Mr. Dark Side, número tres

Book excerpt: "... we both know the best villains have little or no profile at all." Ian Rankin “Again, it’s a miracle that more federal judges are not whacked.” John Grisham PROLOGUE Granddad stressed psychophysics as an investigative tool. He said to know a targeted person, to really start to understand that person, it was as easy as just watching that person’s eyes. Just provide a range of visual stimuli and watch the target's eyes. I was just a teenager with a brand new driver's license. Granddad would let me drive as he worked his private investigator gigs. The first couple of times out, driving Granddad around, convinced me about the whole concept of psychophysics. Granddad was investigating a potential Candidate for the position of Police Chief of Santa Barbara. The City Power-Brokers were paying. I tagged along as driver and chief note taker. Granddad set up in a parking lot across the street from the café coffee shop the Candidate frequented almost every morning. One of the nice things about Southern California is the vast abundance of want-to-be-actors on-tap. Young ones, old ones, retreads, Method actors, Meyerhold’s Biomechanics pretenders, Classical actors, and of course, Meisner devotees, all on tap at the drop of a hat. Well, almost immediately available with a single phone call. Granddad didn't tell them why or even for whom they were working. He didn't have to. The thrill of being paid, in cash, for a simple walk-on, was enough for the want-to-bees. Early every morning, for the first week, Granddad and I sat in his car and watched the Candidate's eyes as a broad representation, via the want-to-bees’ preferred methods of expression, of the human condition, paraded by the café windows, in front of the Candidate. Part of psychophysics is testing for the lower limits of what causes an individual to take conscious notice of the provided stimulus. Granddad was convinced that a person's eyes, at the instant of the lower limit stimuli, gave a snapshot on the person's subconscious attitudes. He was old-school. He believed that individuals couldn’t change their attitudes toward others but could modify their behaviors. He stressed that what we were doing was trying to see if the Candidate had predator-attitudes that he had successfully hidden via modifying his behavior to fit what he wanted others to see. We sat, binoculars glued to our eyes, as we watched from across the street, the Candidate's eyes, as the want-to-bees parade passed by.