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 gunmen,

It’s just a rat…

scratching.

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

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

comes equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and feet. Between us, we

*****

know what Stockholm

her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties from a napkin. “What is

condition where, in a kidnap or hostage situation, the prisoner forms an

saying you're getting

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

skirts her lips. “Friend? You think you’re my friend?” The napkin produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping

why do you keep coming

chewing, mouth hanging a little

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

me to feed you? We

do. But if that 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 your only friend, Sola? Is that it? You've murdered everyone else that might get close to

head, giggling. “So, you're my friend

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 all the others you did the same to. You’ve not changed. And I’m going

seat, arches

keep my voice mild. “Did I say otherwise? I'm not claiming to have changed. Who ever

“Solana…” she hisses.

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

her heel, she

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, with a click, the light winks out and I'm

the camera. It hardly

only a single bite taken from

anything like this

For how long?

My sense of

I had

a mouthful of empanada, then another, I ram the food

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

on my scavenged meal, I barf it up, where it plops