I’ve been lucky, Raab always said. He had a wife who adored him, three beautiful children who made him proud. His house in Larchmont (a whole lot more than just a house) that overlooked the Long Island Sound, and the Ferrari 585, which Raab once raced at Lime Rock and had its own special place in the five-car garage. Not to mention the box at Yankee Stadium and the Knicks tickets, on the floor of the Garden, just behind the bench.

Betsy, his assistant for over twenty years, stepped in carrying a chef’s salad on a plate along with a cloth napkin, Raab’s best defense against his proclivity for leaving grease stains on his Hermès ties. She rolled her eyes. “Raji, still…?”

Benjamin shrugged, drawing her eye to his notepad where he had already written down the outcome: $648.50. He knew that his buyer was going to take it. Raj always did. They’d been doing this little dance for years. But did he always have to play out the drama so long?

“Okay, my friend.” The Indian buyer sighed at last in surrender. “We consider it a deal.”

“Whew, Raj.” Raab exhaled in mock relief. “The Financial Times is outside waiting on the exclusive.”

The Indian laughed, too, and they closed out the deal: $648.50, just as he’d written down.

Betsy smiled-“He says that every time, doesn’t he?”-trading the handwritten contract for two glossy travel brochures that she placed next to his plate.

Raab tucked the napkin into the collar of his Thomas Pink striped shirt. “Fifteen years.”

All one had to do was step into Raab’s crowded office and it was impossible not to notice the walls and credenzas crammed with pictures of Sharon, his wife, and his children-Kate, the oldest, who had graduated from Brown; Emily, who was sixteen, and nationally ranked at squash; and Justin, two years younger-and all the fabulous family trips they’d taken over the years.

The villa in Tuscany. Kenya on safari. Skiing at Courchevel in the French Alps. Ben in his driver’s suit with Richard Petty at the Porsche rally school.