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, soldiers,

It’s just a rat…

more scratching. And

into an abyss, the

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

come equipped with fists and feet. Between us, we settle an uneasy

*****

do you know

something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual

condition where, in a kidnap

saying you're

misread me...” Her head tilts. She pretending mockery, but I have her attention. “… But there's a reverse condition. It's called Lima syndrome, where

“So?”

your

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

you

her chewing, mouth hanging a

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

want me to feed you? We

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 can reckon,

only friend, Sola?

her head, giggling. “So,

someone's going to come and save 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 shipped me out to dig up potatoes for the

her seat, arches her brows. “I

claiming to have changed.

“Solana…” she hisses.

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

on her heel,

chain snaps taut, I snatch up the discarded

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

untouched, only a single bite taken from the corner.

eaten anything like this for…

For how long?

Months? My sense of time is out

I had a

then another,

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

gagging on my scavenged meal, I barf it up, where it plops in a

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