Lauren Beukes - Zoo City

I used to stomp here. Got bust smoking dope in my readily identifiable school uniform on the koppie and was suspended for two weeks. Did my first line of coke in the bathrooms of Buzz 9. Had snatched sex in a driveway on 8th before the homeowner called armed response. This should not be so intimidating. But when I see Gio fiddling intently with his phone on the kerb outside the Biko Bar, it's a relief.

"Hey, you."

He looks up guiltily and stashes his phone in his jacket pocket. "Hey, baby, you made it! C'mon, the guys are already inside." He ushers me towards the velvet ropes that have seen better days, and a short, wiry bouncer who is wearing a t-shirt that reads TRY IT MOTHERFUCKER.

"She's with me," Gio says and, although the bouncer is not happy to see Sloth, he gives us the tiniest of head tilts to indicate, yeah, sure, whatever.

The Biko Bar is to Steve Biko as crappy t-shirt design is to Che Guevara. His portrait stares down from various cheeky interpretations. A hand-painted barber-shop sign with a line-up of Bikos in profile modelling different hairstyles and headgear; a chiskop, a mullet, a makarapa mining helmet. Steve stares out with that trademark mix of determination and wistful heroism from the centre of a PAC-style Africa made of bold rays of sunlight. Steve, with a lion's mane, is the focal point of a crest of struggle symbols, power fists, soccer balls and a cursive "The most potent weapon of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed". My academic dad would have hated it. Reduced by irony and iconography to a brand.

"I see they sell t-shirts," I say. "Do the kids' sizes come pre-soaked with acid?"

"Very funny, Zinzi," Gio says, steering me through to the back. "Don't worry, they're nervous about meeting you too."

Apprehension clenches in my gut like the moment before you go over the lip of the rollercoaster. I never liked rollercoasters. Gio swings me towards a table occupied by a small cluster of painfully hip people with expensive haircuts. There is a very pierced and inked woman with violently red hair and Bettie Page eyes, and two men, one in a hideous paisley print shirt and gelled spikes, the other in his early forties, a war photographer's waistcoat and a crafted coating of cynicism. They're all clustered around a big camera with a serious lens, examining the display on the back.

"Oh, ick," says the woman, pushing the camera away just as we reach the table. "Why would you show me that?" She hits the photographer on the shoulder, but it's a playful punch, the kind that says, I really like you, even though you show me gruesome photographs, maybe even because you show me gruesome photographs. "What's Dave got you looking at this time?" Gio says.

"Photos of the homeless guy who was killed," says Laconic Photographer Guy, the Dave in question.

"Ooooh, cool," Gio says. "I'd dig to check those out. You know, we have this new gross-out feature in Mach. Gangrenous feet. Puffadder bites. Ideally tied in to some kind of extreme adventure that's gone horribly wrong."

"Not much adventure in getting beaten up and set on fire. Cut him up pretty bad. Especially his face. Cut off his fingers too."

"Are you really going to publish these in Mach?" asks Ugly Paisley Shirt, clearly thrilled at the prospect.

"We're a men's magazine," Gio shrugs. "Men are brutal." And then adds hastily, "I'm not saying women aren't."

"They just hide it better," I say. Everyone looks at me, and then they all simultaneously switch their focus to Sloth. Paisley Shirt smirks. I put up my hand, like a kid at school volunteering the answer everyone's waiting for. "Hi, I'm Zinzi."

"Sorry, yeah, guys, this is my friend I told you about?" Gio's tone is loaded with things left unsaid. "Zinzi December. We used to work together." Sleep together. Take drugs together. Sleep together while taking drugs together at work together. It was a simple relationship, really.

Piercing Girl scootches round to make space for us to sit on the plush velvet bank while Gio does the introductions – the crème de la crème of musos in his immediate social circle, plus Paisley Shirt, better known as Henry. Dave is, as surmised, a news photographer for The Daily Truth, although he photographs gigs as well – mainly jazz, but he's done Oppikoppi four years in a row, plus the occasional feature for lifestyle magazines on the side. Henry does social media at a below-the-line agency, and a big part of his mandate is the music scene. Gio invited him specially. "He's the fag to Songweza's hag," he told me on the phone beforehand. "If anyone's going to have the dirt on your girl, it's Henry."

Piercing Girl is a hardcore music journalist when she's not being mom to a two year-old she calls Toddlersaurus. "Juliette writes for everyone," Gio says. "All the local mags, as well as Billboard, Spin, Juke and Clash."

