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,

It’s just a rat…

dark openings, more scratching. And a nose pokes

enough into an abyss, the

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

whiskers. I come equipped with fists and feet. Between

*****

do you know

her eyes. She takes something from her lunchbox,

psychological condition where, in a kidnap or

you're

But there's a reverse condition. It's called Lima syndrome, where the captor comes to empathise with

“So?”

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 a

do you keep

chewing, mouth

rot, you have your camera there.” I jerk my chin up to

to feed you. I 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

I your only friend, Sola? Is

giggling. “So, you're my

a finger at me, “You think 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 rest of my life. Along with

sits back in her seat, arches her

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 her face. “Have you changed

“Solana…” she hisses.

and scatter over the rancid concrete, some of it dropping just this side of that painted line, now less than

her heel,

as the chain snaps taut, I snatch up the discarded meal

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

single bite taken from the corner.

eaten anything like

For how long?

no idea. Weeks? Months? My sense of

had

then another, I ram the

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

meal, I barf it up,

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