Billy Manchester was outside-well, his version of outside. He was standing at the railing of the outdoor patio of his penthouse apartment overlooking the island of Palm Beach and the Atlantic beyond. It was the kind of South Florida morning that’s lured people to this part of the country for more than a hundred years: sky clear and azure blue, air that’s clean and crisp and unsullied by pollution, carrying with it a salt scent of ocean water. The sun warm on the skin, containing an intensity that makes every color pop with a brightness you just don’t find in northern climes.

Billy had a folded Wall Street Journal in his hand. He was dressed in an immaculately pressed white oxford shirt and tailored trousers despite his stated intention not to visit his law offices today. His nose was in the air, as if scanning the far horizon. And the profile of his coffee-colored skin outlined against the sky gave the impression of some Nubian prince, or at least some GQ cover boy.

“I am sometimes astounded by your nearly prescient ability to call on me, Max, just at the simultaneous moment that I am considering calling you,” Billy said. “What is it they say about such psychic phenomenon?”

I was still inside his apartment, rooting around in his huge stainless-steel refrigerator, searching for a bottle of Rolling Rock despite the hour and my own stated objective to get back to work. I was dressed in faded jeans and an off-white T-shirt, off-white because of age and a lack of a decent bleaching, not because the color was fashionable. I had on a pair of beat-up deck shoes and no socks. In fact, I had not worn socks since I moved to Florida from Philadelphia some seven years ago.