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 gunmen,

It’s just a rat…

dark openings, more scratching.

an abyss, the abyss will gaze back at

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

comes equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and

*****

you know what Stockholm

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

in a kidnap or hostage situation, the prisoner forms an

saying you're getting attached to

“… But there's a reverse

“So?”

your only

napkin produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back into the napkin and

why do you keep

in her chewing, mouth hanging a little

do you keep coming? If all you wanted was to watch me rot, you have your camera there.” I jerk my chin up

do want me to feed you? We can always change that you

if that were the only 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 reckon,

continue. “Am I your only friend, Sola? Is that it? You've murdered everyone else that

“So, you're

finger at me, “You think someone's 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 not changed, Larry. I can see right through you. The same heartless bastard that shipped me out to dig up potatoes for the rest of my life. Along with all the others you did the same

back in her seat, arches her brows. “I am making

otherwise? I'm not claiming to have changed. Who ever really changes?” I raise my gaze again, look into her face. “Have

“Solana…” she hisses.

scatter over the rancid concrete, some of it dropping just this side of that

her heel,

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

blink of the camera. It hardly matters. My attention is on the wealth

taken from the corner. And

anything

For how long?

Weeks? Months? My sense of

I had

a mouthful of empanada, then another,

Too soon. Half-chewed pulp goes down the wrong way and suddenly I’m

swallow, gagging on my scavenged meal, I barf it up, where it