Bad Dad. Alice Shane
bold shrewdness that characterized their aggressive entrepreneurialism. Under his aegis, Fuller Energy expanded into a $3 billion entity via a tie-in to the Rocky Mountain Express pipeline, permitting the company to pump gas from its own wells directly into Ohio, Pennsylvania and Canada.
Natural gas wasn’t the only source of Lester’s considerable fortune, he revealed to Margo soon after they met. He had inherited 40,000 acres of prime farmland – lush rolling hills and valleys in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, which he sold to a real estate syndicate for $150 million. Lester had negotiated the deal himself, without a broker who would have pocketed a hefty 6%. Instead, he was able to reinvest the money he saved by cutting out the middle man. It was a transaction he was inordinately proud of, orchestrated shortly before their marriage
A financial journalist, Margo was impressed with Lester’s business acumen from day one – his deep knowledge of the stock market, his understanding of Wall Street psychology – savvy that drove him to vigorously monitor the activities of his accountants and portfolio managers whom he didn’t trust.
“Every so often, you’ve got to remind them who’s money it is, who’s boss,” he told her in one of those rare moments early in their relationship when he felt comfortable disclosing details about his finances.
Since their marriage four years earlier, they lived in Heron Cove, New Jersey, an exclusive enclave of sprawling mansions facing the ocean. Theirs was a 14-room, 8,000 square foot custom-built Mediterranean style home in full view of the water, with sliding glass doors leading onto the beach from every downstairs room – the living room, dining room, library, den, workout room, kitchen. Margo loved feeling the sand under her feet when she walked onto the beach directly from the house. Indoors, she could view the entire panorama via massive floor-to-ceiling windows and doors.
But Lester had regrets about buying the house. First and foremost, he was a businessman who hated being out-negotiated.
“They saw me coming, those sharks,” Lester complained bitterly to Margo. He had shelled out $7 million for the property which, in his estimation, wasn’t worth more than $5 million, if that. It was the convenience of having a residence near the water, accessible to Wall Street by water taxi from Red Hook that had been so seductive.
The purchase, an impulsive one, was made during a period when investment bankers and corporate moguls operating out of the New York financial district were eager to settle in New Jersey, away from the threat of another 9/11 terrorist attack, their demands for waterfront homes driving prices up to astronomical levels.
Margo religiously read the Wall Street Journal’s real estate section during the early years of their marriage, deriving enormous satisfaction from watching the value of their home spiral upward. These days, of course, she had no idea what it was worth. Money was tighter. The prospect of another 9/11 had dimmed in the collective consciousness. It was entirely possible it’s value had plummeted. Not that she cared. She loved this house. But it was time to contact an appraiser, find out what the house was currently worth.
CHAPTER 3
Marrying Lester was a transformational experience for Margo. He had plucked her out of a $65,000 a year job as a financial reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer to becoming his wife only five months after they met at an investment conference she was covering for the newspaper’s Sunday financial supplement.
Barely able to afford a studio apartment in a high-rise on Rittenhouse Square back then, it never failed to amaze Margo that this fabulously wealthy man who was living in an historic 16-room townhouse on Delancey Place would become so enamored of her, introducing her to a lifestyle that far surpassed her wildest dreams. They lived in this Delancey Place residence only briefly after their marriage, until Lester sold it to a Saudi businessman for $10-million.
“Too many bad memories from my life with Gloria, ” he told Margo, wanting her to understand why he put the home on the market so soon after their marriage. It was a decision she welcomed. She wasn’t keen on living in a house that had been decorated and lived in by his former wife.
***
No longer subjected to the crushing deadlines of a full-time newspaper job, Margo now luxuriated in her new role of being the pampered wife of a wealthy man, with time to write a novel. It was something she always wanted to do. She attended creative writing classes at NYU, commuting to New York once a week. She also wrote for publications she now had more time to read – Vogue, Travel & Leisure, Harper’s Bazaar. Her articles focused on food, art, fashion – subject matter she had explored as a lifestyle reporter before transitioning to financial writing.
There’s so much to enjoy, Margo reflected, her anxiety lifting as memories of Lester’s amorous pursuit of her flooded her consciousness. The expensive gifts, the fabulous dinners at Philadelphia’s poshest restaurants, their trip on Lester’s yacht to the Caribbean where they snorkeled and lazily soaked up the sun, the weekend flights on his Learjet to Lester’s “log cabin in the sky” near Jackson Hole for skiing.
In addition to their rustic log home in Jackson, their Heron Cove waterfront residence, their 62-ft. Oyster sailing yacht moored in Annapolis near the Naval Academy, there was Lester’s 2000 acre game preserve abutting Yellowstone Park where he hunted for antelope, elk and moose. Margo accompanied him on these hunts, becoming a competent marksman in her own right, despite a skittishness about killing animals.
“They’re so adorable,” she told Lester when he urged her to take aim and shoot. “I can’t bear to kill them, especially the babies!”
He would laugh, try to convince her that hunting animals was environmentally sound. “It’s ok. If you don’t kill some of them off, they overpopulate and have a tough time finding enough food to eat,” he told her, an explanation that did not change Margo’s feelings about slaughtering defenseless small animals.
During ski season, they relaxed in the Jackson Hole retreat where they entertained Lester’s business acquaintances in the gas and oil industries. The location was only a short flight on the Learjet to the company’s headquarters in Pinedale, an area known for its gas and oil wells and population of hard-living rig operators notorious for their abuse of cheap wine and methamphetamine.
True, she didn’t own any of this yet, but once their prenup kicked in, half of Lester’s assets would be hers. Funny. She had no idea what that would be. Several hundred million, maybe. An unimaginable sum – cash, investments, real estate, shares in Fuller Energy. The very thought of this windfall evoked the most uncomfortable emotions – smugness and grandiosity on the one-hand, unexplainable fear and uncertainty that it might disappear if she wasn’t cautious, watchful.
A lot could happen in that time, Margo thought. The telephone call from Mary Lou Fuller had made her feel vulnerable, insecure, as if almost anything could happen to shatter her carefully orchestrated future.
She would have see to it that Lester’s son and daughter-in-law couldn’t get their grubby, greedy little hands on his assets. She had no idea what she would have to do to protect her interests, other than to take any and all precautions necessary to safeguard what was rightfully hers.
CHAPTER 4
Danny and Mary Lou lived a subsistence existence in a trailer park on the edge of Bedford, South Carolina, a reality that surpassed Lester’s understanding, according to Margo’s way of thinking. Certainly, she had heard him complain about it ad nauseam.
On one level, she couldn’t blame Lester for his failure to fully understand Danny’s rejection of the privileged existence he was born into. On the other hand, she couldn’t help but feel their estrangement was Lester’s fault for being so unforgiving.
Dirt poor, working as a lineman for Southern Power & Light, Danny eked out a living climbing power poles and dodging live wires. There was a son, Charlie, born before their marriage, just prior to his graduation from Bridgefield Academy – an exclusive prep school with a tuition to match – a $30,000 a year price tag that prepared students for the Naval Academy, West Point, the Ivy League. Several years later, he eloped with Mary Lou, a girl from the housing