The caller was Michael Warren.

"Just wanted to check in-I figured you'd be up-and see what you came up with."

Again I felt uneasy about his self-involvement, his many questions. It was unlike any other source that had ever provided me with information on the sly. But I couldn't just get rid of him, given the risk he had taken.

"I'm still going through it an," I said. "Sitting here reading the poetry of Edgar AUan Poe. I'm scaring myself shitless."

He lauglrted politely. "But does any of it look good-as far as the suicides

Then I remembered something.

"Hey, where are you calling from?"

"Home. Why?"

"Didn't you say you live up in Maryland?" 6,Y. Why9"

"Then this is a toil call, right? It will be a record on your bill that you called me here, man. Didn't you think about that?"

I couldn't believe his carelessness, especially in light of his own warnings about the FBI and Agent Walling.

"Oh shit, I ... I don't really think I care. Nobody's going to pull my records. It's not like I passed on defense secrets, for crying out loud."

"I don't know. You know 'em better than me."

"So never mind that, what have you got?"

"I told you I'm still looking. I've got a couple names that might be good. A few names."

"Well, then, good. I'm glad it was worth the risk."

I nodded but realized he couldn't see me do this.

"Yeah, well, like I said before, thanks. I gotta get back to it now. I'm fading and want to get it done."

"Then I'll leave you to it. Maybe tomorrow, when you get a chance, give me a call to let me know what's going VI on.

"I don't know if that will be a good idea, Michael. I think we better lay low."

"Well, whatever you think. I guess I'll be reading all about it, eventually, anyway. You have a deadline yet?"

"Nope. Haven't even talked about it."

"Nice editor. Anyway, go back to it. Happy hunting."

Soon I was back in the embrace of the words of the poet.

Dead a hundred and fifty years but reaching from the grave to grip me. Poe was a master of mood and pace. The mood was gloom and the pace often frenetic. I found myself identifying the words and phrases with my own life. "I dwelt alone / In a world of moan," Poe wrote. "And my soul was a stagnant tide." Cutting words that seemed, at least at that moment, to fit me.

I read on and soon felt myself gripped by an empathic hold of the poet's own melancholy when I read the stanzas of "The Lake."

But when the Night had thrown her pafl Upon that spo as upon all And the mystic wind went by Murmuring in melody'Me then I would awake To the terror of the lone lake Poe had captured my own dread and fitful memory. My nightmare. He had reached across a century and half to me and put a cold finger on my chest.