The first crime committed by Preston Whitmore Van der Camp III occurred on a Tuesday in May, during what his mother, the former Countess Arabella Van der Camp (the original Whitmore, of the Connecticut Whitmores, not those other Whitmores from Ohio who made their money in retail), referred to as a "playdate." This word did not accurately capture the situation. A playdate implies parity, implies children of similar social standing engaging in reciprocal entertainment. What occurred in the east wing of the Van der Camp penthouse was more accurately described as a hostile corporate takeover with juice boxes.
Preston was three years, four months, and twelve days old. He had already fired three nannies, one for "insufficient enthusiasm," one for "making eye contact during naptime," and one for the unforgivable sin of suggesting that perhaps Preston should learn to tie his own shoes ("I'll have people for that," he'd reportedly said, though at the time his vocabulary consisted mainly of "mine," "now," and "call Father's lawyer").
The target of his first criminal enterprise was Tyler Montgomery, age three years and two months, son of Deborah Montgomery, who taught yoga to celebrities in the building's wellness center and therefore occupied a social strata that Preston's father, Preston Whitmore Van der Camp II, referred to as "the service-adjacent."
Tyler had brought a toy fire truck. Not just any fire truck, this was a limited edition, hand-painted, artisanal wooden fire truck from a small workshop in Vermont that employed only reformed criminals and charged $400 for what was essentially a block of wood with wheels. The truck had a working ladder. It had a siren that made a pleasant, non-jarring sound designed by acoustic engineers to stimulate neural development without causing stress. It had been featured in Architectural Digest's "Toys That Match Your Aesthetic" spread.
Preston wanted it.
Not a similar truck. Not a truck ordered from the same workshop with expedited shipping. He wanted that truck, the one currently being clutched by Tyler's sticky, peasant fingers, the one that had been slobbered on by someone whose mother did not have a standing reservation at Eleven Madison Park.
Preston approached the situation with the strategic precision that would later serve him well in corporate acquisitions. He did not hit Tyler. Violence was for people who lacked access to superior legal representation. Instead, Preston walked to the intercom system installed at toddler height (his father had insisted. "If he's old enough to have opinions, he's old enough to have counsel on speed dial") and pressed the button labeled "LEGAL."
Within four minutes, Mortimer P. Smythe, Esq., senior partner at Smythe, Smythe, Cromwell, and Smythe (the fourth Smythe was a golden retriever with a law degree from an online university, but he was very good at finding precedents), arrived in the playroom. Mortimer was seventy-three years old, wore a three-piece suit even while sleeping, and had not smiled since 1987, when a particularly favorable tax loophole had been discovered in the Marshall Islands.
"Young Master Van der Camp," Mortimer said, producing a leather portfolio from thin air. "How may I be of service?"
Preston pointed a chubby finger at Tyler. "That. Acquire it."
Mortimer adjusted his spectacles and approached Tyler, who was still happily vrooming his fire truck across a $12,000 Persian rug that had been woven by virgins in a country that no longer existed.
"Young man," Mortimer said, kneeling with the creaking sound of old bones and older money. "Do you have representation?"
Tyler looked up, confused. "I have a mommy."
"Insufficient," Mortimer said, producing a clipboard. "Do you have power of attorney? A litigation fund? Any offshore holdings in your name?"
Tyler's lower lip began to tremble. "I have Goldfish crackers?"
Mortimer sighed the sigh of a man who had seen this a thousand times before, usually from adults in arbitration hearings. He turned to Deborah Montgomery, who had been attempting to engage Arabella in conversation about chakras and was now watching with the dawning horror of someone realizing they had brought a juice box to a gunfight.
"Ms. Montgomery," Mortimer said, "I represent the interests of Preston Whitmore Van der Camp III. My client has expressed a desire to acquire the fire truck currently in your son's possession. I am prepared to offer immediate compensation."
He produced a check for $200 and a five-page liability waiver.
Deborah looked at the check, then at the waiver, then at the marble foyer, then at the notary public who had apparently materialized from behind a potted ficus.
"This is... this is insane," Deborah said. "He's three years old. He can't sign a contract."
"Neither could the Sultan of Brunei when he acquired his first oil well," Mortimer replied smoothly. "Yet we adapt. The check is made out to 'Bearer.' The waiver releases my client from any future claims of emotional distress, property damage, or 'playdate-related trauma.' Sign here, here, and initial here indicating you understand that my client assumes no responsibility for your son's future therapy bills."
Arabella Van der Camp, who had been examining her cuticles during this exchange, suddenly spoke. "Deborah, darling, do sign. Mortimer is quite thorough. And Tyler has so many other toys, doesn't he? I'm sure he won't miss this one. Think of it as... a learning experience. About capitalism. Which is really the best gift we can give our children, don't you agree?"
