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…

scratching. And a

enough into an abyss, the abyss

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

case, the abyss comes equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and feet. Between us, we settle an

*****

know what

eyes. She takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties from a napkin. “What

label for a psychological condition where, in a kidnap

“You saying you're getting

but I have her attention. “… But there's a

“So?”

your only

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

do you

her chewing, mouth hanging

you wanted was to watch me rot, you

you do want me to feed you? We can

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, you're here every day or

“Am I your only friend, Sola? Is that it? You've

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

when she was a kid? That middle-aged hooker? You've not changed, Larry. I can see

back in her seat, arches her brows.

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

“Solana…” she hisses.

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

on her heel,

to 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, scrabbling to grab broken fragments of meat

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

single bite taken from the corner. And I have

anything like

For how long?

Months? My sense of time is out

had a

of empanada, then another, I

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

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

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