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 gunmen, soldiers,

It’s just a rat…

dark openings, more scratching. And a nose pokes

say if you gaze long enough into an abyss,

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

my case, the abyss comes equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and

*****

do you know what Stockholm

She takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties

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

sniggers. “You saying you're getting attached

misread me...” Her head tilts. She pretending mockery, but I have her attention. “… But there's a reverse condition. It's called Lima syndrome,

“So?”

I your only

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

do you

in her chewing, mouth

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

you. I assume you do want me

that were the only reason, you could leave me a bag of potatoes and come once a week. Or even, once a month. But, so far as

speaking, simply regarding me. I continue. “Am I your only friend, Sola? Is that it? You've murdered everyone else that might get close

head, giggling. “So,

when she was a kid? That middle-aged hooker? You've not changed, Larry.

seat, arches

“Did I say otherwise? I'm not claiming to have changed. Who ever really changes?” I raise my gaze

“Solana…” she hisses.

some of it dropping just

her heel,

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

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

meat-and-veg-stuffed delicacy is almost untouched, only a single bite taken from

not eaten anything like this for…

For how long?

idea. Weeks? Months? My sense of time is out of the

had a

empanada, then another, I ram the food into my

and suddenly I’m no longer eating, but coughing and choking and

my scavenged meal, I barf it up, where it

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