I Don't Get Mad, I Get Even. Continued.

...continued from FleaStiff's "I don't get mad, I get even" Part 1 ...

Part Seven:
We meet the late Donald E. Westlake, Richard Stark and Parker.


Those familiar with the works of a noted science fiction and mystery writer, the late Donald E. Westlake, may recall the character simply named Parker from the series of novels written under the pseudonym Richard Stark. Bright, hard working, sensible loner who is a professional criminal. His crimes are not impulsive, he is not an amateur and he does not work with amateurs. He has no redeeming qualities other than a cold efficiency and professionalism. He lives in a summer-vacation area where most of the houses are unoccupied for much of the year. During "the season" when vacationing city dwellers are at their houses, Parker leaves. Its not that he does not like people or know how to get along with people, its that he does not need people. He is able to be sociable when it suits his purpose. Its just that it seldom suits his purpose. He lives quietly, he kills quietly.

If such a Parker-type encountered John Ramsey, how might it have happened? Well, we can pretty safely dispense with the notion of a professional criminal. No, our Parker-type is more likely to be someone whose income involves computers. Our Parker-type probably doesn't interact with people much but he often interacts with their avatars. Good income, low expenses. Just as Parker leads a low key lifestyle, so too does our non-criminal Parker-type lead a life independent of the values under which most people operate. He has a good quality coffee maker, not a stylish one currently favored by the product-placement types who focus on publicity. Alcohol? Of course alcohol! He studies beer and wine, just as he studies fine coffee. He would brew his own beer but for the time involved in it. He is at all times in control of himself and his life. Untoward events may take place but the fault is in the stars, not in his mistakes. He doesn't make mistakes. So how do we get from this imagined Parker-type leading a life of quiet self mastery and culinary hedonism to a scene of perversion and a screwball ransom note certain to be emblazoned in every newspaper? We don't. Not directly that is. We have to go through Eric Hoffer to do it.

Part Eight:
We meet the late Eric Hoffer.


Eric Hoffer? Yes, the longshoreman-philosopher and author of the True Believer. For I fear that even our Parker-type who has generally mastered everything he has encountered in life still has an inherent weakness. A need for a cause in which to believe. Oh yes, his primary cause is himself. He enjoys his computer programming, he enjoys his coffee, his wine, his art, etc. but in addition to self mastery he still needs a cause in which to believe. Not necessarily an all-consuming cause, after all our Parker-type does have his other interests in life. As he sits there at his computer in the morning, he has his avatar interaction that constitutes his "social" life but he mainly has his fine coffee, fine bagel, and fine cheese. In his world of enjoyment of quality unimpeded by the blatherings of Madison Avenue hucksters that would impose popularity over quality, he sips his fine rum and smokes his fine cigars but he gives in to his one character fault: his need to be a True Believer. Yes, he is indeed most often a true believer in himself, but some character flaw makes him also want to be a True Believer in some great cause other than merely leading a hedonistic lifestyle.

And how does he select his cause? He most likely reacts to some attempt to impede his hedonism-oriented lifestyle. So what would he choose? To be a True Believer in some cause related to stamping out instant coffee? Why not? His disdain for America's foreign policy towards Cuba is grounded in the effect that policy has on his individual access to fine cigars. Coffee, cigars, rum, bacon-flavored salt, mega-vitamins, fluoridated water -- it makes no difference to him. He picks one of them though. So he chooses from some of his pleasures the one to become a True Believer over. He is a True Believer about his chosen obsession for quite some time, but then there reaches a point wherein he simply has to act. He can no longer sit on the sidelines of his cause and content himself with letters to the editor and donating his programming skills to admired politicians. He must act. Some outrage has taken place and frankly just flipping his middle finger at a driver is just not going to be enough. He has to act in some grand fashion. He can no longer just fantasize, he has to act! Something has taken place that threatens his psyche too much. He has to act.

Part Nine:
We embrace Eric Hoffer's True Believer but wonder how Parker would do so.


