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…

scratching. And a nose pokes

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

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and

*****

you know what Stockholm

over her eyes. She takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties from

psychological condition where, in a kidnap or hostage situation, the prisoner

“You saying you're

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

“So?”

I your only

napkin produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping

do you keep

pauses in her chewing, mouth hanging a little open.

watch me rot, you have your camera there.” I

want me to

reason, you could leave me a bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once a month. But, so far as

your only friend, Sola?

“So, you're my friend

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

seat, arches her brows. “I am making you

have changed. Who

“Solana…” she hisses.

some of it dropping just this side of that painted line, now less than

on her heel, she

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

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

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

not eaten anything

For how long?

Weeks? Months? My sense of time is out

I had a

a mouthful of empanada, then another,

Half-chewed pulp goes down the wrong way and

scavenged meal, I barf it up, where it

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