"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.
People are such assholes.
4.
The Daily Truth 22 March 2011
POLICE FILE
Crime Watch with Mandlakazi Mabuso
Mall Rats
Yoh, mense. Another nightmare day in dream city. Killarney Mall gets hit by armed robbers on Friday, and yesterday the same gang hits Eastgate! No one got killed but believe you me, the shoppers are plenty shook-up by having okes with AKs storming around. The tsotsis hit a jewellery store and emptied the tills at Checkers before clearing out while mall security twiddled their thumbs. Okay, maybe understandable when witnesses report that the gangsters had a lion with them. Makes me wonder if we don't need a pass system for zoos after all!
Jump over to Linden for a happy ending (for once). A young mom was hijacked on her way back from crèche yesterday, but the baddies took pity and dropped the baby off, still in his car-seat, by the traffic lights a couple of kays away. Ag voeitog. Even gangsters have a heart sometimes.
But maybe not a nose. Over in Cyrildene, the cops found several million rands worth of perlemoen rotting in a garage. The okie who owned the place was bust when the neighbours complained about the reek of vrot sea snot that's supposed to be a potent aphrodisiac – and a protected species! Tell that to the Triads shipping them off by the rotting bucket-load to China, my china.
And over in larney-ville Sandton-side, it turns out Bafana boy Kabelo Nongoloza is a good striker off the field as well as on. His long-time girlfriend and debutante, Queenie Mugudamani, laid charges of assault against the young soccer star on Tuesday and is sporting a nasty bruised and swollen face as Exhibit A. Sounds like time for another nose job for Queenie. Pity you can't get a makeover for your bad taste in men!
5.
People want to believe: you just have to feed them plausible constructs. The help-poor-widow-of-defunctgovernment-minister-get-$25-million-out-of-the-corruptcountry is so stale and overused that even my mother wouldn't fall for it. And I know from personal experience that my mother would fall for a lot. I brush the dusting of Mongoose fur and flea eggs off my laptop, and flick open the screen to see if the phish have been biting.
I've become a master builder in the current affairs sympathy scam. A broken levee and an old lady with a flooded mansion, desperate to sell her priceless antiques cheap-cheap. A Chechnyan refugee fleeing the latest Russian pogroms with her family's diamonds in tow. A Somali pirate who has found Jesus and wants to trade in his rocket launcher and ransom millions for absolution.
It's all topical. All rooted in the hard realities of the world. Ironic that Former Life I never watched the news. But then, lifestyle journalists don't have to. And normal people don't have to pay off their drug debts by writing scam letters for syndicates. Or hide their sideline from their lover, who would definitely not approve.
There are 2,581 replies waiting. Not a bad hit rate out of the 49,812 that I sent out on Monday, not including the tens of thousands that bounced off spam filters. There are 1,906 "out of office" replies, which at least marks the email addresses as active, 14 irritated missives that range from "fuck you, scamfucks" to "pull the other one". Add
292 kanji variations, 137 in French, 102 in German, 64 in Arabic, 48 in Spanish and 12 in Urdu, all of which I'll plug into my translation software later. This leaves six potentials, two responding with cautious interest and the rest with abject confusion. I forward them all on to Vuyo, who is my catcherman. If people would just read the damn email properly, they would have responded to him directly.
And then there's an anomaly that chokes my auto-filter. Two stark sentences that read as either nonsense or poetry, or both.
When you eat, you are eating things from planes. The plastic forks, they leave a mark on you.
There is no link. No return address. No point to the message at all. It makes me nervous.
There is also an email from the dentist, a friendly reminder that it's time for my six-month check-up, please contact Ms Pillay to make an appointment. I haven't been to a dentist since I went to jail three and a half years ago. This is code for "contact me immediately", which is worrying because I'm not due to report in until next week. I log in to Skype chat where Vuyo is already online. Probably talking to "clients" in other windows.