I'm back! It's been a long time since I wrote a Perry Mason story, but I miss the wonderful community on this fandom and I've had a couple of Perry Mason stories in the back of my head for a while, so I thought that I would start writing them down.

"I still can't believe that Perry Mason managed to crack Timmy the Shark on the witness stand," the mobster in the driver's seat said, fingering the steering wheel of the black sedan. "I thought that man could withstand anything!"

"I've told you a thousand times," his partner in the passenger's seat snapped, "that Mason fellow is dangerous! He can't be bought off, he's an expert at avoiding blackmail, and overall does nothing which could be used to smear his name-"

"Maybe the two of you would care to speak a little louder, so that Mason and the rest of Los Angeles can hear you," came a deep, angry voice from the backseat.

"Sorry, Boss," the two mobsters in the front mumbled in unison.

"I did not have you drive here and park across the street from the Brent Building so that I could hear you whimpering about our misfortune like a couple of schoolgirls," the evil voice from the back continued, "but to refine my plans for revenge."

The hardened criminal in the passenger's seat chucked, and opened the glove compartment. Inside was a 32-caliber revolver.

"I was hoping you would say that, Boss-"

"No, you idiot!" was the sharp retort. After an exasperated sigh, their chief deigned to explain, "You don't deal with a man like Mason by killing him! A man like that is more dangerous dead than alive! The minute you lodge a bullet in him, a thousand little law students and countless other people will honor the memory and try to follow in the footsteps of the righteous counselor who lost his life prematurely because of his pursuit of justice. No, the way you crush a man like that is from within. Find a way to make him a shell of himself, until he loses all his passion – for justice, for law – and lives out his years in a lonely existence, forgotten by all."

"And how do we do that, Boss?" the driver of the vehicle curiously asked.

"By tearing away from him the things that matter to him the most."

"The only thing that Perry Mason seems to care for are his law books, Boss. Are we going to try to disbar him?"

"Good thing you two are not running this outfit," the man in the back sneered. "You are as blind as bats. Or maybe you wimps were also panicking, just like Timmy, when we sat in the back of the courtroom watching the trial?" Dead silence greeted this comment. "Well, thankfully, I still had my wits about me. And I noticed some interesting things. Here – look across the street."

All three criminals gazed across the road, and saw a valet driving Perry Mason's Cadillac convertible from the garage to the front of the Brent Building. The car only idled for a minute, and then Perry Mason came out of the glass doors, accompanied by his confidential secretary, Ms. Della Street.

As they intently stared at the scene before them, Perry Mason opened the side door of his vehicle for his secretary. As she stepped up to the car and slipped into it, the lawyer's face suddenly softened into a smile. His blue eyes became tinted with admiration. The expression remained upon his face until Della was settled in the convertible, and only then did Perry close the car door and hurry around the front of the Cadillac to take the driver's seat. Then the pair drove off.

"Boys," the mob boss said, crackling with ominous laughter, "find out everything you can about that girl."

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