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, soldiers,

It’s just a rat…

dark openings, more scratching. And a nose pokes

say if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

come equipped with fists and feet. Between

*****

know what Stockholm

her lunchbox, unwrapping one of

where, in a kidnap or hostage situation, the prisoner forms

sniggers. “You saying you're getting attached

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

“So?”

your only

a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping

why do you keep coming

mouth hanging a little

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

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

the only reason, you could leave me a bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once

I continue. “Am I your only friend, Sola? Is that

her head, giggling. “So, you're my friend are

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

in her seat, arches her brows. “I am making

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

“Solana…” she hisses.

the lunchbox 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,

her 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

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

bite taken from the corner. And

not eaten anything like

For how long?

sense of time is out of the

I had a

in a mouthful of empanada, then another, I ram the food into my

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

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

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