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…

faced down gunmen,

It’s just a rat…

the dark openings, more scratching. And a nose

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

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

and whiskers. I come equipped with fists and

*****

know what Stockholm syndrome

eyes. She takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping

where, in a kidnap or hostage situation, the

“You saying you're getting attached

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 only

friend?” The napkin produces a brigadeiro. A flake of chocolate cracks off the small round cake, dropping back into the napkin and

do you keep coming

her chewing, mouth hanging a little open.

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

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

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

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

“So, you're

at me, “You think someone's going 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 out to dig up potatoes for the rest of my life. Along with all the

her seat, arches

I say otherwise? I'm not claiming to have changed. Who ever

“Solana…” she hisses.

working, she says no more. Instead, she stands, the lunchbox 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

heel, she stalks

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

the camera. It hardly

bite taken from the corner. And I have

eaten anything like this

For how long?

no idea. Weeks? Months? My sense

I had

another, I ram the food

goes down the wrong way and suddenly I’m no longer eating, but coughing

my scavenged meal, I barf it up, where it plops