Steven Castle

This is how I earned my job as an editor of a magazine for the wealthiest people in the world: I nearly killed a man. It was during a six-month stint as an assistant city editor in a newsroom of a small daily newspaper, where my time was highlighted by cross-dressing and the dressing-down of a circus clown. This was all done in the search for truth, mind you. The beautiful, simple truth, no matter how ugly that may be. That is why journalists go into their field, after all. … Isn’t it?

In the years to follow I would travel to exotic resorts with bright clean beaches and blue-green waters, fly first-class, ride in countless limousines, sleep in presidential suites with master baths the size of apartments, dine for free in five-star restaurants, receive deep and probing muscle massages, and endure the most relaxing and rejuvenating spa treatments known to man.

I would drive Rolls-Royces and Bentleys and BMWs and Mercedes-Benzes and experience every subtle nuance of their superior handling. I would drive Ferraris and Porsches and Lamborghinis hard and fast and realize I was merely scratching at their abilities. I would tour luxury homes filled with priceless artworks and abbey-sized great rooms and wine cellars that stretch the mind and home theaters with twelve-foot-wide screens and even homes containing interior plazas and shops with their cobblestones shipped straight from village squares in Provence.

I would come to appreciate the feel of a hand-tailored Italian suit that cost thousands, silken one-hundred-percent cotton shirts and lustrous ties that practically dimpled themselves when knotted. I would understand how the style and size of an expensive watch signified a man’s stature and his exalted level of esteem.

I would meet celebrities and titans of industry and converse with them as a member of their inner circle. I would step aboard their luxury yachts and cruise the seas and fish for marlin and other prizes. I would be offered the finest in Cuban cigars and the rarest of French vintages and even voluptuous women.

I would attend renowned auto races and view them from the pits with the racing teams. I would fly on private planes and even pilot a fighter plane in the name of luxury, play golf and tennis at the finest resorts and receive personal instruction from the highest-paid pros. I would play golf at private clubs in which virtually no one could gain entry and experience a round at one of the most idyllic settings where one can contemplate the sway of the willows without having to wait for a foursome ahead.

I would consume fois gras, caviar, hundred-year-old port, two-hundred-year-old Whisky, Kobe steak, and other delicacies that make my mouth water upon mere memory. I would place my tongue to the tendermost of scaloppini and the most wonderful fettucini and risotto and—oh my God—enough tiramisu and crème brûlée and baked chocolate soufflés to choke a city’s main artery, let alone my own. And I am fairly certain I am partly responsible for the world’s depletion of Chilean sea bass.

Not bad for a homicidal maniac, huh? What can I say: It was a great, great, great, great, great job—and that may be an understatement. But what it cost me I can only try to explain in the pages that follow.