I fumed and screamed, I cursed God, The Devil, and whatever lay between them. Ann had thrown me out, pushed me on my back and taken away her hand for comfort. All that was to be found in her hands now was a slap in the face. I walked down the street dejectedly, thinking over what had happened. I had only wanted her to know I cared.

I gave her money to buy the child some suitable provisions, a job should she ever choose to come back to the Opera, and my best wishes for her life.Of course Ann had only focused on the bad side of things. Sure I had had La Sorelli arrested, she was a menace to Ann's career, and her boyfriend had been rather a nitwitted gimp, so it was best that he had died.

I came to the alley shortcut that would lead back to the Opera when the idea struck me. Or rather, I walked straight into it. Jason, bastard thief of my Ann's love and affections. Jason, the man whose child she now labored over while he strutted about with his entourage. I bumped directly into him and several of the men he was with laughed. "I do say Monsieur, if you'd stop muttering curses and pick your head up you would notice where you are going."

I glared at him, and the idea came at that moment. An idea so dastardly, so utterly dishonorable, and yet so menacingly perfect, I shudder to this day as to why I ever did it at all. I could have walked on, left Ann to her business and got on with my life. I could have ignored the man, left life the way it was, and yet I couldn't bear the thought of losing my one companion, my dearest benefactress. The only thing that stood in my way of having Ann all to myself was this man, who was now chattering to his companions about my "silly little mask".

I cleared my throat and said calmly, "Monsieur if I could have a word with you for one second, I must apologize." The man's companions chuckled. "Well you are forgiven." Jason replied. I shook my head, "Oh, I mean to ask if we could be alone for a second, to talk, about, Ann." Jason looked at me quizzically.

My idea was simple enough. Take Jason down the alley, give him a good beating and leave him to walk home, as testimony so Ann would know that no matter where she ran I would find her. Certainly if she didn't want her husband beat senseless every evening she would accept the job and come back to the Opera. I give my word of honor I never, ever, intended for things to go so badly. I had never wanted to actually harm the man, only shake him up.

However, as I stood there, my sixteen years against his twenty-three, and his four companions chuckling as though it were all a joke, it came to me that perhaps there was a limit, a point at which man simply has to admit defeat in the face of life, and get a grip on his conscious lest he slip into insanity. I, of course, have reached that limit several times and crossed it as though I were playing jump-rope with sanity and madness.

Jason looked me squarely in the eyes. "What do you know of Ann?" He asked sternly. I held out my hand and lost all sane thought at that moment. I honestly can not explain everything that happened that dusky evening. I remember Jason shooing his entourage away to the nearest cafe and walking with me into the alley. I remember shoving him against the brick wall and then bringing my fist into his face.

After that I blacked out. I came out of that black inkiness into a scene of abomination. Jason lay dead at my feet, his face bloody and his body twisted grotesquely. I fell to my feet and cried. I wailed my lamentations to my bloody hands. I fumed and screamed, I cursed God, The Devil, and whatever lay between them.

I carried the heavy body under the cover of darkness, until I came to a stable at the end of the street. It was where taxi men kept their horses and carriages, and I left the body positioned so it appeared that the horses had merely trampled him to his demise. It was a sham, and easily seen through if anybody had known who I was.

Of course Ann knew who I was. She would see through the sham and come screaming at me, perhaps even hitting me, but I would not hit her back. I straitened my sleeves, adjusted my cuff-links, and went to the Opera's performance of La Tr'e Desre'nze.