So how does he go about acting? Does he race to the ramparts amidst the flags and drums and gunsmoke? Don't be absurd. He does not abandon his Parker-like character attributes. He acts in accordance with his values and ingrained habits. Instead of interacting with people he has long interacted mainly with avatars. So he uses his cyberspace skills to interact with his True Believer friends. Granted, he has never met any of his friends but that is irrelevant. He manipulates objects all day long as a computer programmer and he considers the avatars to be just as much an object as the person linked to that avatar. Our Parker-type whose True Believer emotions have taken hold decides to manipulate others in his grand scheme. Yes, he will be the killer of JonBenet Ramsey but he will never set foot in the home. Indeed, he will never set foot in Boulder or even the entire state of Colorado, but he will nevertheless be the killer of JonBenet Ramsey! Oh, don't get me wrong. He may not even know that she exists, but he will know by the time he plans his transition from True Believer to one who acts for the cause rather than merely believing in it.

Part Ten:
We reject dna in its entirety.


So clearly there is no way our Parker-like hedonistic True Believer will ever have his dna left at the crime scene. How do we then make use of the dna evidence? Find and swab his fellow True Believers. Those who might have been inspired to actually commit the crime those who are geographically convenient to the scene of the action such as by living in Colorado or perhaps even living in Boulder. We locate the mastermind by locating the puppet. We therefore utterly reject the use of the most profound and precise forensic tool available to us. It will not find our Parker-like mastermind. We limit ourselves to the use of dna testing to find the puppets. Once having found puppets we may be able to work ourselves up to Mister Big. And then we will once again embrace dna as the most precise forensic tool that we have.

Part Eleven:
In seeking to classify the True Believers we focus on the Free Masons.
Or is it the Rosicrucian's?


Which True Believers? Ah,,,, there's the rub! Now how can one find a True Believer in a sea of causes rooted in hedonism? After all, we do not know if his obsession is focused on his coffee, his rum, his this or his that. Well the answer is rather simple. We start with the predominant themes. Any source of discontent in his life stems from someone intruding on his solitude and his quiet enjoyment of the finer things in life that he chooses to enjoy. Whether its regulation of his vitamins, his water, his coffee, his tea, his wine or whatever, all he wants is to be left alone. All he has ever really wanted in his entire life is to be left alone. So we find the sphere of his obsession by starting with an umbrella organization that is sure to subtend his particular sphere of obsession no matter what it is. We don't know if he has become a True Believer about bacon flavored salt or wine or coffee, but we know that the umbrella organization to start with is the Libertarian Party!

Part Twelve:
We abandon particular groups of supposed zealots and find freedom.


Why the Libertarians? As with any political party, they spend more time arguing amongst each other about just what Libertarianism means but the central theme is certainly that a government should leave its people alone. Indeed the government should not only hardly act, it should hardly exist. Free Will and the Free Market are all that are needed in the world. So our Parker-like character who has become a True Believer in some aspect of his life will have arrived at his True Believer status only after a sojourn through the world of Libertarian philosophy and Libertarian politics. I'm sure the Libertarians will not like being referred to as the basic training camp for nutcases. I myself am a Libertarian. I do not mean to imply that we are nutcases, only that the minute portion of the population that are true nutcases do seem to have sojourned through libertarianism prior to moving on to excel at nutcasedom.

Yes. There is indeed a difference between Libertarian philosophy and Libertarian politics. Those involved in Libertarian politics pay dues and are active for specific candidates. Those interested in Libertarian philosophy would be more likely to read a website and make a comment about it rather than making a commitment to a candidate. So we start with the Libertarian philosophers: our killer of Jonbenet Ramsey would have far more than a cocktail-party familiarity with the basic tenets of Libertarianism. He would be active as a commentator, he would use his computer skills on behalf of Libertarian candidates, he would be active in the nitty gritty world of Libertarian politics rather than just spouting off about Mills and Rand whenever he felt moved by the spirit. His sphere of obsession is not Libertarianism, but his sphere of obsession is sure to be about individual freedom in a society that values group-think that is contrary to his desires for hedonistic enjoyment of life. He has long been able to adapt his actions to socially acceptable compromises regarding his personal freedom, but he has never liked it. And finally the assault on his freedom is too much for him and he strikes out in what he truly believes is self-defense. Oh he still knows its a crime and will get him prosecuted if he is caught, but he views it intellectually as self defense because he views the attack on his personal freedoms as having started it. Once his freedom was curtailed, he feels justified to act and this feeling abides with him irrespective of whether the freedom is the dosage of his vitamins or the wearing of a motorcycle helmet or his consumption of flavored salt.

