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…

the dark openings, more scratching. And a nose pokes

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

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

come equipped with fists and feet. Between us, we

*****

you know what Stockholm syndrome

eyes. She takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties from a napkin. “What

the label for a psychological condition where, in a kidnap

“You 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,

“So?”

I your only friend,

my friend?” The napkin produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back into the napkin

you keep

her chewing, mouth

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

you. I assume you do want me

and come once a week. Or even, once a month.

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

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

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

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

I'm not claiming to have changed. Who ever really changes?” I raise my gaze again, look into her

“Solana…” she hisses.

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 line, now less than white. Even

on 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,

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

is almost untouched, only a single bite taken from the corner. And I have

not eaten anything like this

For how long?

no idea. Weeks? Months? My sense

I had

then another, I ram the food

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

to swallow, gagging on my scavenged meal, I barf it up, where it plops in a saliva-coated mess onto