The shark has such teeth, dear...
More NaNoWriMo below. My chapters with Mack in them so far have followed fairly close to the way I originally wrote them. What can I say - I guess I like violence. In this case, we get to see a little bit of Mack's back story (which I had previously considered for a short story) as well as him operating outside of his superhero-esque costume of the trench coat and fedora.

Oh yeah...word count is at 11,340 now. That puts me almost one day ahead of where I need to be, which should be useful when I start getting lazy around Thanksgiving.



The past kept him going. It forced him along his path.

“How old are you, Mack?” asked Mary Cassotto from another time.

“Twenty-six,” he responded. They were standing in the kitchen, all white tile and granite countertops. In theory, he was there to help Mary put groceries away. In actuality, he had spent most of his time juggling fruit, knives, and whatever else he could get his hands on. Every once in a while he snuck a glance toward Mary after an expert toss and was rewarded with a smile from her broad, round face.

“You’re older than my daughter, but not by much. You’d be a good person for her.”

Mack caught two steak knives by the handle with one hand. He plucked the third out of the air with two fingers, snatching it by the flat of the blade.

“From everything you’ve told me about her, I don’t think she would appreciate you playing matchmaker.”

“No, I’m not interested in getting her a date – trust me, the last things she needs in her life is a man. I just think she could use some friends; that’s all.” Mary shook her head and smoothed out her blouse before returning to her work. She was a large woman whose presence filled the room. Her body was heavy but pleasant to look at. Always smiling, the corners of her mouth spread extra far across her face. When she laughed – a feat Mack hadn’t succeeded in accomplishing through his tricks yet – her whole body shook, enjoying the joke from head to toe.

Mack put the knives away and turned back toward the groceries. Unlike Mary, he always had a serious look on his face, even when he tried to be funny. He had never been one for smiling.

“She’s in France right now, studying abroad,” continued Mary as though the conversation hadn’t stopped at all. “She’ll be coming home in a few weeks. You should meet her.”

“I might have to work then.”

“I’ll talk to Michael. We can spare you for a night or so. There will be a play going on around then that I think the two of you would enjoy. A Brecht piece, but it’s translated, so you don’t have to worry about knowing German or anything.”

“I speak German,” corrected Mack.

“Well, I’ll have to keep that in mind for the future. Where did you learn to speak German? Did you spend time in Europe?”

Mack’s response died in his throat. A man in the doorway cleared his throat loudly, interrupting the conversation. Both of the other two turned to see a thin man dressed in a brown business suit, with a drooping black mustache that accentuated his frown. He glared at Mack, clenching and unclenching his fists.

“Am I paying you to be a goddamned bag boy now?”

Mack turned his eyes toward his shoes. “No sir.”

“Then get the hell out of here.”

With a nod, Mack left the room. He walked stiffly, marching to a cadence only he could hear.

“Michael, show some kindness to the boy,” he heard Mary say as he left the room.

“Boy? He’s not a kid. And he’s not here to entertain you while you gossip about how much of my money you’re wasting. He’s a pit bull, and you’re trying to turn him into a puppy.”

“Pit bulls are puppies,” stated Mary adamantly. “They only get vicious when they’ve been abused.”

# # #

He turned the past off and focused on the job at hand. It was time to get started.

Walter Conn stood up as the next client came in. The two shook hands, exchanged formalities, and then sat down again.

“Well, Mr. Riefer, what seems to be the problem?”

The client remained silent. He gazed around the office, noting the shelves of legal books and the pleasant view offered from the window of the Law Offices of Conn & Mannus. Pale gray eyes noted every fiber of the carpet, every hair on Conn’s balding head. He said nothing as he observed. Walter cleared his throat uncomfortably, breaking the silence.

“Mr. Riefer?”

Walter Conn was a man in his early 50s, but he looked older than he really was, largely by his own design. Years of stress from running or having a hand in various law offices had turned the two tufts of hair that he had left on his head a fine white, and wrinkles and worry lines creased his face like a road map. His small olive-colored eyes sat squarely above slightly curved nose, which had caused many people to comment behind his back that he looked like a hawk. He seemed to like that image, and had probably spent long hours practicing a proper scowl to accompany the appearance. He folded his hands in a well-practiced attempt to be businesslike and even a little intimidating. Apparently, though, he couldn’t be as intimidating as the silent client was.

“Where’s your partner?” Riefer asked finally.

“He’s out of the office today, but I should be able to help you. You had mentioned an injury claim on the phone. Let’s deal with that, shall we?”

Riefer leaned forward in the hard-cushioned chair that sat in front of Walter’s desk. He pressed his palms against the plexiglass sheet that kept the wooden finish clear of dust and debris.

“You don’t remember me,” he said.

“Should I?”

He wore black not only to make him more than human, but to hide himself. He didn’t need anything to hide his face – when people normally looked at him, they only saw the shadows of the hat and trench coat. In a pair of tan pants and a dull red shirt like he wore now, even Walter Conn seemed fooled.

“We have a mutual acquaintance,” said Mack. “Lewis Miller had a lot to say about you.”

Walter blinked. He noticed he had held his breath a second too long and let it out in one long sigh. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” he said.

“One of the men I killed two nights ago was named Duncan Reed. He had gotten information about the Cassotto mansion from someone who was there before. Someone who used to be a friend on Shelley’s father.”

Walter’s left hand reached for the phone. His right hand slid into a desk drawer. “You’re confessing to murdering somebody. I’m going to have to call the police.”

