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…

dark openings, more scratching.

you gaze 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

takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties from a napkin.

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

saying you're getting

But there's a reverse condition. It's called

“So?”

I your only

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 it up with

why do you keep

her chewing, mouth

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

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

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 can reckon, you're here

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

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

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

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

I keep my voice mild. “Did I say otherwise? I'm not claiming to have changed. Who ever really changes?” I raise my gaze again, look into

“Solana…” she hisses.

working, she says no more. Instead, she stands, 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

her heel, she

snaps taut, I snatch up the discarded meal from the filthy concrete, scrabbling to grab broken fragments of

green blink of the camera.

taken from the corner. And I have half of

not eaten anything

For how long?

idea. Weeks? Months? My sense of time is

had a

mouthful of empanada, then another, I ram

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

it up, where it plops in

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