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…

faced down gunmen,

It’s just a rat…

the dark openings, more scratching. And a nose

enough into an abyss, the abyss

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

come equipped with fists and feet. Between us, we

*****

do you know what Stockholm

eyes. She takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties

a kidnap or hostage situation, the

you're getting attached

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

“So?”

your only

lips. “Friend? You think you’re my friend?” The napkin produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round

you

chewing, mouth

me rot, you have your camera there.” I

assume you do want me to

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

chews and swallows, not speaking, simply regarding me. I continue. “Am I your only friend, Sola? Is that it? You've murdered everyone else that might get

head, giggling. “So,

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 for the rest of my life. Along with

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

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

“Solana…” she hisses.

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

heel,

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

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

from the corner. And

eaten anything like this

For how long?

Months? My sense of time is out of the

had a

another, I ram

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

I barf it up, where

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