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…

the dark openings, more scratching. And

long enough into an abyss, the

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

the abyss comes equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and feet. Between us, we settle an uneasy

*****

do you know

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

in a kidnap or hostage situation, the prisoner forms an attachment to the

“You saying you're getting attached

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

“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

why do you keep coming

chewing, mouth hanging a little open.

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

me to feed you? We

if that were the only reason, you could leave me a bag of potatoes and come once a

and swallows, not speaking, simply regarding me. I continue. “Am I your only friend, Sola? Is

head, giggling. “So, you're my

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

seat, arches her

otherwise? I'm not claiming to have changed. Who

“Solana…” she hisses.

says no more. 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,

her heel, she

myself 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 left

to the green blink of the camera. It hardly matters. My attention is

bite taken from the corner. And I

eaten anything like this

For how long?

sense of time is out

I had a

another, I ram the

pulp goes down the wrong way and suddenly I’m no longer eating, but coughing

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