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 pokes

you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists

*****

do you know what Stockholm

She takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual

a psychological condition where, in a kidnap or

saying you're getting attached

tilts. She pretending mockery, but I have her attention. “… But there's a reverse condition. It's called Lima syndrome, where

“So?”

I your only friend,

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

why do you keep

her chewing, mouth hanging a little

keep coming? If all you wanted was to watch me rot,

you. I assume you do want me to feed you? We can

potatoes and come once a

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

“So, you're

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

in her seat, arches

otherwise? 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.

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 her

her heel,

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

green blink of the camera.

from the corner. And I have half of a fruit

eaten anything like this

For how long?

Weeks? Months? My sense of time is

had

in a mouthful of empanada, then another, I ram

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

scavenged meal, I barf it up, where it plops in a

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