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…

the dark openings, more scratching. And a nose pokes

into an abyss, the

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

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

*****

do you know

lunchbox,

kidnap or

you're

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

“So?”

your only

think you’re my friend?” The napkin produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake,

why do you

her chewing, mouth

you keep coming? If all you wanted was to watch me rot,

do want me to feed you? We can

and come once a week. Or even, once a month. But, so far as I can reckon, you're here

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

swings her head, giggling. “So,

come and save you, Larry? You believe you're worth saving? That there's anyone out there 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

crosses her arms, sits back in her seat, arches

I'm not claiming to have changed. Who ever really changes?” I raise

“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

her heel,

taut, I snatch up the discarded meal from the

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

only a single bite taken from the corner. And I have half of a fruit

not eaten anything

For how long?

sense of time is out of the

I had

another, I ram the food into

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

barf it up, where it plops

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