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…

down

It’s just a rat…

the dark openings, more scratching. And a

gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come

*****

you know what Stockholm

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

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

sniggers. “You saying you're getting attached

tilts. She 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,

friend?” The napkin produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back

do you

chewing, mouth hanging a little

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

to feed you. I assume you do want me

only reason, you could leave me a bag of potatoes and come once a

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

“So, you're my friend are

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

seat, arches her brows.

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.

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, scarlet spots at

heel, she

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

blind, my eyes adjust to the green blink of the camera. It hardly matters. My attention is on the

taken from the corner. And I have half

not eaten anything

For how long?

Months? My sense of time is out

had a

of empanada, then another, I ram the food into

Half-chewed pulp goes down the wrong way and suddenly I’m no longer eating,

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