It wasn’t a bad way to socialize.

Now Sebastian’s housekeeper let me in and motioned me to the parlor to the right of a huge foyer dotted with priceless art and sculpture. I stayed where I was, trying to imagine how easy it would be to steal this collection. I didn’t want it. I just wanted to know how an art thief might proceed.

The fact that I was now standing under Sebastian’s priceless Murano glass chandelier plotting a burglary was little more than a fluke. Fresh out of grad school, as well as courage after the John Quayle encounter, I had drifted to Delray Beach to work on the crime beat at one of Sebastian’s weeklies.

Trying to find my feet again, there had been too many hours in every day. Six months in, on the verge of starting over somewhere more exciting, I met Sophie at the local grocery store. She’s a chatterer, my Sophie, and the store was nearly empty. I told her what I did, she told me her hobby was crime research and internet sleuthing, and we became instant best friends.

Just for fun we decided to create a podcast about a local jewelry store heist. By criminal standards, the crime was mediocre, a theft that had netted the burglars less than a thousand dollars in merchandise. But between us, we found some interesting angles, and a friend with a recording studio. We wrote and recorded the podcast for entertainment, never expecting anything to come of it. But when we finished, I played it for some of my colleagues and wondered out loud if it would be an interesting addition to the paper’s lackluster website.

Three weeks later I was called to a meeting at this very house, with the boss I’d never met. I thought my command performance might relate to an unflattering story I’d written about a local politician. I hadn’t expected to like Sebastian Freiman, who was known to be outspoken and domineering. Instead I fell under his spell immediately.

The Sebastian I met was a distinguished silver-haired man in his late fifties, wearing jeans and a polo shirt and munching a bagel as he strolled into the foyer. He had one for me, too, along with a travel mug of coffee, and even better, as we walked around his extensive grounds, he told me he liked our podcast. He asked if I’d like to inaugurate a series that he would bankroll and promote through his papers, as well as his other contacts.

I was so taken aback I had to finish my bagel before I could answer. I told him I couldn’t do a podcast without Sophie, and he told me to hire her and whoever else I needed, but not to assume the money wouldn’t dry up if it was spent too freely. It wasn’t quite that simple, but nearly. When Sebastian wants something, Sebastian almost always gets it.

Today he didn’t keep me waiting long enough to finish plotting my crime. He joined me from some room beyond the foyer and came to stand beside me. He’s a head taller than I am, and as physically fit as any man in his income bracket who golfs and works out with a personal trainer. He was wearing khaki slacks and a pale yellow sport shirt, along with a vintage Patek Philippe watch with a brown leather strap. One of two ex-wives had given it to him, and he’d kept it after the divorce because, as he’d told me, unlike the marriage, the watch would hold its value forever.