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…

openings, more scratching. And a

say if you gaze long enough into an abyss,

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

equipped with teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists

*****

do you know what Stockholm syndrome

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

in a kidnap or hostage situation, the prisoner forms

“You saying you're getting attached to

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 friend,

A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back into

why do you keep coming

pauses in her chewing, mouth hanging a little open.

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

I assume you do want me to

do. But if 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 I can reckon, you're here every

I your only friend, Sola?

giggling. “So, you're

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

seat, arches her brows. “I am making you

claiming to have changed. Who ever really changes?” I raise my gaze again, look into

“Solana…” she hisses.

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 spots at

on her heel,

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 light winks out

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

from the corner. And I have half of

eaten anything

For how long?

idea. Weeks? Months? My sense

I had a

mouthful of empanada, then another, I

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

I barf it up, where it plops in a saliva-coated