Hot Revenge Box Set 4

Chapter 52

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…

faced down

It’s just a rat…

dark openings, more scratching. And a nose pokes

an abyss, the

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

come equipped with fists and feet.

*****

do you know

takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties from a

a kidnap or hostage situation, the

sniggers. “You saying you're getting attached

I have her attention. “… But there's a reverse condition. It's called Lima syndrome, where the captor comes

“So?”

your

friend?” The napkin produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round

you keep

chewing, mouth

If all you wanted was to watch me rot, you have your camera there.”

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

could leave me a bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once a month. But, so

your only friend, Sola? Is that

head, giggling. “So, you're my

“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

in her seat, arches her

my eyes, I keep my voice mild. “Did I say otherwise? I'm not claiming to have changed. Who ever

“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 less than white. Even under the heavy make-up, her colour has changed. White-faced, white-lipped, scarlet spots

her heel, she stalks

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

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

meat-and-veg-stuffed delicacy is almost untouched, only a single bite taken from the corner. And I have half of

eaten anything like this

For how long?

I’ve no idea. Weeks? Months? My sense of time is

had

another, I ram

pulp goes down the wrong way and suddenly I’m no longer eating, but coughing and choking

barf it up, where it plops in a saliva-coated mess onto the

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