Zoo City - Lauren Beukes

Sloth swats my arm in reproach. Like I meant to make the kid cry.

He storms out of the house, past Mark and Amira, who are sitting on the stairs, clearly listening in.

"And screw you guys too."

He slams the door.

"Didn't go so well, then, sweetie?" Mark says. His Dog pants happily, mocking.

"I've had worse interviews." This is true. The time I rocked up high to interview Morgan Freeman, for example. "You still trashing the place, or can I take a look?"

"Knock yourself out."

"Interesting ploy, the journalist," Marabou says, stroking her Bird's shrivelled head.

"You'd be amazed at how people open up when they think someone cares. Listen, don't wait up. After this, I'm thinking of taking in a round of golf. I'll expense a cab home."

Maltese sneers. "One day on the job, and she's too good for us."

I watch them out the door and then set to snooping. I skip the kitchen, which, surprisingly for a house full of teen boys, doesn't require Health Department intervention, and head upstairs, stepping over an amp at the top. There are more instruments lining the passage. A bass guitar, a tangle of microphone cable. Deck the halls. It's not clear whether they're normally out here, or part of Mark and Amira's redecorating scheme.

The first room is hotel-anonymous. A monotone motif with a black and white print of Namaqualand daisies above the bed. Guest room. I move on to the next: two single beds pushed to opposite corners. Clothes are strewn around the room, cushions have been thrown on the floor, the mattresses upturned, the camo-print beanbag leans on its side. There are posters of Megan Fox and Khanyi Mbau taped up, spreads from fashion magazines, all featuring menswear, and a business plan mapped out on a whiteboard underneath a sketch of an old-fashioned Nintendo video game controller and the words "War Room".

Fashion label launch Jozi fashion week, last week in August (realistic???)

Logo meet with Adam the Robot

Put out brief on t-shirt designs on 10and5.

Gorata Mugudamani to sort publicity?

Distrib!!!! Cross-pollinate w music stores?

Int?

Choose ringtone tracks. Re-mix?

SOLO?!?!? Heather Yalo

Can we do a fragrance? Market research.

I take notes. Move on.

Bathroom #1. A scramble of boy stuff. Five different flavours of deodorant, slick electric razors, electric toothbrushes, shaving cream, moisturising balm, exfoliator, anti-wrinkle eye cream – all for fifteen year-olds. A shower with a curtain featuring mildew and Hawaiian flowers. Sodden towels puddled on the Italian tiles. But otherwise remarkably clean. No skid marks in the toilet. Nothing living in the bath. Well stocked on toilet paper.

Bathroom #2. Dramatically smaller. The first hint of Song. A bottle of perfume on the counter. A punky black bottle with the name Lithium etched in white, like chalk scratchings. Blue nail polish. Eyeliner. More eyeliner. Four different kinds of mascara: coal, black, ultra-black and green. Eyeshadow in jewel colours. Gothpunk Princess Barbie. I spritz the perfume into the air. It smells like petrol and dead flowers. Sloth sniffs the air appreciatively. Clearly there are tones in there that human noses just can't appreciate. There is a glass jar of dried green leaves. I crush some between my fingers. It's fragrant. Not dope. Possibly muti. But for what? If only traditional healers would label shit. I wrap some up in a tissue and fold it into my pocket.

More helpfully, there is also an unopened pill container marked "Songweza Radebe" and "Flurazepam", "dosage: 1 per day with food." I look it up on my phone. It's a generic, used for anxiety or insomnia, especially for those with manic depression. The date on the label is Friday 18 March. So one day before she runs away, she gets a prescription for heavy-duty anxiety pills. Makes it seem like the script wasn't her idea. Interesting.

Next door is a full-on bedroom studio with egg-boxes studding the walls, mixing-decks, a computer facing the tiniest voice booth you ever saw, but at least semi-pro, if I'm any judge of expensive. And I am.

Adjoining the studio is the final bedroom. This has been creatively adapted. It's barely a metre across because a slapdash drywall has been erected in the middle of the room, forming the back of the recording booth next door. A double bed takes up most of the remaining space, under a block-mounted poster of Barbarella gazing into the depths of space, managing to look yearning and bold all at once. The cupboard has been thrown open, and clothes dumped recklessly on the bed among a spread of comics. There are more comics crammed into every available space on a long, low bookshelf that runs the length of the window. I skim through a few. Swamp monsters and teleporting houses, a muscled guy wearing the Union Jack.

