Chapter One
In an admirable ballet of driving prowess, the skillful hands of David Farnsworth Smythe direct steering wheel and gear shift to join rhythmic feet in working clutch and brakes of the sleek sports car. David’s driving conforms to his persona, enviable but obnoxious, and he considers it his prerogative to overdrive the traffic, accelerating to speeds exceeding eighty miles per hour in the slow lane, impetuously weaving through highway congestion that the working world patiently accepts every day.
In the unending stream of autos, the bright red Lamborghini becomes more and more distinctive as he nears New York City, leaving behind the idyllic estates and mansions of Canaan, Connecticut. He is not accustomed to driving in morning rush hour. The last time doing so he was accelerating in the opposite direction, returning home after an all night orgy with two models at the swank Pierre Hotel.
The speeding driver smiles whenever reminiscing about that rendezvous. The girls were expensive and the penthouse suite, unoccupied due to inclement weather and the late arrival of a foreign dignitary, was also costly, particularly after bribing the concierge. But for David, money is a fungible commodity to be liberally exchanged for pleasurable frivolity. With an annual trust income of ‘only’ one million dollars, interim periods of relative poverty following some of his costly escapades have required a degree of scrimping. But for the super rich like David, that has meant deferring a weekend of debauchery in France until the next trust distribution arrived... never more than weeks away... and always sizable.
Embarrassing... the temporary impoverishment? Yes. But knowing that eventually the relative discomfort would end with a wire transferred replenishment of his bank account served to mollify the few days of boredom.
For all his life, David has been heir to one of the largest fortunes in the United States. With million after million unfailingly offered for his conspicuous consumption, he has always considered his status as uncontrolled spendthrift to be proper training for learning how to squander billions. Generation upon generation of Farnsworth’s and Smythes built and augmented the current fortune. Yet, if there are genetic brain cells imbuing descendants with the penchant to be stewards of great wealth, such DNA code was not passed on to David. Instead, at age 31, single, tall, dark and found to be attractive even notwithstanding his unfathomable wealth, David is without ambition concerning fiduciary responsibility and without heirs for whom to be steward. And such a void dovetails with his desired lifestyle... a lifestyle which is about to attain its zenith.
The purpose of David’s choreograph of rushed motoring is to attend a meeting with the ‘white shoe’ law firm of Grayson, Boddington, and Snipes. Normally he would arrive with annoying tardiness, never wishing to appear to obsequiously react to someone else’s summons. But on this sunny morning in June, David is actually eager to meet with the frumpy Grace Boddington, accomplished estate attorney and daughter of the founding partner.
It should be noted that David has been the heir to vast wealth. By morning’s end that will cease. His last living relative, Uncle Whitmore, died months ago. Despite the complexity of his estate, Grace Boddington and her assist
