It was a shot of someone’s basement, a washer and dryer and a row of fishing rods. The camera zoomed in to frame a stool set on the concrete floor. In the lower-right corner of the screen was a date: 05/02/02.

A man came out from behind the camera. It was Sunshine Ray. He wore a neon-green T-shirt that said Hecho en Florida, the color too harsh for the lens and sort of washing out at the edges. Ray sat and adjusted himself on the stool, but he’d done a poor job of framing and the upper half of the shot was filled with the stained ceiling, his face at the bottom. Somewhere off camera, a dog barked twice.

“Hi, Whitney.” He waved. “If you’re watching this, understand that what I’m about to show you is actually important, important enough to entrust this footage to the US Postal Service. And it means that, knock wood, nothing’s happened to me and Romeo.”

Ever since we’d spoken, Ray explained, he’d been angry at me. It wasn’t personal; he knew I was only doing my job. “It’s the job that pisses me off,” he said. “You want the more thrilling story—Rubicon’s medical miracle—so I realized, unless I did something crazy, you were going to run with it. I’d have to give you a better angle.”

Now he rose and left the frame. Through the faint buzz of the tape, I heard a fridge door open and close, dogs barking in the background, and when he returned, he held two bags of white blood. He jiggled the solution for the camera.

“You’re probably wondering how I got my hands on these, so maybe now’s a good time to start taking notes.”

As if watching a self-help tape, I obediently took up my pad.

Yesterday, Ray said, he and Romeo went hunting for Common Dreams. They located the purple truck roaming by the Glades—I pictured Gwen and Vince—and for a long time they stalked it through the south side, waiting for their chance. When the truck wandered onto a burned-down block, Ray and Romeo pulled ski masks over their heads. They each carried a snub-nosed .38.

Romeo lay down in the middle of the street while Ray hid behind the last standing wall of a burned-down house. The truck rolled to a stop just a few feet from the body. One of the paramedics hustled over to Romeo, who suddenly rolled over, pointing the gun.