A collection of movie monsters are posed all along the top of the bookshelf. On instinct, I pick up the one that looks like an upside-down dustbin with rows of studs down the side. As I do, it says "Exterminate!" and I nearly drop it. The head comes right off. There's a bankie of dope inside. And it's quality, if I'm any judge of substances. And I am.

I put the little robot's head back on, leaving the dope where it is, and replace him carefully between Arnold Schwarzenegger, metal chassis gleaming from under ripped plastic skin, and a manga girl with a mane of bright pink hair and boobs popping out of the leopard-print bikini that matches her tail and ears. But I do take one of the A5 soft-cover notebooks ferreted away between the comics. It says lyrics on the cover. And © S'bu Radebe. I roll it up and slip it into my bag.

As we're heading back towards the stairs, Sloth chirrups. "My thoughts exactly," I say, stepping back into the anonymous hotel room, which is not in fact a guest room. I open the cupboard and face an array of pretty preppy clothing. White sundresses and Afro-chic numbers by Sun Goddess and Darkie and Stoned Cherrie. Perfect for a hip teen kwaito queen. But not for a Gothpunk Princess Barbie. There are empty hangers, like a gaptoothed smile. Wherever Song went, whoever she went with, she had time to pack.

I ransack the room for lost things, digging under the mattress, in the back of the cupboard. There are only dust bunnies and some spare change, a hair band. Nothing lost. Nothing to lead me back to Song. Which means I'm stuck with the investigative journalist angle.

"Uh-oh. Fweag aled," Arno says nasally as I approach. He's looking considerably less stoned, likely courtesy of the pain in his nose, although his eyes are still bloodshot.

"Just ignore her. Maybe she'll get the hint." Des lines up the tee, once, twice, and then swings hard, neatly chipping out a clod of earth to join the other clods of earth gathered around his trainers, which are not regulation golf shoes. But then, neither are mine. I've left distinctive tracks across three holes: the common kitten-heeled hustler.

"You play golf now as well as Blood Skies?" Des says, mockingly.

"No. I hate golf. It's the genteel version of seal-clubbing, only not as much fun."

"What do you want?"

"Background stuff. Colour."

"Is bad a whide joke?" Arno bristles.

"As in painting a picture of iJusi's life. The people they hang out with, what goes down."

"You're bod gonna wide about de guns ding, are you?" Arno looks worried.

I laugh. "What was that?"

"It was the dope. He gets lank paranoid. Doos." Des smacks Arno upside his head.

"Don't worry, I'll make that incident 'off the record'." I take out my notebook and pen, and look at them expectantly. "So tell me about you guys. How do you know S'bu?"

They look at each other uneasily.

"If this isn't a bad time for you. Wouldn't want to interrupt your…" – I look down at the pitted grass – "gardening." They have the grace to look sheepish. "C'mon, I'll buy you a drink at the clubhouse."

Turns out Des and Arno already have a well-established reputation at the clubhouse. "Oh no," the waiter says, wearing a bowtie and gloves, like this is Inanda instead of Mayfields. "No shirt, no service. And no animals."

"Hi there," I say, sticking out my hand. "Zinzi December, journalist for The Economist. You've heard of The Economist, I trust? I'm interviewing these young men for a piece on the South African music industry, and I'd really appreciate it if you could accommodate us. I'd hate to have to include something in my piece on the appalling service at Mayfields."

"Do you have a business card?"

"Not on me." I give him my best fake-tolerant smile. He considers this, then breaks out his best fake-obsequious smile in return. "Right this way, madam. But please inform the young gentlemen that we won't be serving them alcoholic beverages. We confiscated their fake IDs the last time they visited with us."

We sit outside overlooking the gentle rolling greenery of the course. A shrike eyes our table, checking out the scraps. Also known as the butcherbird, it has a habit of impaling its prey on barbed-wire fences. People tend to think animals are better than humans. But birds have their own serial killers. Chimpanzees commit murder. The only difference between us is that animals don't feel guilty about it.

"How many of these people actually play golf?" I say, waving my glass of Appletiser at the townhouses.

"Dwo?" Arno guesses.

"Three max. It's like gym," Des says. "Everyone signs up and goes for like a month and then never goes again."

"So, who are you guys? Tell me about you."

"Um. Anoo Wedelinghaze. Dad's Har-he-duh-he-," he spells out, leaning over my notebook. Listening to him speak makes my eyes water.

"Redelinghuys. Got it," I wink. "How old are you? Arno?"

