-1938-

"This is an honor. A true honor, Boss Ladd. I can hardly contain this excitement!"

"You may want to, Specter. For your own sake."

Ladd leaned against the flat wall of the garage, his back against the cool metal. He flexed his left arm, the newest addition to his body. He had managed to get it moving; a functional arm. A sweet memento from his first meeting with Vino. The metallic fingers cinched and the "chink" noise the metal made was both pleasing and strange to him. Graham Specter sat among the trash bins in the garage, throwing and catching his wrench as he typically did when thinking. The rusty thing went up, came down, as if on its own accord. Graham had had no doubts that Ladd Russo would escape from Alcatraz. No measure of bars could hold him, no prison could keep him within its grasp for long. Ladd was metal now, like the bars on the jail door, and Graham respected him and feared him quietly.

"You know why I'm here," Ladd said suddenly, smiling as he folded and unfolded his metal fingers, staring at them. Graham was silent for a moment, but Ladd was quick to speak over him before he could respond. "I need a following."

"Right, right," nodded Graham, catching his wrench and flicking his wrist back, so the metal head of the tool reverberated back in the air and clanked against the ground. He slid off his perch upon the garbage cans and leaned against his wrench, as an old man would support himself with a cane. "Any self-respecting gangster needs a decent compilation of underlings, of course. They do your bidding, they follow orders, and they hardly have minds of their own! They're practically dogs! And it makes me wonder, because real dogs are more obedient and hardly require the attention that humans do, so why on earth don't mobsters just have a following of dogs? It's ridiculous."

Graham trailed off as Ladd advanced upon him, took his collar, forcing the young mechanic to bend backwards almost unnaturally in effort to shy away from Ladd. Graham bent to the point of impossibility, then allowed his knees to give, so he merely hung by Ladd's grip on his oiled shirt.

"I should kill you," Ladd said, coiling both his hands around Graham's neck. One of metal, one of skin. He began squeezing, just slowly, but Graham did nothing to restrain him. He stayed quiet, eyes beginning to water as his face tinted shades of darker and darker red. "But," Ladd continued, "I won't, because it wouldn't be any fun."

Graham was released and he slumped to the floor, his wrench clattering from his hand and giving a metallic scream as it hit the ground. He propped himself up with his elbows, taking marshalling breaths.

"Besides," Ladd said with a grin. "You're the first of my following. I prefer humans over dogs, personally." He pressed a boot to Graham's chest, keeping him down as he pressed all his weight there. Graham tightened, grimacing, but said nothing. Ladd leaned forward, dropping his voice to a whisper. "Because unlike a dog, a human can plead for mercy before I kill him."

There was an awkward silence for a short moment as Ladd continued to suffocate Graham until he finally relented. The moment he removed his foot, Graham gasped a quick breath, then scrambled to his feet. Ladd snatched Graham's beloved wrench before the poor guy could get to it. Ladd tapped it to Graham's left shoulder, voice still low and full of his usual maniacal joy.

"I'm leaving recruiting up to you," he said, continuing to tap Graham's shoulder. "Get me a decent following."

Graham saluted his leader, his role model. His trusted general. "My captain!" said Graham, eyes focused and steely. "O captain, my captain, I will!"