Chapter 39

Back in the lounge, Cara is sitting on Mitch’s knee. “Getting into practice?” I ask.

Hope and tears war in her voice. “I suppose.” Then as Cara stretches chubby arms out to me. “I think
she wants a hug.”

My baby daughter gives me a gummy smile as I pick her up, cradling her to my chest and bouncing her
a bit. “You been a good girl then?”

A burble is my only reply, but Georgie looks at me a little oddly. “You never used to do that with me.”

“In fact, Georgie, I did. But your mother didn't like it. She always took you away from me when she
could.”

She frowns. “Mom stopped you picking me up?”

“That’s right.”

“But…why would she do something like that?”

I shrug. “I suppose she wanted control of you.” I speak off-handedly, but suddenly, the conversation is
uncomfortable. “Mitch I’m making tea. Peppermint for you?”

*****

 

Klempner

Nightmares…

The world spinning…



A face… Juliana, grinning at me… Her teeth sharp and pointed, like a cat’s.

Pain… Something gnawing at me, some monster biting at my ankle.

I know I’m in a nightmare, but I can’t jolt myself out of sleep. Sickeningly, the world spins and wavers
around me. I want to retch, but my sleep-bound body won’t let me.

*****

Harsh white light filters through my lashes to stab at crusty eyes. The world still revolves. Or is it me
that’s turning?

Consciousness returns only slowly, one sensation after another settling enough to make sense of them.

The spinning around me slowly dies and my world settles. I’m chilled and numb. Pain stabs behind my
eyes and as I move, my stomach threatens rebellion. Gradually, it comes to me that, while my shoulder
muscles burn, my hands are free.

A male voice: “He should be awake now, shouldn’t he?”

A female voice: “Yes. I didn’t give him much. He should be awake by now. He’s probably faking it.”

Just lie here…

Eyes closed…

Listen…

I’m lying on some cold, hard surface, slick with damp, coated with Christ-knows-what unnamable muck.
And for some reason, I’m stretched out full-length, one arm reaching out above my head.



The male voice again: “Wakey, wakey, Larry.” And something plants itself in my ribs, whoofing the air
out of my lungs.

Instinctively I roll, snatching for a foot, a leg, a fist: but I catch only empty air. Then I pull up short, with
the clink of metal and something biting into my ankle.

What the hell…?

The air stinks. A fetid smell; stagnant water and the rank scent of decay, washes over me. All without
meaning to, I react, covering my mouth and nose with my hand before realising that my hand is part of
the smell, foul with slime and muck.

Somewhere close by: a trickling sound, and the slap of water against hard sides.

Where the fuck am I?

Oddly out of place, the smell of fresh paint tickles my nostrils.

The male voice again. “He’s awake for sure. He opened his eyes just then, but closed them again.” The
words sound far away, as though carried through a tunnel. My eyes won’t focus properly. Nor my head:
stuffed and unclear.

“Hi, Larry. Good to see you awake again. How it’s going?” The female voice sparkles with glee.
“Enjoying yourself?”

Blinking to clear gummy eyes, I try to haul myself upright. But a stab of pain at my ankle competes with
the rebellion of my stomach. My guts heave and the sad remains of my last meal spill over the ground
beside me.

Vomit sours my mouth and spatters my chin. Wiping it away with the back of my hand succeeds only in
smearing foul muck over my face.



Someone giggles.

And now close to my face, I realise my fingertips too are sticky with something besides the filth: white,
already drying, crisping at the edges. Cautiously, I sniff: paint.

?

My head is cloudy, achy. My thoughts too. Nothing makes sense. Every part of me screams protest as,
stiff-muscled, my body torpid, I try again to raise myself into a sitting position…

… That bite at my ankle again, something clinking as I move…

My eyes still unfocused, I reach for my ankle, finding a steel cuff, snapped closed. And as my vision
clears, I see a padlock. With leaden fingers, I feel at the metal, probing sluggishly: it’s good quality, the
steel polished and new. My feet are bare; there’s no sign of my boots.

My breath coming in short gasps, finally I look up and around, take in my surroundings.

