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…

down

It’s just a rat…

more scratching.

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

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

I come equipped with fists and feet. Between us, we settle an uneasy

*****

do you know what

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

a psychological condition where, in a kidnap or

“You saying you're getting attached to

But there's a reverse condition. It's called Lima syndrome, where the captor comes to

“So?”

I your only

“Friend? You think you’re my 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

why do you keep

pauses in her chewing, mouth hanging a

you wanted was to watch me rot, you have your camera there.” I jerk my chin up

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

leave me a bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once a month.

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

her head, giggling. “So,

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

her arms, sits back in her seat, arches

I'm not claiming to have changed. Who ever really changes?” I raise my gaze again, look into

“Solana…” she hisses.

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,

up the discarded meal from the filthy concrete, scrabbling to grab broken

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

meat-and-veg-stuffed delicacy is almost untouched, only a single bite taken from the corner. And I

eaten anything like this for…

For how long?

idea. Weeks? Months? My sense of time

I had a

another, I ram the food into my

much. Too soon. Half-chewed pulp goes down the wrong way and suddenly I’m no

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

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