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…

dark openings, more scratching.

enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back at

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

abyss comes equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists

*****

you know what Stockholm syndrome

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

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

you're getting attached to

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

“So?”

your only

of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back into the napkin and she

why do you

her chewing, mouth

all you wanted was to watch me rot, you have

want me to feed you? We can

I do. But if 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 as I can reckon, you're here

only friend, Sola?

“So, you're my

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

sits back in her seat, arches

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

“Solana…” she hisses.

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

heel,

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 in

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

only a single bite taken from the corner.

eaten anything like this

For how long?

Months? My sense of

had a

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

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

my scavenged meal, I barf it up, where