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

It’s just a rat…

more scratching. And a nose pokes

an abyss, the

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come

*****

you know what Stockholm

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

a psychological condition where, in a kidnap or hostage situation, the prisoner forms an attachment to

sniggers. “You saying you're getting

no. Don't misread me...” Her head tilts. She pretending mockery, but I have her attention. “… But there's a reverse condition. It's called Lima syndrome, where the captor comes to empathise with

“So?”

your

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 her

why do you

her chewing, mouth hanging a

rot, you have your camera there.”

do want me to feed you? We can always change

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

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

head, giggling. “So, you're

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 to. You’ve

back in her seat, arches her brows. “I

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

“Solana…” she hisses.

working, she says 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 at

on her heel, she stalks

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 in one hand, a cake with the other before, with a click, the light winks out and I'm left

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

almost untouched, only a single bite taken from

anything like

For how long?

Months? My sense of time

I had

then another, I ram the food into

the wrong way and suddenly I’m no longer eating,

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