Underneath the surface, things were much better. The jet’s maintenance records were good, and it was available for about $10 million. After a short negotiation it was mine. I imagined that with a little paint and some new leather it would look great. So I embarked on Phase Two of the process: decorating. In the 1920s and 30s, when a man wanted a fine automobile, he ordered the chassis from a manufacturer such as Packard or Duesenberg, then sought out a coach-maker such as LeBaron or Fisher to finish the car. The body and interior were a separate piece of work from the operating aspects of the car, a system that would be ludicrously inconvenient and expensive in this day and age. Over time, the coach-makers were absorbed by car companies. Today all that’s left of Fisher Body Works is a little logo in the doorjamb of old G.M. cars; acquired by Chrysler, LeBaron is the name of a now discontinued sedan. Amazingly enough, this practice still exists in the world of private jets. The manufacturers deliver a “green” airplane, so called because a green corrosion-resistant coating covers the metal. It then goes to a “completion shop,” where the interior is produced, exterior paint is applied, and the plane is finished off. Each interior is an utterly one-off, custom design. I now had to shop for a completion center to refurbish my plane. There are five premier shops in the United States that handle Gulfstreams, and I was soon awash in glossy brochures from each of them. I eagerly pawed through the photos, looking for inspiration in the transformation of my ugly duckling. Trouble is, the pictures were even uglier. Some of the planes were perfectly suited to the sort of folks who would think the high roller’s suite at Caesars Palace is too drab and understated. They were a riot of gold-plating, mirrors, and vulgar clashes of contrasting, expensive materials. Another set was calmer, but had jarring elements that made one wonder what the designers were thinking. My favorite was a plane with overstuffed chairs upholstered in white leather. The leather on the chairbacks was gathered into a narrow vertical slot in the center of the chair, with folds and wrinkles that were pinched into the slot. I’m sure that the designer had other aspirations, but it looked to me like nothing so much as a giant white leather rectum.

When I discovered the kind of product the completion centers were offering, it became clear that, once again, I’d need some outside help. Through mutual friends I interviewed Lee Dicks Guice, an interior designer reputed to be up to the task. Every design professional has an opening pitch designed to both entice and intimidate the client. A few minutes into Ms. Guice’s spiel, she was saying something meaningful about how the dialogue between designer and client would result in the perfect reflection of the client Zeitgeist, or some such. I handed her the photo of the white leather seats. “So, explain how any designer could do this.” She paused for a second, then looked me in the eye, replying, “Isn’t it obvious? The client must have been a colossal asshole.” Setting aside the lingering worry about what type of seats would reflect my own Zeitgeist, I hired Lee to design the interior. “It will be a simple, straightforward job,” I said, “just reupholster it, fix the wood, and paint the damned thing.” Lee said “Uh-huh” with such lack of conviction that it gave me pause.

Decorating a plane is even more wildly expensive than flying in one. No matter how outrageous you think a ground-based price is, wait until you try to put the stuff into a jet. Part of this is the genuine need to use special lightweight materials. Strict F.A.A. regulations also play a role. Mostly, however, it seems to be a way for the completion centers to take a rich guy for a ride even more expensive than he’ll get in his jet. People who have been in business a while tend to develop a good bullshit detector—a sixth sense that tells them when things do not add up. I fancy myself an expert in this arena, and count on it to see me through many tough situations—jets included. What I failed to realize is that my bullshit detector would be in constant alarm. Everything I heard told me I was being taken advantage of left, right, and center. It wasn’t a question of detecting bullshit—I was swimming neck deep in it. But you can’t fight it all, you have to prioritize. Every day brought a new example of bullshit triage. Through sheer force of will, Lee managed to keep most of the costs under control. When that wasn’t possible, she found outside vendors to improve the quality. She designed a special carpet that was to be handwoven by the top carpet weaver in the world, while the completion center offered what was by comparison a very ordinary carpet. The custom carpet came to $24,924; the run-of-the-mill version was $25,000. Custom design became an addiction. I could understand custom woodwork; after all, the pieces were cut to measure. But why in the name of God would I need custom cloth? Yet the pull toward custom was inexorable. F.A.A.-mandated procedures and criteria added so much to the cost that the material price was largely irrelevant anyway, so why not do it right? In the end, every stitch of fabric in the plane was custom-woven. The plates in the galley were custom-designed and painted in Austria to match the stripe Lee did for the exterior. Much of the leather was custom-dyed, and Lee traveled to the sawmill to select the logs that would be turned into veneer. About the only place I drew the line in favor of ready-made was the wineglasses—the custom samples of Baccarat crystal just never looked right to me. Passengers in a plane don’t have direct contact with the engines or avionics. Instead, their experience is dominated by a small number of design details, finishes, and materials. Change these and you change the plane in a dramatic way. My favorite example is “memory foam,” a nasa-designed substance that molds itself to the contours of your body. It’s almost never used by completion centers, but a few hundred dollars’ worth totally changed the feel of the chairs. Lee had to make a half-dozen variations of density and thickness and have me do “sit tests” to find the right combination. Yet it was worth the effort and every penny a hundred times over. Electronics, on the other hand, are expensive. A new switch—say, for a reading light—was $300. Unfortunately, there are almost a hundred switches in the cabin. As long as you’re replacing the switches, you might as well get neat new halogen reading lights for another $15,000. The two flat-screen TVs set me back $36,000. The old telephone on the plane was analog and sounded awful—you really couldn’t conduct business on it. A new, digital telephone was “only” $100,000, not counting the fax-machine adapter for $20,000. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t work outside the U.S. Amid the cruel calculus of the refurb hangar my friend “C,” a billionaire known for his Zen-like affinity for solitude, asked me who my acoustic guy was. My what? It turned out that, if I really wanted to do it right, I needed to hire an acoustic expert to select the proper kind of soundproofing. Otto Pobanz, a 76-year-old former pilot, is the acoustic consultant of the cognoscenti among private-jet owners. Prior to taking the plane in for completion, I picked up Otto in Dallas for a test flight. Up the stairs popped a jovial, burly old guy with six suitcases. Was he going to move in? No, it turned out that five of the cases were crammed with the latest in electronic gear. We spent the next several hours charting every decibel at every frequency from every seat.