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 gunmen,

It’s just a rat…

more scratching. And a nose

you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back at

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

comes equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and feet. Between us, we settle an uneasy

*****

do you know what Stockholm

flickers over her eyes. She takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping

a kidnap or

“You saying you're getting

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

“So?”

I 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

why do you

in her chewing, mouth hanging

do you keep coming? If all you wanted was to watch me rot, you have your camera there.” I jerk

assume you do want me to feed you?

me a bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once a month. But, so far as I can reckon, you're

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

her head, giggling. “So,

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.

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

have changed.

“Solana…” she hisses.

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 heel, she

discarded meal from the filthy concrete, scrabbling to grab broken fragments of meat in one hand, a cake with the other before,

camera. It hardly matters. My attention

is almost untouched, only a single bite taken from the corner. And I have

not eaten anything

For how long?

My sense

had a

another, I ram

Too soon. Half-chewed pulp goes down the wrong way and suddenly I’m no longer eating, but coughing

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

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