The light is bright, harsh and white, But it quickly fades, illuminating only a small area around me, three
or four yards, before fading to an impenetrable gloom.

Juliana’s there, waiting, sitting on a fold-up wooden chair. Jose stands beside her. Between them and
me, trickled over muck and slime, a thick white line is painted on the concrete floor.

Calmly, she watches me, a slight smile playing over her lips. “You won’t escape that padlock, Larry. I
chose it especially for you.”

The smile broadening, she holds something up, dangling it in her fingers, glinting dully: a small brass
key: She passes it to Jose, who hangs it on a nail banged into the concrete wall, clearly visible, but well
beyond my reach.



“Not feeling so good, Larry?” Juliana rises from her chair, to stand a little distance from me, smirking.
“Don’t worry, the nausea will pass… Or…” She sweeps an arm around… “Or maybe it won’t. I’d like to
think you get the benefit of the accommodation I’ve chosen for you.” She pauses, I assume for effect,
letting me take in the ‘accommodation’.

We’re underground. The smell says that. The walls and floor are concrete. Beside me, the floor drops
away to a channel containing an uncertain depth of oozing water. Rusted metal grates obstruct narrow
black unknowns: some dry, some trickling into the main channel.

Sewers?

The light, from a single overhead bulb, marks out the confined space with sharp dark shadows. And set
in the wall behind Juliana, towards the ceiling, a camera eye aims at me, a light blinking green.

Sucking some saliva from my cheeks before I speak, “You’re consistent, Juliana. I’ll say that for you.
You imprisoned Jenny below ground in primitive conditions. Now you plan to do the same with me.”

She displays teeth. “There’s no plan about it, Larry. I’ve done it.” She squats down, noticeably well to
her side of the painted line, fastidiously not touching anything.

Looking me in the eye, “And where d’you think I learned it, Larry? Locked up in your cellars at
Blessingmoors, whenever you or that bastard Jenkins…” Her lips curls…”That fucking perv you put in
charge… Whenever either of you felt like handing it out to a lot of helpless kids.”

She stands again, the snarl washing from her face. “Oh, yes, you like cellars. I remember that about
you. I remember those cellars so well. We all spent time there; with the rats for company and knowing
the bodies of the ones who disappeared were down there in the dark with us…”

Juliana pauses. I don’t comment, don’t move, try not to swallow.



She lifts her chin, eyes slanting down to me, then continues…”That’s good. I can see you do
remember. Since you’re so fond of tunnels and dark places, this is your life now… for as much of it as
you have left.” She leans closer, hissing the words. “What goes around, comes around, Larry. Karma.”

“Fuck you.” I spit the words at her, trying to inject some venom, but it’s false bravado and we both know
it.

She turns to Jose. “You still have his gun in your jacket?”

“Of course.”

“Give it to me.”

He takes it from his pocket, passing it across grip first. She turns it over in her hands, examining it, as
though she has never seen such a thing before. Then, holding it loosely, almost negligently, she waves
it through the air, the muzzle almost-but-not-quite aimed at me…

She won’t shoot…

She’s a gloater…

So she doesn’t want me dead…

Not yet….

But my breath holds…

The barrel swings, apparently randomly, first one way, then the other, but always over me.

“You're mine now, Larry. What am I going to do with you? I haven't decided properly yet, you know.”
She aims at my forehead. “I might just shoot you dead. Bang! Bang!…” She mimes firing… Fake recoil
with each Bang… “…Just like that…” Then she sniffs. “But that wouldn’t be so much fun, would it?”



She cocks her head at me, as though it were a genuine question, as though, waiting for an answer.
She doesn’t get one.

“On the other hand…” she muses… “… I could take you a piece at a time.” She stares upward, as
though addressing the ceiling. “What do you think, Larry? A foot maybe? Perhaps the one in the
cuff…?”

I force myself to breathe…

In… Out… In… Out…

… I know all about these games: making the victim collaborate in their own torture.

The nose of the barrel drifts between my feet. “Which will it be, Larry? Left or right? If you don't choose,
of course, it will be both feet.”

Fuck this…

“Left or right, Larry? Time to choose.”

