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 gunmen,

It’s just a rat…

the dark openings, more scratching. And

long enough into an abyss, the abyss

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and feet. Between us,

*****

do you know what

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

kidnap or hostage situation, the prisoner forms an attachment

saying you're getting

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

“So?”

your only friend,

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 keep coming

her chewing, mouth hanging a little

all you wanted was to watch me rot, you have your camera there.” I jerk my chin up to the blinking

I assume 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

and swallows, not speaking, simply regarding me. I continue. “Am I your only friend, Sola? Is that

her head, giggling. “So,

at me, “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 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 not changed. And I’m

sits back in her seat, arches her brows. “I am making you

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

“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 spots

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 one hand,

adjust to the green blink of the camera. It hardly matters.

a single bite taken from the corner. And I

not eaten anything like this

For how long?

sense of time is

I had

another, I ram

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

meal, I barf it up, where it plops