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…

openings, more scratching. And a nose

say if you gaze long enough into an abyss,

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

come equipped

*****

know what Stockholm

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

a kidnap or hostage situation, the prisoner forms an attachment

“You saying you're getting attached

She pretending mockery, but I have her attention. “… But there's a

“So?”

I your

skirts her lips. “Friend? You think you’re my friend?” The napkin produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back into the napkin and she dabs it up with a fingertip then into

you keep

pauses in her chewing, mouth hanging

watch me rot, you have your camera there.” I

me to feed you? We can always change that you

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

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

her head, giggling. “So, you're

was a kid? That middle-aged hooker? You've not changed, Larry. I can see right through you. The

her arms, sits back in her seat,

“Did I say otherwise? I'm not claiming to have changed. Who ever really

“Solana…” she hisses.

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

on her heel, she

as the chain snaps taut, I snatch up the discarded meal from the filthy concrete, scrabbling to grab broken fragments of meat in

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

taken from the corner. And I have half of a

not eaten anything like this

For how long?

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

had

in a mouthful of empanada, then another, I ram the

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

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

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