How does our Parker-like programmer perform the murder? In keeping with his unique values and skills. He plans, he identifies goals and actors. He manipulates objects, er uh, people... oh whats the difference! But whom does he have available to manipulate? Well most of his friends are persons in cyberspace that he has never met so although he might have a wealth of programmers or plumbers or whatever available to him, his only knowledge of them is through his cyberspace encounters with them. Those cyberspace encounters are one dimensional in that they only involve one issue. He can't contact a fellow computer programmer that he has met in cyberspace, he can only contact a fellow True Believer that he has met in cyberspace and say to him "Lets make the jump from spewing vitriol in cyberspace to taking more direct and immediately effective action".


How does our Parker-like True Believer select a puppet or two that he can manipulate? By the intensity of that puppets beliefs and the immaturity of his manner of expression. He goes to the world of trained assassins. Oh I don't mean he goes to some Mercenaries R Us site, I mean he goes to the world of role playing games where there is constant killing. Any psychologist will tell you that if the Marines had to train hordes of young men for combat the best way to do it would be to have them play video games involving killing. So our Parker-like True Believer seeks out other game playing cyberbuddies who like to kill in cyberspace and who also have intense feelings concerning some isolated sphere of obsession. Perhaps he starts in a game wherein "death threat" is merely a minor opening gambit, perhaps he starts in some other game. In 1996, games were transitioning from single player to multiple player. Chat rooms about games mushroomed. The monikers that various game players used became far more than one dimensional. Those monikers or hats now had depth to them. Information was available. Their ages, intensity of emotions, thoughts on other issues could all be discerned with a bit of effort. It was not hard to discern demographic and psychological data.

All our Parker-like programmer who has become a zealot about some as yet unknown to us sphere of obsession has to do is write a few computer scripts to find those who will become his puppets in murder. He writes a script to analyze game players and particularly game chatters for their talents: impulsivity, immaturity, intensely emotional loss of detachment. Then he writes a script that cross references the various hats with those who share his obsession about his personal freedoms being encroached upon by the outrageous actions that society is tolerating. Voila! He has his initial cadre of puppets. He will vet them and manipulate them and make a final selection. So by abandoning our efforts to select a particular group with some axe to grind, we find the freedom to concentrate on the mastermind rather than the puppets. Case sleuths have long thought of foreign factions, interior decorators, pedophiles, disgruntled employees, debtors, creditors, outdoorsmen and draftsmen. At long last we can forget such classifications.

Part Thirteen:
The real meaning of the ransom note:


Yes. All this palaver about Libertarians and video games and hedonism has lead us to one final achievement. We now know the real reason for that weird ransom note. It was indeed written by multiple authors. It was indeed intentionally strange and multi-faceted. It was lengthy for one purpose. It had to conceal the one item about the note that our mastermind insisted be included. The rest of the note is filler. Somewhere in that ransom note is a signature. A reference that our secret cabal of true believing immature game players believes in and will allow them to claim responsibility ... in their own sweet time! That note is the equivalent of a famous old master that has been stolen. The entire art world knows it is stolen. It can't be sold or even displayed publicly. It sits in the private subterranean den of some millionaire and gives him a purely private enjoyment. Well, the ransom note with its coded signature reference embedded somewhere in it serves the same purpose but has the added advantage that it can be and is publicly displayed. Only a few know its real meaning. And that is what gives them their secret pleasure. Not pedophilia, not torture, not cracking skulls of helpless six year old girls ... those were to accommodate the diversity of the puppets pleasures or else for distraction of the authorities. The real purpose of the ransom note is to provide the mastermind with his crowning achievement: he has a stolen old-master than can be displayed openly! And he reveal his identity in his own sweet time, not by way of some item now in a safe deposit box at State Bank and Trust Company but by simply revealing the embedded signature and its relevance to his narrow sphere of obsession.