“The defendant, William Stockton Quinn, is a rich, privileged boy from a rich, privileged family. How rich? How privileged? His family has a net worth north of seven hundred million dollars. That’s equivalent to the combined wealth of the poorest quarter of the human race. Middle-class people—people like me, maybe people like you—can’t conceive of this much money. Or the kind of life this money provides. But that’s the only life the defendant has ever known. From the day he was born, he got everything he needed, anything he asked for. He attended a top boarding school, Groton. The best private college, Princeton. Were he not sitting in this courtroom, he’d be applying to the best medical schools, Harvard and Yale. Wherever Billy Quinn goes, doors fly wide open.”

Seven hundred million dollars? Where did he get that number? We’re probably at five, maybe six hundred, including CW’s money, which isn’t mine yet. Anderson’s estimate is a king’s ransom; a number so enormous it sounds mythical.

Visibly excited, Anderson bounces on his toes. He describes, in exaggerated detail, the symbols of our wealth: multiple homes, exclusive addresses, exotic vacations, luxury vehicles.

I watch Eleanor. Her body is stock-still, her face unruffled, but I know she is recoiling inside. To discuss money in such graphic terms is vile, like describing bodily functions. As for me, I listen carefully, respectfully. But I can’t grasp Anderson’s point. We are rich. We are gross. So what? Meanwhile, the audience hangs on every word. We may be loathsome capitalists, but indiscriminate spending is the ultimate aphrodisiac. One male juror is checking me out with newfound curiosity. I’d bet one of my many mythical stacks that hearing about my net worth gives him a raging hard-on.