Piercing Girl/Juliette rolls her eyes in pleased fake modesty, which I take to mean it's all true. "And what do you do now, Zinzi?" she asks sympathetically, leaning forward, giving me the benefit of her full attention. It's only three-quarters patronising.

"I find lost things."

"Like stolen goods?" Henry pipes up. "Because my parents' place was broken into last week and they got my grandfather's watch. It was a fob watch, you know, the one with the chain, like 102 years old-"

"No, like lost things. As I said. Car keys. Missing wills."

"For money?" He raises his eyebrows, as if this is more ludicrous than toasters with built-in MP3 players.

"I charge a reasonable rate for my time."

He warms to the idea. "Hey, you know, you could totally work at an old-age home where they have, like, senile dementia or what's that forgetty disease?"

"Alzheimer's," Piercing Girl provides.

"Yeah, I bet they lose stuff all the time, and you could take it back to them and charge them, and they'd forget they paid you already and you could charge them again."

"I don't think it works like that," Piercing Girl says, clearly having decided to adopt me as her pet cause. "Does it, Zinzi?"

"Who knows how it works?" I know I'm being antagonistic.

"But aren't there tests? I thought they did a full analysis?"

"Human lab-rats!" says Henry enthusiastically. "Only I guess sometimes there are actual rats, right? That must be confusing."

"In the US, Australia, Iran, places like that, they do a full head-to-toe, CAT scans, brain scans, endochrine system analysis, the works. In South Africa, we're protected by the Constitution." And the prohibitive costs of all that invasive testing. There are better things to spend government funds on, like nuclear submarines or official pocket-lining. They do a few basic measurements to try and quantify your shavi, but mainly they rely on reports from the social workers and cops, along with basic demonstrations of what you can do.

"How are your parents? Do you still, uh-" Gio falters, sensing he's blundered close to the edge.

"It's all right, Gio. I Google them occasionally. They seem to be doing fine. Still divorced. My mom's living in Zurich now. Dad's in Cape Town teaching theory of film to rich kids who are more interested in special effects than subtext."

"I didn't know they were… oh. Right."

"Couple of months before the trial."

An uncomfortable silence stretches out. Drops into freefall, hits terminal velocity and keeps on going.

"But Giovanni said you're writing again?" Piercing Girl prompts. As a professional interviewer, she's probably used to picking up conversations that have crashed to the floor and setting them spinning again. "A music piece? That's why you're here tonight?"

"I'm doing a book. A trend bible slash pop history of Jozi youth culture. Music, fashion, technology." The more I say it, the more credible it sounds. Do-able even. Possibly profitable.

"You got a publisher yet?"

"I'm starting with a feature article for Credo. We'll see what happens from there."

"Credo? Oh, I've done some work for them. They're fantastic. Isn't Lindiwe awesome?"

"She's great," I say. I haven't got as far into my cover as actually contacting the commissioning editor. I chalk it up on my to-do list. But things go more smoothly after that. Apart from the moment when I catch Henry trying to sniff Sloth's fur.

Dave doesn't say much, other than to offer to show me the photographs when an argument starts about whether it's morally bankrupt to print such horrific images. I skim them, scrolling as quickly as possible. They're as bad as you'd expect, taken with a forensic distance, even in the pics he's framed with shocked bystanders, for mood.

"Do they know who he was?" I say, handing the camera back.

"Drifter. Been sleeping rough. They're still trying to get a name. Might have been a zoo, they're not sure. Do you mind?" he says, raising the camera. "Atmosphere stuff."

"Uh."

"Group photo!" Piercing Girl yelps, and Dave snaps a couple of awkwardly posed shots, before disappearing towards the stage as the band makes its appearance, only an hour and a half late: an all-girl Afrikaans/seSotho glam punk electro-rock number called "Nesting Mares".

Take me, take me, take me to your spider den

I'll be your conscience, your accomplice, your inner zen

Let me in, don't question why

Let me, let me be your alibi

"They're pretty good!" I shout over the thrum of guitars and the alto growl of the lead singer. In spite of the noise, Sloth has gone to sleep.

"Lightweights!" Piercing Girl shouts back. "Wait for the Tsotsis!"

"Oh yeah? They the ones who wear ski-masks?"