Keep calm…

Don't panic…

Baxter…

“I’ll take the right one, I think…” Her face splits into a pumpkin smile and she widens her eyes at me…
“… It's not as though you’re going to need it again. I'll leave you the other one for a bit. You’ll want to
stand up when you take a piss.”

My spine prickles and already chilled skin streams cold. “Leave me with gunshot wounds down here,
Juliana, and they'll be infected within hours. I'd be dead of sepsis or gangrene within days. I'm



guessing that would spoil your fun.”

She wrinkles her nose, lowering the muzzle of the Glock. “Quite right, Larry.” She gives a quick, sharp
nod. “It's good we understand each other...” She looks toward Jose, “…What do you think?”

He stands, arms folded, legs akimbo; radiating machismo. “All your enemies are dead now, Sola…”

He jerks his chin toward me… “You’re only alive as long as Solana chooses to keep you that way. I
don’t think you have more than a few days. And they’re not going to be good days.”

Injecting contempt into my tone, “You think I’m the one in trouble, Jose? If your only use to Juliana was
to make me her prisoner, your life expectancy is down to hours.”

He rolls his eyes like some teenager told he can’t stay out late. “… Sola can do what she wants with
you. No one else knows you’re here. She has her revenge. And she’s free.”

“So I am.” Juliana‘s lips curve, but Jose doesn't see the knife in the smile. She moves closer to him,
slides one hand over his cheek, then around his neck, as though to kiss him. “As you say, Jose, only
we know he’s here.” He doesn’t watch her other hand and what it’s doing.

How can he not see it?

He slips arms around her, smiles in his belief that they are lovers.

Dumb bastard…

“Hey, look out. She's...”

And he’s too wrapped up in his delusions…

… and I’m too late.



With the muzzle of the Glock pressed into his belly, she fires.

The comics show guns going off with a Bang. It’s good enough for kids and old Western movies, but it’s
nowhere close to the truth.

Guns are loud. And in the confined space, the noise is shattering, echoing and reverberating through
the concrete cavern. Juliana’s ‘Lover’ convulses, doubling over on himself as he clutches at his gut, or
tries to. Much of what should be inside him is splashed, blood-red, bruise-purple and shit-brown,
against the wall behind him.

His mouth is working, but his voice is as broken as his body. His lips move, forming a Why? before he
drops, spasming and twisting around the pain.

Juliana stoops, patting him on the cheek. “Because I can't have anyone else knowing that Larry's here,
can I. You really should understand that by now.”

Is she that ruthless?

Or is she actually insane?

I’ve seen wounds like that before: ripping open the bowels without damaging anything immediately
vital. It can take the victim hours to die. Even days. And then, as often as not, it’s sepsis that kills. It’s a
horrifically slow and painful way to go.

He’s still conscious, but in his agony, he’s beyond words, almost beyond sounds. Probably beyond
thought. Gasping, huddled around his splayed guts, he lies mewling and shuddering and twitching.

“For fuck’s sake, Juliana, finish him off. Even if you’re done with the poor sap, you don’t have to let him
die like that, twisting in his own blood and shit.”



She stiffens, staring at me with eyes white-rimmed. The gun muzzle wavers in my direction. “It’s not
Juliana. It’s Sola.”

I hold up palms. “Okay! Okay… It’s not worth arguing over. Sola, if that’s what you want. Sola, for pity’s
sake, finish the poor bastard off.”

She relaxes, her eyes softening. She clicks her tongue. “Coup de grace? From you, Larry? I didn’t think
you had that much mercy in you. But since you insist…” She holds the barrel to Jose’s forehead, point-
blank and fires.

The entry hole is small, but the back of his skull is history, splattered scarlet and grey. Jose jolts then
falls still.

Juliana leans close, peering over him, but he’s not moving; never will again. First stowing the gun in her
bag, hunkering down, she fishes through his pockets. His wallet goes in her bag. A small notebook or
maybe a diary, she tosses to one side. Her poisoner’s herbology joins it. She pockets a small knife and
a handful of change.

The corpse ransacked, with the toe of a foot, giggling, she pushes what’s left over the edge of the
channel and into the fetid water.

