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…

faced down gunmen,

It’s just a rat…

the dark openings, more scratching. And a nose

say if you gaze long enough into an abyss,

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

case, the abyss comes equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and feet.

*****

do you know what Stockholm

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

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

sniggers. “You saying you're getting attached

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

“So?”

your only friend,

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

do you keep

her chewing, mouth hanging a little

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

do want me to

me a bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once a month. But, so far as I

speaking, simply regarding me. I continue. “Am I your only friend, Sola? Is that it? You've murdered everyone else that might get

head, giggling. “So, you're my friend

“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

sits back in her seat, arches her brows. “I

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

“Solana…” she hisses.

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

her heel, she stalks

I snatch up the discarded meal from the

to the green blink of the camera.

only a single bite taken from the

eaten anything like this

For how long?

Months? My sense

had a

empanada, then another, I ram the food into

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

swallow, gagging on my scavenged meal, I barf it up, where it