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Mel remained stock-still.

“Just tell me what you want…please.”

There came a snort in the room that didn’t seem to originate with either man.

“What the fuck do you need?” Simon pleaded. “Do I know you? Did I do somethin’ to you?”

Mel moved his head ever so slightly, and Simon tried his best to skitter away. His chains actually rattled.

I was getting scared myself.

Another minute went by. Then Mel took a step. When he moved you couldn’t see the foot motion, so in a way he seemed to be floating.

“Please don’t!” Creighton started screaming, and even though we were way under a stone building, and soundproofed to boot, I was half-certain that somebody would hear.

Mel descended on the chained man, punching, gouging, and kicking Simon with vitriol.

The beating went on for maybe ninety seconds before I said, “Mel.”

He continued and so I said, “Mel, stop it, man. I want him conscious and able to talk. I want him alive.”

Three more blows and Mel stood up from the bleeding, blubbering man. He turned to what must have been a mirrored interior, and I could see three spots of blood on the otherwise immaculate mask.

“Ask him why he was at the Liberté Café the other night.”

“What were you doing at the Liberté Café?” It was Mel’s voice but somewhat altered, and it didn’t come from him but rather speakers in the walls of both cell and anteroom.

Simon started shivering. “Me and Fido and Vince was there to catch a man with a red flower in his buttonhole, but he never came.”

“Who sent you?”

“A guy named Marmot, William James Marmot.”

“What were you going to do with the man when you got him?”

“I don’t know.”

Mel kicked Simon in his left cheekbone, slamming his head against the white stone wall behind. The impact left a pocked red imprint on the granite surface.

Simon actually shrieked.

“We was supposed to grab him and question him about who he was workin’ for,” he said. And because he didn’t want to get kicked again, he added, “Marmot’s a private security analyst who works with this guy named Antrobus, Augustine Antrobus. Marmot didn’t know, but Vince knew that him and Antrobus was a team.”

“What does this Antrobus do?”

“He has a security business too, but he’s a loner, like. He does work through private contractors. Just a couple’a women in his office. Vince once did a gig for him.”

“What were you supposed to do after you got your answers?” Mel asked.

“Do what?” Simon said with feigned innocence.

“Yeah,” Mel agreed. “Do what to the dude with the red flower in his buttonhole.”

Simon started crying, not so much like a man or a woman but more like a child bereft at both his misdemeanor and its punishment.

“That’s all I need, Mel,” I said. “Come on back out here.”

Simon Creighton sobbed while Mel and I sat in the folding chairs. He removed the mask and placed it on his lap. It sat there tilting back, looking up at me as if in judgment.