BonaLibro

Prologue

In a barrier island village along the Florida Coast, the name of which one never speaks, there lived until a short while ago, a gentleman of a certain estate. He still kept a mallet and saddle around, but the stable of ponies for contact sport and the greyhounds for coursing were gone. His abode was a measly ten-room apartment above a mere twelve-car garage, and what little income he had left, from renting out the manse, was consumed by debt and daily expenses.

A crock of well-spiced brisket of beef, otherwise known as chili, squabs he reared in a homemade coop, and vegetables raised on the polo ground, served as his principal diet. His vast collection of bespoke suits, ill-adapted to the Florida climate, had formerly sold on consignment, yet he recently cut a courageous figure in Brooks Brothers seconds from the outlet mall.

He was known by his peers for his excellent mind, though few could have said what for, and given to perusing sophistical tomes by Moldy Friedman, Ein Rant, and Friedrich von Hiccup, which still infected the imagination of the drug-addled leadership class. As these had become noxious to him, he burnt them on his bluestone hearth and collected second-hand cookery books, from which he gleaned his knowledge of chili and the delicacies of the Creoles. He supplemented this reading with novels, chronicles of the open road that urged him to dispossess himself of all that he once held dear. The most notable of these were Don Quixote and The Tale of Huckleberry Finn.

It is said by some that he went rather mad, when touched by death, consumed by debt and wilted by the endless summer, he auctioned off his remaining estate and all the valuables therein. Rumor had it the auction price settled his accounts at Goldman-Sachs, but did not leave enough for his bookie. As the white collar criminal class might say, Eddie was on the lam.

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