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…

more scratching.

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

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

whiskers. I come equipped with fists

*****

you know what Stockholm

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

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

sniggers. “You saying you're getting

Don't misread me...” Her head tilts. She pretending mockery, but I have her attention. “… But there's a reverse condition. It's called

“So?”

your only friend,

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

do you keep

her chewing, mouth hanging a little

coming? If all you wanted was to watch me rot, you have your camera

feed you. I assume you do want me to feed you? We can

the only reason, you could leave me a bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once a

chews and swallows, not speaking, simply regarding me. I continue. “Am I your only friend, Sola? Is that it? You've murdered everyone else

“So,

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

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

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

“Solana…” she hisses.

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,

on her heel,

jab of pain in my ankle as the chain snaps taut, I snatch up the discarded meal from the

the camera.

taken from the

anything

For how long?

no idea. Weeks? Months? My sense of

had a

another, I ram

soon. Half-chewed 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

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