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,

It’s just a rat…

openings, more scratching. And a

an abyss, the abyss

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

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

*****

do you know what

over her eyes. She takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual

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

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, where the captor comes to empathise with the

“So?”

your

brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small

why do you keep coming

pauses in her chewing, mouth

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

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

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

I your only friend, Sola? Is that it? You've murdered everyone else that might get

head, giggling. “So, you're my friend

to 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

her seat,

not claiming to have changed.

“Solana…” she hisses.

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,

discarded meal from

of the camera. It hardly matters. My attention is on the wealth in

is almost untouched, only a single bite taken from the corner. And I have half of

anything

For how long?

idea. Weeks? Months? My sense

I had

empanada, then another, I ram the food into

Half-chewed pulp goes down the wrong way and suddenly

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

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