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…

openings, more scratching. And

if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the

Who said that?

Nietzsche?

Depressing bastard…

teeth and whiskers. I come equipped with fists

*****

you know what Stockholm

flickers over her eyes. She takes something from her lunchbox, unwrapping one of her usual dainties from a napkin.

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

saying you're getting

have her attention. “… But there's a

“So?”

your

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

do you keep

in her chewing, mouth hanging a little

was to watch me rot, you have your camera there.” I jerk

you do want me to feed you? We can

and come once a week. Or even, once a month. But,

me. I continue. “Am I your only friend,

“So, you're my friend

a kid? That middle-aged hooker? You've not changed, Larry. I can see right through you. The

crosses her arms, sits back in her seat, arches her brows. “I am making

have changed. Who ever really changes?” I raise my gaze again,

“Solana…” she hisses.

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 spots at

heel, she

as the chain snaps taut, I snatch up the discarded meal from

camera. It hardly matters. My attention is on the

a single bite taken from the

eaten anything like

For how long?

My sense of time is

I had

a mouthful of empanada, then another,

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

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

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