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…

down

It’s just a rat…

more scratching. And

an abyss, the abyss will

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with

*****

do you know what Stockholm

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

psychological condition where, in a kidnap or hostage situation, the prisoner forms an attachment to

sniggers. “You saying you're getting

tilts. She pretending mockery, but I have her attention. “… But there's a reverse condition. It's called Lima syndrome, where the captor comes to empathise with the

“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 cake, dropping back

why do you

pauses in her chewing, mouth hanging a

you wanted was to watch me rot, you

I assume you do want me to feed you? We can always change

But if that were the only reason, you could leave me a bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once a month. But, so far as I

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

her head, giggling. “So, you're my

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 all the others you

her seat, arches her

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

“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, scarlet

heel, she stalks

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

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

only a single bite taken from the corner. And I have

not eaten anything

For how long?

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

I had a

then another, I ram the food into my

soon. Half-chewed pulp goes down the wrong way and

on my scavenged meal, I barf it up, where it