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…

scratching. And a nose

long enough into an abyss, the abyss

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

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

*****

do you know what Stockholm

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

label for a psychological condition where, in a kidnap or hostage situation, the prisoner forms

saying you're

her attention. “… But there's a

“So?”

your

The napkin produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back into the napkin and she dabs it up

you keep

pauses in her chewing, mouth hanging a little open.

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

you do want me to feed you? We can

do. But if that were 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 it? You've

“So,

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

in her seat, arches her brows. “I am

keep my voice mild. “Did I say otherwise? I'm not claiming to have changed. Who ever

“Solana…” she hisses.

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

her heel, she stalks

no supernatural premonition to know what's coming. Launching myself at the fallen food, ignoring 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

camera. It hardly matters. My attention is on the wealth in my

bite taken from the

not eaten anything like this

For how long?

no idea. Weeks? Months? My sense of time is out of

I had a

empanada, then another,

soon. Half-chewed pulp goes down the wrong way and suddenly I’m no longer

it up,

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