Vico Confino is a husky 81-year-old hell-raiser with a thick Brooklyn accent and an outsized presence -- slicked-back thin white hair, piercing blue eyes, leathery South Florida skin -- that seem cut straight from a Sopranos casting. Confino tosses F-bombs at waiters over bad service. He wears four fake teeth because the originals were punched out in a high school football brawl. He once told a dog walker, after a confrontation over a legally required leash, that he was the man's "worst fucking nightmare."

But in June 2012, Confino was rattled. From his Coconut Creek office -- an unremarkable three- or four-room space where a single copy machine sits surrounded by walls plastered with dozens of gun posters -- he dialed up a top lawyer for Glock, Inc., the billion-dollar company that was suing him for trademark infringement. Confino, as he tells it, introduced himself and amicably offered to negotiate. But the big-shot Glock attorney would have none of it.

"I don't like you," the lawyer allegedly said. "And I'm going to destroy you."