"Yeah, they're brilliant! Of course, it's not like their identities are really, really a secret. Like Mzekezeke. Your iJusi kids aren't bad either! Real talent. But they need to get the fuck away from Moja."

"Why do you say that?"

"Bad influence!"

"Bad influence how?"

"Too commercial!"

"Is that a bad thing? Experienced producer like Odi Huron backing them?"

"What?!"

"I said, Odi's experience-" I shout louder, but it gets lost in translation over the screaming chorus.

Kill me – Thrill me

Kill me – Thrill me

Take me away from it all

"Yeah, he owns Counter Revolutionary!" Piercing Girl yells back. This is a surprise. Counter Rev is the hottest club in Jozi. "Chi-chi with a bleeding edge," according to 011 Magazine, which rates iJusi's hit single "Spark" four stars on the Earworm Metre – "ferociously upbeat teenybop Afropop".

"King of Clubs, baby," Piercing Girl yells. Gio taps her on the shoulder and tilts his head at the bathrooms. She gets up to follow him, already hoiking the twist of paper out of the front pocket of her jeans, leaving me with Paisley Henry.

"Gio said you're friends with Songweza?!" I yell at him.

"Yeah. We used to hang out a lot!"

"Why used to?"

Henry shouts back something like "She's a honey numb."

"Do you want to go outside? I can't hear a thing."

Outside is a fire escape already crammed with smokers.

"What were you saying?"

"I said Song is a funny one. On her own plak. She was up for this TV series, right? But it was all about the navy and they asked her if she could swim and she said, of course she could swim."

"But she can't?"

"She couldn't, past tense. She basically taught herself in a weekend. We went to the gym and she just sommer dived in to the deep end. Nearly drowned."

"She get the part?"

He shakes his head. "She lied about her age. They needed someone who was eighteen for the sex scenes, you know? I dunno how they didn't know she was fifteen. She's mal, that one."

"You seem a little old to be hanging out with fifteen year-olds."

"Ag man, Song was hanging out with me. I met her on the scene, she's always at the venues. Carfax, amp;Serif. She makes friends with the bouncers."

"What's this I hear about her boyfriend?"

"Which one? They come and go. She's too much of a butterfly for anyone to hang on to her." But I can see I've hit a nerve.

"No one special?"

"Well, there was Jabu. But he turned out to be a total dick."

"Oh yeah?"

"Dumped her via SMS. Can you believe that? I mean, she should have seen it coming. They met in rehab, for Pete's sake. She was sobbing on my couch for, like, hours. But you know Song – she got it out of her system, wiped her eyes and moved right on."

"She dated anyone since?"

"Hmmm. I know she kissed some drummer last week, with, um, Papercut. That screech metal band? You know that joke, right? What does a girl do with her asshole in the morning? Takes it to drum practice. Hey, can I hold it?" he blurts, reaching for Sloth. He's clearly been dying to ask.

"He bites."

"I'll be gentle, I promise. Please? Just for five minutes."

"He comes with a disclaimer."

"Ja, it's okay."

I gingerly hand Sloth over, giving him a little squeeze to remind him to play nice. To my surprise, he clambers happily into Henry's arms and nuzzles into his neck.

"Whoa! He's lank heavy!"

"I know."

"But really, really soft. Wow."

"I know that too." I do not point out that Sloth is chewing the collar of his hideous shirt. "Think she might have done a runner with the drummer? Or maybe Jabu came back?"

He shakes his head. "Nah, when Song moves on, she moves on. No way she would ever forgive Jabu or take his skanky rehab ass back. And the drummer was too lightweight for her."

"Anyone else?"

"Ag, that bouncer at Counter Rev has been hitting on her hard recently. They were always talking. And that dude must be at least thirty." He rolls his eyes at the thought of such decrepitude. "He didn't get anywhere, though. Song might be a slut, but she's not stupid."

"He got a name?"

"Uh. Major hot guy? Biceps the size of your head. I don't know if he just gyms a lot, or shoots up 'roids, or if he's just a freak of nature. You can't miss him."

"When was the last time you saw her?"

"About a week ago? She was at Informer. In Newtown?"

"I'm a little confused. If she's into metal and punk, hanging out at rock venues, why is she in an Afropop band?"

"Why are you writing a story for Credo? 'Cos it's a step up, right? Today it's Credo; tomorrow, like, Dazed and Confused or whatever your thing is."

"Any idea why she's not answering her phone? She flaky like that?"