I’ve seen more than my share of murders, committed enough myself, but Juliana’s peculiar brand of
hyena-edged lunacy sets my scalp prickling.

She watches the body sink slowly into bowel-blackness. “One more corpse from the world of organised
crime,” she says brightly. She could be commenting that it might rain. “Even if he’s ever found and
identified, the cops know him. They won't give a shit about finding him dead…” She rummages in the
bag, producing, of all things, a packet of baby wipes. With finicky, fussy movements, she swipes her
hands clean of blood and brains. “… And that’s assuming he’s found at all. When he floats up again in
a few days, the rats will probably eat well.”



Then, turning, she smiles brightly at me. “See? It's just you and me now, Larry.” The smile dissolves.
“No-one's coming. There'll be no cavalry-in-blue riding in. The only person who knows where you are
now, is me. You're all mine.”

She swabs over her clothes with the wipe, then tosses the gore-soaked thing into the water before
extracting another and continuing her clean-up.

Finally, she takes a compact from her bag, checking her face in the mirror, dabbing at specks of scarlet
on her cheek. Oddly, she doesn’t completely clean the blood away…

What’s that about?

… and yet, she tops up her lipstick with a layer of gloss…

As she examines her reflection, angling her face first one way, then the other to see the result, she’s
speaking. Her eyes dart between me and the mirror. “That middle-aged hooker of yours, I thought you
should know, I've not finished with her…”

Her reflection lingers on me for a moment before returning to the mirror… “… Yes, I know I promised.
But promises to you don’t count, do they. And you don’t have to worry, I'll keep you up to date…”

She stares into space, reflectively… “I did think I’d simply have her killed, but that doesn’t feel right. I'll
bring you the photos when I have her ganged…” She pauses to see the effect of her words. When I
don’t reply… “… Or maybe you’d prefer to see the video? I’m sure an old whore like her can handle a
few together. We’ll find out how many, shall we.”

There’s a buzzing in my head. Trying to ignore it, I remain stony-faced.

She sucks in her cheeks. “Don’t you want to play, Larry? Never mind. You’ll soften up, I’m sure. When
you’ve had some time to think about it.”



She pops the compact back in the bag, then pokes through the rest of the contents before producing
something small, round: ball-shaped. She tosses it at me and reflexively, I catch it.

A potato. A small one. Raw.

“Don't eat it all at once, Larry. They're quite nourishing, but you'll want to make it last. You won’t be
getting another one for a day or two… Oh…” She raises a forefinger… “One more thing before I go…”

Another search in the bag: this time she produces a small paper-wrapped package. Taking her time,
she opens the pack, revealing two golden-brown empanadas.

“Don’t get any ideas. They’re not for you. But they do smell nice, don’t they?” Juliana holds one to her
nose and inhales, then lets the air out again. “Chicken and peas. Very popular with the locals.”

She bites, her teeth sinking into the pastry with a faint, crisp sound. The fragrance of meat and spices
drifts across, briefly masking the smell of stagnant water. The pastries probably do smell good, but my
stomach’s still not recovered from rejecting my last meal. The smell merely makes me queasy again.

She chews, swallows and smacks her lips. “Lovely. But they’re not really for me either.”

A single bite missing, she crumbles the small pasty, scattering crumbs and morsels of meat on the
ground, just beyond the painted white line.

She does the same with the other one, then produces the wipes again, cleaning oil and juice from her
hands. “I wouldn’t like you to be lonely, Larry. But I’m sure you’ll soon have company.”

She gives me that bright, white smile again. “You know, I’ve never had a pet before. They tell me you’re
supposed to look after them. Keep them clean. Feed them. That kind of thing. But don’t worry…” She
eye-points the camera… “…I’ll be keeping an eye on you.”



And with that, she produces a small flashlight from her bag, slings the bag over her shoulder and,
humming, strolls away, out of the circle of light and away down the tunnel.

For a while, I see the wavering illumination of the flashlight, but then it vanishes. Her footsteps echo for
a while longer, but after a while, they too fall silent.

And I’m left alone.

*****


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