Dr. Raymond Corbett strolled around his two-hundred-square-foot walk-in closet, deciding which cashmere blazer he would wear to the party. It was finally going to be his big night in the Hamptons. After years of being overlooked by almost every yacht club and country club on the South Fork of Long Island, he had persuaded the Longboat Yacht Club to allow him to become a member. The membership came with a very high price tag. Apparently, one could buy one’s way into the stodgy organization, which catered to old money and the nouveaux riches. One either had to own a yacht over eighty-three feet, be a power broker, or be some sort of celebrity. He was none of those. He was merely a physician who specialized in longevity wellness. Yes, he had been treating patients for almost a decade now, prescribing placebos and mind-altering drugs to women of a certain age—mostly rich widows, to be precise.

He took one of his Tom Ford designer blazers from the rack and frowned at the brass buttons. They needed to be polished. Now. He pressed his finger down on the house intercom. “Henry!” he bellowed. “Meet me in my dressing room. Now!”

A soft voice replied, “I will be there right away, sir.”

Corbett tossed the Tom Ford blazer on the bed and then chose an Armani blazer to wear. He thumbed through his new collection of striped button-down shirts and picked a shirt from one of his favorite designers, Brioni. Recalling the $820 price tag, he snickered. Yes, he would almost look like a million bucks. Almost. The jacket, shirt, Gucci shoes, and Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Concept 44MM titanium watch totaled almost $160,000. He’d leave the pinkie ring home. No sense being ostentatious. He snickered to himself again. Tonight was the night he would reveal to the members of the yacht club that he would be displaying a painting at a private exhibit: one by Marc Chagall that was once thought to have been stolen and burned by the Nazis. He had made arrangements to acquire it at a private sale brokered by Christie’s. Tonight he was having a party, basically in honor of himself, at the yacht club. Once he had possession of the Chagall, he would hire a private security company, which would cost a small fortune, to deliver the artwork and keep guard over it during the gala he would hold at the club, then take it to a special locker at the Museum of Modern Art. He had made arrangements for the museum to borrow the painting in the fall. He wanted to spend his summer being known in the Hamptons as a great art connoisseur.

Yes, his group of “longevity” doctors—and their new protocol to moderate the progress of aging—had brought him and his two partners the wealth to live an extravagant lifestyle, something he was enjoying immensely. He had a co-op in Manhattan and now this modest home in Sag Harbor.