Deborah looked at Arabella's $4,000 cashmere sweater, at the notary's professional smile, at the check for $200 which was actually more than she made in a week teaching downward dog to B-list celebrities. She looked at her son, who had begun to cry quietly, clutching the fire truck as if it were the last lifeboat on the Titanic.
"I... I don't know if this is legal," Deborah said.
"My dear," Mortimer said, leaning close, "I have been practicing law for fifty-one years. I have argued before the Supreme Court. I have structured mergers that reshaped entire industries. I have created legal entities so complex they required their own zip codes. Trust me when I say: this is absolutely, unquestionably, beautifully legal. The question is not whether it's legal. The question is whether you want to find out what happens when you refuse."
He said this last part with the gentle tone of a man discussing weather, but Deborah heard the steel underneath. She thought about her job, about her apartment in the building that she could only afford because of the employee discount, about the fact that the Van der Camps donated more to the co-op board's annual gala than she would make in ten years.
She signed.
The fire truck was immediately bagged as "evidence of transfer" and placed in a climate-controlled display case in Preston's nursery, where it would sit untouched for eleven years, because Preston had never actually wanted to play with the fire truck. He had wanted to own it. The distinction was crucial.
As Tyler and his mother were escorted out by security (standard procedure for all exits from Van der Camp properties), Preston stood at the window, watching them walk to the service elevator. He held a juice box, organic, cold-pressed, $18 per serving, that he wasn't even drinking.
"Mortimer," Preston said, his first complete sentence that wasn't a demand.
"Yes, Young Master?"
"That was easy."
"Yes, Young Master. It usually is."
"I want to do it again."
Mortimer allowed himself a small, professional smile. "I suspected you might. I have taken the liberty of preparing a list of other children in the building who possess desirable toys. I have also established a shell corporation, 'Prestigious Juvenile Acquisitions, LLC', to handle future transactions. Your father has approved the initial capitalization of $50,000."
Preston nodded, as if this were entirely reasonable, which in his world it was.
"Good," he said. "Tomorrow, I want the Henderson boy's train set. And the day after that, the Goldstein girl's pony. Not a pony like it. That pony."
"Understood, Young Master. Shall I prepare the paperwork?"
"Do."
Preston turned back to the window. Below him, Central Park spread out like a kingdom waiting to be acquired. He was three years old, and he had already learned the most important lesson of his life: everything had a price, and he would never, ever have to pay it.
Over the next six months, Prestigious Juvenile Acquisitions, LLC completed seventeen transactions. The Henderson train set was acquired through a complex maneuver involving a zoning violation complaint against the Hendersons' weekend home in the Hamptons. The Goldstein pony was purchased after it was discovered that the stable it lived in violated some obscure environmental regulation that Mortimer had actually helped write in 1982, specifically so it could be used in situations like this.
By age four, Preston had accumulated a toy collection worth more than most people's homes, and he had touched exactly none of it. The toys sat in their climate-controlled cases, trophies of conquest, while Preston moved on to his next obsession: juice box market manipulation.
But that, as they say, is another story.
The tolerance for this behavior was absolute and unwavering. When Deborah Montgomery attempted to complain to the building's co-op board, she found that Preston's father had recently donated the new lobby fountain, a $2 million installation featuring a sculpture of dolphins that spat filtered water into a pool of imported Italian marble. The board suggested she "consider the bigger picture" and "not make waves." She moved to Queens three months later.
When Tyler's pediatrician noted increased anxiety in the child and suggested it might be related to "traumatic loss experiences," the pediatrician received a cease-and-desist letter from a law firm that didn't even represent the Van der Camps, it was just a firm that enjoyed sending cease-and-desist letters pro bono to anyone who might inconvenience the wealthy.
Preston's parents were not concerned. They were proud. At the annual Van der Camp family Christmas gathering (held in February for tax purposes), Preston's father toasted his son's "early development of business acumen." His mother bragged to her friends that Preston had "such a strong sense of ownership." His grandfather, the original Preston Whitmore Van der Camp, who had made his fortune selling defective lifeboats to the Titanic (allegedly, no one could prove it, and the family donated heavily to maritime museums), wiped a tear from his eye and said, "That's my boy. That's my blood."
The fire truck remained in its case, a monument to the first crime, the opening salvo in a lifelong campaign of acquisition without consequence. It would eventually be donated to a museum, with a plaque reading: "Gift of Preston Whitmore Van der Camp III, noted philanthropist and collector."
The plaque would not mention Tyler Montgomery. It would not mention the $200 check. It would not mention that the "philanthropist" had been three years old when he acquired his first asset through coercion and legal intimidation.
But that's the thing about being too rich for consequences: you don't just get away with the crime. You get a tax deduction for it.