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

It’s just a rat…

more scratching. And a

you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

come equipped with

*****

know what Stockholm syndrome

takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties

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

you're

mockery, but I have her attention. “… But there's a reverse

“So?”

your only

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

do you keep coming

in her chewing, mouth

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

you. I assume you do want me to feed you? We can

that were the only reason, you could leave me a bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once a

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

her head, giggling. “So, you're my

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.

her seat, arches

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

“Solana…” she hisses.

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 spots at her

her heel,

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 a click, the light winks out and I'm

camera. It hardly matters. My attention is on

almost untouched, only a single bite taken from the corner.

eaten anything like this for…

For how long?

idea. Weeks? Months? My sense of time is out of the

had

mouthful of empanada, then another, I ram the food into

down the wrong way and suddenly I’m no longer eating, but

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