Sonny was thirty years old and neither handsome nor ugly, with a stringy, marathon runner’s body and a receding hairline. Sonny leaned toward Brooks Brothers clothes. Having graduated from Andover Preparatory School and Yale University, you could see why.

The next time Billy saw Sonny was three hours later on the street.

Outside the City Bank Building’s entrance on Twentieth Street off Lexington Avenue, Billy watched Sonny open his new umbrella purchased that very day at Brooks Brothers during his lunch hour, then watched him walk briskly away. Billy found himself walking just as briskly in the same direction. Not far from the City Bank Building Sonny turned and stared at the skinny guy with the familiar face suddenly walking beside him.

“Haven’t I seen you before?” asked Sonny.

“I think so, sir,” said Billy, tugging down his wet red Western Kentucky University baseball hat, pulling up the collar of his coat, and sticking his hands in his pockets.

“What’d you say? Speak up.”

“I said I think so, sir.”

“Think what?”

“I think you saw me before, sir.”

“I thought so. What do you do?” he asked the chinless boy with the bad posture.

“I work in the shipping department, sir,” mumbled Billy. “I box suits, sir.”

“What? Speak up.”

“I said I work in the shipping department. I box suits, sir.”

“Do what?”

“Box suits.”

“What’s your name?”

“Billy Constable, sir.”

“I have seen you before.”

“Yes, sir, you have, sir,” answered Billy, still speaking up. “I saw you today. You were with some other gentlemen.”

“They weren’t gentlemen. They were buyers,” said Sonny Lieberman, laughing lustily at his little joke.

Billy Constable was confused.

“Those guys you saw me with own a chain of retail stores in western Pennsylvania,” explained Sonny Lieberman. “Cities like Pittsburgh, Altoona, Johnstown, and State College. Lots of coal and steel miners in that part of the country. Perfect customers for Empire Clothing. They love our suits,” he said enthusiastically. “Our suits last forever. Buy one and you can keep it for life. Did you know you can drive a good-size nail through one of our pant legs or the suit coat, pull it out, and there won’t be a hole? The cloth just closes up. Did you know that? Try it sometime. And did you know that all our suits come with two pair of pants? Anyway, those guys you saw me with, they’re big customers of ours. Hey, do you like my new Yale umbrella? Blue and white. My school colors. Where’d you say you were going?”

“I didn’t say, sir. I’m going to the subway station, sir.”

“Me too. I catch the 4 train. How about you?”

“I catch the 5 train, sir,” muttered Billy, liking how he was sirring his boss. Showed manners, a habit Billy was trying to adopt.

“What? You catch what?”

“I catch the 5 train, sir,” he said louder. And then not able to stop himself, Billy said, “I’ll bet you my 5 train comes in before your 4 does.”