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…

openings, more scratching. And a

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

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

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

*****

know what Stockholm

lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties from

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

you're getting

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

“So?”

I your

The napkin produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round

you

chewing, mouth hanging a little open.

wanted was to watch me rot, you have

I assume you do want me to feed you? We can always change that

could leave me a bag of potatoes and come once

speaking, simply regarding me. I continue. “Am I your only friend, Sola?

her head, giggling. “So, you're my friend are

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

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

keep 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 face. “Have you changed

“Solana…” she hisses.

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, scarlet

on her heel, she

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

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

bite taken from the corner.

eaten anything like this for…

For how long?

sense

had a

a mouthful of empanada, then another, I ram the

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

meal, I barf it up,

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