"Fifdeen."

"And you, Des?"

"Twenty-two. And it's Desmond Luthuli."

"You go to school with S'bu?"

"I do!" Arno chirps. "Bud Des moved hewe wid him. He's da woombade. I jusd hang oud and sleeb over sombedibes."

"Moved out from where?"

"Valley of a Dousand Hills? In Kwa-Zulu Naddal? Dey, like, gwew up dogeduh, besd buds."

"I can speak for myself, Arno." There's something hungry about Des. I get the feeling reflected glory isn't enough for him.

"Sorreeee, dude. Shid."

"Yeah, so S'bu and Arno are only, like, friends from two years ago. They both go to Crawford," Des says. "But me and S'bu, we grew up together. Tiny little village called KwaXimba in the Valley of a Thousand Hills. So ja, when iJusi signed and S'bu and Song moved out here-"

"How'd they get signed?" I interrupt.

"You don't know?"

"I just want to get your take on it. In your own words." Actually, Maltese and Marabou filled me in on the way. There was a big hoo-ha after they aced the Coca-Cola Starmakerz auditions when they were still a tender fourteen; the youngest contestants ever to qualify, and from a desperately poor background that almost immediately made them the great bright nation-building hopes of the contest. But they had to drop out just before the semi-finals, after their grandmother died of lupus, barely two years after they lost both parents to Aids-related complications.

They were adorable. They were tragic. They were at least half-talented. And the song they chose to sing was a wrenching cover of Brenda Fassie's "Too Late for Mama". How could the General Public resist? There was a massive rallying around them. Radio 702 started a fund-raising drive to pay for granny's funeral costs and establish a trust for the new orphans. Coca-Cola put them up in a hotel for the duration of the competition, arranged minders to look after them, and gave them as much free Coke as they could drink. And hopefully paid for their dental work afterwards.

Sponsors leapt to look after them. They got free clothes, free medical aid and free tickets to rugby games, where they got to sing for the Springboks and the President. And they got signed before the semi-finals even went to air, and dropped out of the competition on the advice of their new label, Moja Records.

Des sums this up succinctly: "Like, they were in Starmakerz and then they got signed and Odi paid for them to move."

"Acdually, de creeby bird lady and be dog guy came do dalk to dem eben befowe."

"Before Starmakerz?"

"Dey said dey were dalend scouds."

"Yeah, but I told them they shouldn't just take the first offer they got, even if it was from Mr Odi Bigshot Huron," Des interrupts. "I got them to audition for Starmakerz instead. Worked out. They got more exposure and we landed with Odi anyway."

"And they just did what you said?"

"Yeah, I'm kinda like S'bu's manager."

"You're twenty-two."

"So?"

"His mbom is deir legal guawdian," Arno pipes up.

"Yeah, that too. When they came to Joburg, we moved up with them."

"Mrs Luthuli. Right. So, where is your mom? Is she okay with you guys smoking weed and drinking beer?"

"Yeah, she's really chill. We earned it, man."

"You mbean S'bu earned id," Arno interrupts.

"And where's Songweza in all this? I couldn't help noticing that the house felt very… masculine."

"Song's a sduck-up bidch," says Arno, with all the venom of someone who has tended a secret crush in the basement of his heart, only to be met with a sweetly patronising pat on the cheek the moment he brought it out into the sunlight of her attention. The seedling might have been burned, but that doesn't mean it's dead.

"Shut up, Arno. Song has got her own thing going on. She's only there a couple of nights a week. Maybe."

"And the rest of the time?"

"Who knows? Who cares?"

"Shouldn't your mom care? Considering she's the official guardian?"

"She cares. She looks after those two better than their own family."

"Oh?"

"Buncha money-sucking vampires. But that's private. Off the record, hey?" Des jabs his finger at me, just like a real manager, all grown-up.

"No problem," I soothe. "So tell me about this management gig, Des. What does that involve?"

"I got some stuff going with the clubs, some sponsorship deals, and me and S'bu are working on a clothing label for men. Controller."

"But not Song?"

He ignores me. "T-shirts and accessories, but quality stuff, hey. None of this cheap rip-off crap. Got some stores that are interested. The Space. YDE even. It's not just about the music anymore, it's about the brand. You gotta be smart. CDs don't count for squat. It's all about the cellphone downloads."

"Wow. You want to be my manager too?"

"Depends." He assesses me seriously, for the first time. "What you got?"

"Not a whole lot, let me tell you. How about you, Arno?"