Phoebe sat down in the chair across from my desk, the one clients used to use, and she said: “Who put it on the internet?”

I told her the truth, which is that I do not know.

That is genuinely true and it is also the most convenient available fact and I have never been able to sit comfortably inside it.

The recording came from the estate’s own internal system — Russell had audio on the service corridors, a thing he had installed and forgotten. Arthur obtained it on the second day.

Grant made the decision to release it, and Arthur executed the release through three intermediaries, and by the time I was told it had four hundred thousand plays.

I was informed. That is the precise word. I was in Nashville with a sedated child upstairs and my brother came into the room and said it’s out, and I said good.