn't do it," I say.
She strings out the silence. 97 alligator. 99, 128. "It's not like we don't know what you're capable of, Zinzi," she says, finally. I lean back in my shitty grey plastic chair. I've heard this tune before and it's nothing but cheap muzak. She's reaching, which means she's got absolutely nothing.
"That's unconstitutional, Inspector."
"Save it for the animal rights people."
"That's the SPCA."
"What?"
"The animal rights people. Dogs, cart-horses, cats, lab rats, neutering programmes. I know you didn't mean to say anything that could be construed as racist, inspector. Something that could go on your permanent record."
"All I'm saying is that you've murdered before."
"The court said accessory to."
"That's not what the thing on your back says."
"He's a Sloth."
"He's guilt. You know how many people I've shot in eleven years on the force?"
"Do I get a gold star if I guess right?"
"Three. Non-fatal, all of them."
"Maybe you should spend more time at target practice."
"A good cop doesn't need to shoot to kill."
"Is that what you are? A good cop?"
She spreads her hands. "You see a furry companion at my side?"
"Maybe your conscience is on the fritz. There have been studies: sociopaths, psychopaths–"
"The difference between you and me?" she interrupts, the ring re-materialising in the crack of her fingers like a jack-in-the-box. "The Undertow isn't coming for me."
She flicks the ring into her palm and replaces it neatly, exactly in the centre of the table. I let her have her moment. One alligator. Getting the last word is all about the timing. Two alligator.
"Don't worry, Inspector," I say. "You've still got plenty of time to fuck up."
By the time I get out of Rosebank police station, the bright and shiny coating on my day has started to peel off. The cops kept the ring, confiscated the R500 in my wallet as "evidence" and made me sign a hundred billion forms.
The security cameras on Mrs Luditsky's building provided a clear record of my comings and goings. Arrived Saturday 11h03, signed in, departed 11h41. Arrived again this morning, 07h36. Departed in the back of a police van in plastic cuffs after a heated argument on the street: 08h19.
But, really, it's thanks to my criminal record that they eventually had to let me go. Because they have my details on file.
Ref: Zinzi Lelethu December #26841AJHB
ID 7812290112070
Animalled 14 October 2006
(see Case SAPS900/14/10/2006 Rosebank cf: Murder of Thando December) Ability to trace lost objects.
Which means that my story checks out. Although the charming Inspector Tshabalala still insists that Benoît comes down to sign an affidavit about my whereabouts at 06h32. That's when the security cameras mysteriously fritzed out and Mrs Luditsky's neighbours reported hearing screams, right before they rolled over to go back to sleep, figuring it was probably just a violent show on TV with the volume pumped up, because maybe the old lady was finally going deaf. Tshabalala told me that much before she chucked me back out on the street.
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