Adding to the everyone's hatred of Nate is that he's investigating Tyrell Wrigley, the most publicly beloved cop on the force. This guy gets in all the local papers for his involvement in the community - he teaches karate to kids - and he's got a wife and two kids. In his late 30s (possibly early 40s), he's a former marine and thus is really, really dangerous. This isn't your fat, donut-loving cop. However, the mob's been getting away with an awful lot lately, so somebody's crooked. And when Nate discovers some very poorly disguised mob murders in Wrigley's area, he thinks he's got his man.
Sure enough, Nate's right that Wrigley's been taking bribes to look the other way and giving the mob insider information, but he needs some really hard evidence to be able to convince everyone else. That need to try and catch Wrigley in the act leads to Wrigley catching on to Nate's investigation. Given that he's got the mob on his side and has Nate physically outmatched in every way, Nate's in serious trouble as they come after him. Luckily, Nate has no sense of his own well-being, so he doesn't back off from his investigation.
It probably goes without saying that there will be at least one major mob boss type who will serve as a secondary villain to Wrigley, and his goons will give Nate ample action-oriented trouble.
Nate goes back and questions some of the people involved in Wrigley's old cases. This leads him to Jessica, the girl with whom he fell in love back in high school, but was always way out of his league. The story goes that she hooked up with some thug [tentatively] named Dominic who got her pregnant and she dropped out of school. Nate hadn't heard from her since (and it can be assumed that this was the first thing to really start forming Nate into the abrasive guy he is now). She's a waitress whose kids are grown up and she's saving up to move some place better. Her and Dominic have been split for years, as he was never good to her (Nate suspects that he used to beat her), but he pops up now and again to be a thorn in her side. Wrigley has some sort of interest in him.
I was going to have Dominic just be some random gangsta street thug type, but I think it makes more sense to have him be a low-level mobster. Meanwhile, Jess's will probably have a lot of family connections to the mob so that she's caught in the middle of the conflict and there's something really, tangibly at stake if Nate fails. Depending on what ending I go with, Dominic may be an important character with a real presence, or he may just be a faceless name that gets thrown around to progress the story. More on that later. Nate is, of course, still interested in Jess and spends a large portion of the movie trying to figure out how to get closer to her, visiting her at work, etc. If there's one thing Nate is terrible at, it's figuring out women. This becomes even more complicated once Wrigley and the mob come after him, as he doesn't want to put her in danger. But Wrigley's already asking her questions since he needs to find Dominic (who nobody can find), who evidently has some potentially incriminating information.
There's one more important character: Jon Levy, the one cop on the force who Nate can almost call a friend. They aren't fully partners, but Jon helps him out from time to time. Though not the total badass that Wrigley is, Jon is an alpha male of a cop - strong, athletic, and by-the-book. Jon knew Nate back in high school, which is why they are able to interact now, despite the fact that Jon acknowledges Nate's unpleasant personality traits these days. Jon is divorced, probably with a kid, though he doesn't have to have one. Oh yeah, and he dated Jess back in high school. Throughout, Jon will help Nate out of a jam or two, which is good, because Nate never calls for backup. I'm interested in writing these two together - I think they'll have an interesting dynamic.
So, we've got: Nate, Wrigley, Jess, Jon, and possibly Dominic and a mob boss - I'll call him Joey Ragano, since that's the name I used for a mob boss in my Legal Battle story that went nowhere. Next, I'll get into the more specific events of the story, whether they're set in stone or not, and that will hopefully allow me to go back and fully work out the characters before I send in formal bios.
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