Mack pressed his hand against the telephone receiver, keeping Walter from picking it up. It was the distraction the lawyer wanted. As quickly as he could, he pushed himself out of his chair and took a step backwards, getting out of arm’s reach. His right hand came out of the drawer holding a snub-nosed .38 revolver. Pulling back the hammer, he leveled it at the stranger.

Mack shook his head. “You still don’t remember me. I’ll have to show you.”

Walter felt his finger start to squeeze the trigger. As simple an action as it was, it happened too slowly. The other man sprang out of his seat and darted to the side of the desk. Before Walter could adjust his aim, the man was upon him. One hard slap knocked the gun out of Walter’s stunned fingers. He shifted to grab it again, figuring his attacker would be after it as well. Instead, Mack grabbed the large black cradle of the phone and swung it like a weapon. Walter saw the movement out of the corner of his eye and then felt a sharp pain in his head as the phone connected with a ring. Walter landed on the floor and noticed that fresh blood had now stained the carpet.

Anger shot through the old man’s mind as he felt himself sprawled out by his attacker. He tried to retaliate, but he didn’t even get a chance to regain his bearings or realize that he was bleeding badly from the forehead before Mack hammered him again with the phone. Through a haze of pain and the dull ringing in his ears, Walter heard a clatter as the man in black pulled the phone cord right out of the jack. He tossed aside the cradle and grabbed the long length of cord. Blinking through his pain, Walter vaguely became aware of a gloved hand seizing him by the collar. With the man’s free hand, he looped the cord around Walter’s neck and tightened it. Walter tried to gasp. His mouth began moving fish trying to swallow as he realized that he couldn’t breathe.

“Do you remember me yet, Mister Conn?” The man’s gray eyes blazed as he dragged Walter across the room like a dog on a leash, finally throwing him into the wall. Walter’s body rocked and his knees buckled, but the attacker pulled the cord upward, forcing Walter to his feet like a marionette doll. “You’ve been smug for too long. You’ve grown fat and lazy and weak. You all have.”

Just when Walter felt that he was about to black out, his attacker loosened the cord and threw him across the room like a sack of trash. Only when he noticed the ease with which the stranger had manhandled him did he noticed his strength. Pale skin had made the man look thin and weak. Looking at him through new eyes, Walter saw a man whose muscles strained against the confines of his shirt sleeves – a slender but strong body that reminded him of an attack dog.

The attacker wasn’t finished yet. He stalked back toward the desk, leaving his victim to writhe in pain. Walter heard a clattering as the other man knocked a jar of pencils over. Between the man’s pair of gray sneakers, his bleary eyes fell across the gun.

The crawl across the floor started slowly but gained speed as Walter began taking deeper breaths and summoned his strength back. One more lunge and he would get his fingers around the grip…

He brushed his fingertips against the metal, only to breathe a groan of disappointment as the sneakers in front of him turned. The right foot kicked the gun deeper under the desk, tangling it with power cords and modem cables. The other foot lifted slowly and then came down hard. Walter heard a crunching and felt a rush of pain from his left hand. His scream came out as a husky wheeze, barely audible past his own ears. Then the attacker was in front of his face, crouching low and brandishing a sharp gold letter opener in his hand. Walter watched helplessly as the point came down hard, driving itself an inch deep into his forearm. The second scream was a bit more audible, but still nothing that would drift past his closed office door.

“M-Mack…” murmured Walter, feeling himself growing faint from the sight of his freshly spilled blood. That dizzy spell saved him additional pain as the attacker hauled him off the floor and dropped him back into his office chair. When Walter’s beady eyes focused again, Mack had drawn a knife from somewhere.

“Good. You finally remember me. And you remember what it is I do. I know you didn’t hire the killers who attacked Shelley Cassotto – you’ve gotten too fat and lazy to go after someone who isn’t even in the game anymore. But you know something, and you’re going to tell me.”

Despite the sudden pain that had just been visited upon him, Walter refocused his eyes and stared defiantly at his interrogator. “You’re not going to kill me,” he croaked. “I’m not going to tell you anything, and if you kill me you’ll be losing a lead.”

Mack spun the chair so that Walter was directly facing him. “You’ve got one of those right.” He grabbed Walter’s wrist as he spoke, pressing the sharp side of his knife hard against the skin.

Walter tried to struggle, but his efforts were mostly a show. Even had one arm not been virtually useless with a letter opener sticking out of it like a dagger, he was never one for physical strength. He hated men who thought with their fists, although now he was beginning to see the benefit of the occasional use of force.

Mack pressed Walter’s hand flat against the arm of the chair. “Do you know what those little bumps below your knuckles are, Mr. Conn? They look like bones, don’t they? They’re really tendons. You might have known that. After all, you wanted to be a doctor once, didn’t you?

“I’m going to make this simple for you,” continued Mack, his voice darkening as he spoke. “For every time you refuse to answer me, I’m going to cut one of your tendons. If I do that, it makes your hand useless. You won’t be able to pick up a pen, dial the phone, or even shake hands. The doctors will have to reach up to your elbow and pull the tendon down your arm in order to reattach it. I’m sure you can imagine how painful both processes will be.”

Walter struggled to lift his free arm, only to give another loud groan of pain as Mack pushed the letter opener deeper.

“You’ve already chosen to ignore my question once, but I’m a forgiving man so I’ll let that slide. I’m going to ask you again, and I hope that this time you’ll be more appreciative of the consequences.” Mack pressed the knife deeper, and Walter felt the blade begin to break skin. “Who hired them?”
Despite his attempts to keep a strong demeanor, Walter could only whimper when he opened his mouth.