Juanita: No, we’re not live. My editors will cut that one out, but if you wouldn’t mind keeping your answers PG, it will save them a lot of work later.

Cam: [doesn’t respond]

Juanita: As I was saying, the narratives that have come out since the home invasion haven’t exactly painted you as a hero of this story. You are the aggressor, the fraudster, the money-hungry villain.

Cam: Too bad I don’t have a mustache or I’d twirl it.

Juanita: Here are just a few of the stories circulating about you: that you’re involved in the mob, the head of a satanic cult, that your kitchens served as clandestine meeting spots for a ring of international child traffickers—

Cam: Now, that last one’s just ridiculous. And absolutely untrue. They all are.

Juanita: But still. Having all these unfavorable stories written about you must feel...

Cam: Invasive. Intrusive. Annoying. People love to make stuff up, don’t they?

Juanita: I meant the criticism.

Cam: [shrugging] I’m used to it by now.

Juanita: The BBC did a series on America’s biggest grifters and cited you as a classic example of an American businessman who will stop at nothing to succeed. Netflix is currently in talks to resurrect the show American Greed, with your story dominating their first three episodes. And a poll floating around Facebook last month declared you the most hated man in America behind Pharma Bro, Martin Shkreli.

Cam: Well, since Facebook says it, it must be true.

Juanita: And yet for months now, you have refused to talk to the media. Our many phone calls and emails and texts were left unanswered. You threatened legal action if my producer or I didn’t leave you alone.

Cam: All true.

Juanita: Until yesterday, when out of the blue you contacted me to request an interview. You were quite insistent, in fact. Why is that?

Cam: Well, I guess I figured it was time to set the record straight.

J A D E

2:51 p.m.

I’m pulling into the Westmore Music Academy lot when I spot him, the man leaning against the building’s brick and carved concrete sign. Pocked skin. Black-rimmed glasses. Skinny shoulders hunched against the rain. Atlanta is getting plowed with the tail of a tropical storm stalled over the gulf, blasting soupy heat all the way up to Tennessee, and he’s wearing that same cracked leather coat like it’s January and not early August, his hands shoved deep in the pockets as if for warmth.

I gun it up the hill hard enough to make my tires squeal, tapping a button on the steering wheel. “Call Cam.”

While the call connects, I glance in my side mirror, trying to pick him out of the trees and shrubs.