SHUT THE FUCK UP DUMBASS: PART 1

I know this might be harsh, but please understand that I use the pejorative “DUMBASS” in my book “The Perfect Murder: Genius Edition” as well. In fact, on this point, the genius murderer might even be the DUMBER ASS.

You see, there is something about a truly perfect murder, a murder so brilliant that the police are dumbfounded, that makes you swell with pride. You did it, you outsmarted them all. You pulled off the perfect crime. But what good is it to be smarter or better than everyone else if they don’t know it? What’s the point? Isn’t that the whole purpose of being the best, having others know it? It’s why people were labels on their clothes, labels that say they spent more than you, or drive a Mercedes or a Porsche. And others, the ones with more brains than money, have their college names on their sweatshirts. If I walk down the street with a CalTech sweatshirt, you’ll believe I’m smarter than you—of course, if you aren’t up on college learnin’, then my sweatshirt that simply reads “COLLEGE” would probably be more effective.

Back to the supersmart killers, write out your deed, and put it in your safe deposit box that will be opened only upon your death. While this will provide little gratification while you’re alive, you’ll know that your posterity (unless it’s your posterity that you have killed) can glory in the fact that their ______ was a brilliant murderer. You might even consider writing it as a posthumous memoir, but that is up to you.

As for the dummies amongst us, there is a simple equation (not that simple, but it doesn’t require calculus).

For each person that knows about a murder, the odds of the killer being caught go up exponentially.

So what does that mean for the person who didn’t do well in math. Never fear. There are two common ways that we described progressions, geometric and exponential. A geometric progression means that for each person you tell, the numbers go up: you tell one person (so two people know, you and the person you told), then the chance you will get caught has doubled (1+1=2); you tell two people, it triples (1+2=3), tell three it quadruples (1+3=4), etc. An exponential equation rises much more quickly: if you tell one person, it quadruples, but by telling two, it goes to a factor of three: 2² = 4x as likely; 2³ = 8x; 2⁴ = 16x; 2⁵ = 32x; 2⁶ = 64x. (Stephen Hawking mentions in the introduction to A Brief History of Time that his editor warned him that each equation reduces the potential readership; he cut the equations down to one, E=mc², and although I’d like to include E=mc² in this post, it just doesn’t seem relevant. But I’m hoping that no one sees this equation before they start reading this blog. Besides, I’m not going to write down to the “Dummies” who read this; if you’re going to follow my blog, I’m going to treat you like someone who can understand one equation.

Now, these numbers are not static. If you happen to tell a girlfriend and then cheat on her, your chance of getting busted just went to 100%. Similarly, if you tell your friend and then sleep with his wife or girlfriend, you might as well start practicing your mug shot pose (do you smile? Look amused or bemused, look stoned or on crack, look angry or pathetic, stare into the soul of the camera?—it’s not as easy as it looks, and this picture is the one that the world will remember). Do you start to understand why silence is so important? Once you tell someone you’ve committed a murder, you have to be nice to them for the rest of their life (or you could just kill them too).

This is why you should also always kill alone (see also Strangers on the Train post and Don’t Kill with Your Friends) and keep your trap shut.