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…

down

It’s just a rat…

the dark openings, more scratching. And a nose

into an abyss, the

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

I come equipped with fists and feet. Between us, we settle an

*****

know

something from her lunchbox,

kidnap or

sniggers. “You saying you're getting attached to

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

“So?”

I your only friend,

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

why do you keep

her chewing, mouth hanging

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

me to feed

were the only reason, you could leave me a bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even,

I your only friend, Sola?

“So, you're my friend

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

in her seat, arches her brows. “I am

not claiming to have changed. Who ever really

“Solana…” she hisses.

spill and scatter over the rancid concrete, some of it dropping just this side of that painted line, now less

her heel, she

know what's coming. Launching 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,

camera. It hardly matters. My attention is

almost untouched, only a single bite taken from the

anything like

For how long?

Months? My sense of time

I had a

empanada, then another, I ram the

and suddenly I’m no longer eating, but coughing and choking

on my scavenged meal, I barf it up, where it plops in

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