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

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

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

case, the abyss comes equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and feet.

*****

know what

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

kidnap or hostage

saying you're getting attached to

pretending mockery, but I have her attention. “… But there's a reverse condition. It's called Lima syndrome, where the captor comes to empathise with the

“So?”

your only

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 fingertip then into her

why do you

her chewing, mouth hanging a little open.

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

want me to feed you? We can always change that

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

I your only friend, Sola?

“So, you're my friend are

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

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

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

“Solana…” she hisses.

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 under the heavy make-up, her colour has changed. White-faced, white-lipped,

on her heel, she stalks

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

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

taken from the corner. And I have half of

not eaten anything like this

For how long?

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

had

empanada, then another, I ram the food into my

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

barf it up, where it plops