The plot thickens...
http://www.gerryarmstrong.org/archives/3292
It's hard to decide who will prevail if any of them.
Den of thieves is an appropriate description.
Gerry Armstrong is a long winded cuss but one doesn't need to read it all to understand that they all have ghosts.
Rathburn hardly has clean hands but then we all knew/presumed that, right?
I don't think Rathburn is in this for the rectifying of anything other than some tit for tat.
That's why I ask the pertinent question:
"How much money would it take?"
Slappy has had that thought cross his mind, believe me. And the same thought has crossed Rathburn's. It's the easiest way out for both of them. Neither can rectify what they did.
It's only an issue as to the number of zeroes. Right now, it's just positioning.
As to Gerry Armstrong?....he'd better move along. Hopefully writing 50,000 words on the subject matter relieved some charge. He's just a statistic in Rathburn's mind. When one commits the transgressions for the time period and extent that Rathburn did while working with Slappy, they aren't real accessible to him anymore. Not unless something like this guy's letter comes along and kicks the sleeping dog.
The closet in Rathburn's mind is stacked with them. He can't possibly come to terms with it all--it's just too messy no matter how noble he thinks he is.
Why do you think Slappy has others beat up staff as well as himself?
It's to give them mutual outruds with him.
Another trap.
Their complacency in the crimes renders them unable to speak out. Their participation in the crimes neutralizes them.
One more line in the sequence of traps, the minefield of salvation as it were.
I doubt there's much hope for any of them. A few will get shot, a few wounded, a few might never recover, a few might go on and live "normal" lives and a few will continue their careers in organized religion for the Mother Church but in the end...a den of thieves.
