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, soldiers,

It’s just a rat…

more scratching. And a nose pokes

long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

my case, the abyss comes equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and feet. Between us, we settle

*****

you know what

lunchbox, unwrapping one

label for a psychological condition where, in a kidnap or hostage

sniggers. “You saying you're getting attached

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

“So?”

I your

skirts her lips. “Friend? You think you’re my friend?” The napkin produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back into the napkin and she dabs

do you

pauses in her chewing, mouth hanging a

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

want me

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 your only friend, Sola? Is that it? You've murdered everyone else that might get close

“So,

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

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

voice mild. “Did I say 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.

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 heel, she

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

the green blink of the camera. It hardly matters. My attention is on the wealth

almost untouched, only a single bite taken from the corner. And I have half of a fruit

eaten anything

For how long?

sense of time

had

empanada, then another, I ram the food into my

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

on my scavenged meal, I barf it up, where it plops in a saliva-coated mess onto the