Hot Revenge Box Set 4

Klempner

What's the obsession with potatoes?

I called her Potato Face when she was a kid.

What does she look like now?

Jenny was no looker at that age…

… But she matured. Bloomed.

Juliana... Never the same twice.

I scratch at my beard. I’ve never liked facial hair in hot climates, but I don’t have a choice right now. Even so, the flourishing colony of lice that has stowed aboard adds an extra edge of irritation.

Lice…

Where the fuck did they come from?

Can rat lice live on humans?

Having a fucking good go at it…

I catch one, squeezing the revolting thing between my fingernails. It bursts with a Pop!

Only another 999 to go…

*****

The boredom’s the worst. Endless hours. Endless days and nights. I’ve no idea how long.

The only breaks in the monotony are Juliana’s visits: just long enough to sit, eat something at me, toss a potato at me.

No, not Juliana: Solana.

Why's she so obsessed with the name?

How many names have I used over the years? Worn like a suit of clothes to be discarded when the weather changes and something different is needed.

I’ve never been defined by my name.

But she sees it differently…

Something skritches and I jerk a look sidelong

It’s a rat…

Just a rat…

down

It’s just a rat…

more scratching. And a nose pokes

say if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

the abyss comes equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped

*****

know what Stockholm syndrome

Interest flickers over her eyes. She takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties from

in a kidnap or hostage

“You saying you're getting attached

me...” Her head tilts. She pretending mockery, but I have her attention. “… But

“So?”

your

of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back into the napkin and she dabs

do you

her chewing, mouth hanging a

If all you wanted was to watch me rot, you have your camera there.” I jerk my chin up to the blinking

to feed you. I assume you do want me

reason, you could leave me a bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once a month. But, so far as I can

swallows, not speaking, simply regarding me. I continue. “Am I your only friend, Sola? Is that it? You've murdered

her head, giggling. “So, you're my friend

going to come and save you, Larry? You believe you're worth saving? That there's anyone out there who thinks you're worth it? The daughter you had slated as a sex-slave when she was a kid? That middle-aged hooker? You've

seat, arches her brows. “I am making you

say otherwise? I'm not claiming to have changed. Who

“Solana…” she hisses.

no more. Instead, she stands, the lunchbox tumbling from her lap. The contents spill and scatter over the rancid concrete, some of it dropping just this side of that painted line, now

heel,

myself at the fallen food, ignoring the jab of pain in my ankle as the chain snaps taut, I snatch up the discarded meal from the filthy concrete, scrabbling to grab broken fragments of meat in one hand, a cake with the other before, with a click, the light winks out and I'm left in

blind, my eyes adjust to the green blink of the camera. It hardly matters. My attention is on the wealth in

almost untouched, only a single bite taken from the corner.

anything like

For how long?

idea. Weeks? Months? My sense of time is out of the

I had a

a mouthful of empanada, then another, I ram the food into

down the wrong way and suddenly

on my scavenged meal, I barf it up, where it plops in a saliva-coated mess onto the