I noticed he said "we" one too many times but I didn't say anything about it. He led me down one of the aisles, his finger out and pointing as he read the program headings printed on the shelves. Eventually, he found the heading for the suicide study. The files had red tabs on them.

"These here," Warren said, raising his hand to point.

The files were thin, yet they took up three complete shelves. Oline Fredrick had been right, there were hundreds. Each red tag protruding from a file was a death. There was a lot of misery on the shelves. Now I had to hope that a few of them didn't belong there. Warren handed me the printout and I scanned the thirteen names.

"Out of all of these files only thirteen were homicide cops?"

"Yeah. The project has accumulated data on over sixteen hundred suicides. About three hundred a year. But most are street cops. Homicide dicks see the bodies but I guess for them the misery is over by the time they get there. They're usually the best and the brightest and the toughest. Seems like less of them eat the gun than the cops out on the beat. So I only came up with thirteen. Your brother and Brooks in Chicago also came up but I figured you have that stuff."

I just nodded.

"They should be alphabetical," he said. "Read me the names on the list and I'll pull the files. And give me your notebook."

It took less than five minutes to pull the files. Warren tore blank pages from my notebook and marked the spots in the stacks so they could be slipped back in quickly when we were done. It was intense work. It wasn't meeting a source like Deep Throat in a parking garage to help take down a president but my adrenaline was flowing anyway.

Still, the same rules applied. A source, no matter what his information is, has a reason, a motive, for putting himself on the line for you. I looked at Warren and couldn't see the true motive. It was a good story but it wasn't his story. He got nothing from helping other than knowing he had helped. Was that enough? I didn't know but I decided that at the same time that we were entering this sacred bond of reporter and secret source, I had to keep him at arm's length. Until I knew the true motive.

Files in hand, we walked quickly down two hallways until we got to room 303. Warren suddenly stopped and I almost rammed into him from behind. The door to his office was open two inches. He pointed to it and shook his head, signaling that he hadn't left it that way. I raised and dropped my shoulders, signaling back that it was his call. He leaned an ear toward the crack and listened. I heard something, too. It sounded like the crunching of papers, then a swishing sound. I felt a cold finger moving over my scalp. Warren turned back to me with a curious look on his face when suddenly the door swung inward and open.

It was like dominoes. Warren made a startled move, followed by me and then the small Asian man who stood there in the doorway with a feather duster in one hand and a trash bag in the other. We all took a moment to get our normal breathing going again.

"Sorry, mister," the Asian man said. "I clean your office."

"Oh, yeah," Warren said, smiling. "That's fine. That's good."

"You left copy machine on."

With that, he carried his goods down the hallway and used a key attached by a chain to his belt to get into the next office down. I looked at Warren and smiled.

"You're right, you're no Deep Throat."

"You're no Robert Redford. Let's go."

He told me to close the door, then turned the compact photocopy machine back on and moved around behind his desk, files in hand. I sat in the same chair I had been in earlier in the day.

"Okay," he said. "Let's start going through them. There should be a synopsis section in each protocol. Any kind of note or other significant detail should be there. If you think it fits, copy it."

We started going through the files. As much as I liked him, I didn't like the idea of letting him decide in half of the cases if they fit into my theory. I wanted to look at all of them.

"Remember," I said, "we're looking for any kind of flowery language that might sound like literature or a poem or whatever."

He closed the file he was looking at and dropped it on the stack.

"What?"

"You don't trust me to do this."

"No. I just… I want to make sure we're both on the same wavelength about this, that's all."

"Look, this is ridiculous," he said. "Let's just copy them all and get out of here. You can take them to your hotel and go through them there. It's quicker and safer. You don't need me."

I nodded and realized it was the way we should have done it all along. For the next fifteen minutes he operated the copier while I took the protocols from the files and replaced them after they were copied. It was a slow machine, not made for heavy use.

When we were done he turned off the machine and told me to wait in the office.

"I forgot about the cleaners. It might be better if I just take these back to storage, then come get you."

"Okay."

I started looking through the copied protocols while he was gone but was too nervous to concentrate on them. I felt like running out the door with the copies and getting away before anything could go wrong. I looked around his office to try to pass the time. I picked up the photo of Warren's family. A pretty, petite wife and two kids, a boy and a girl. Both of preschool age in the photo. The door opened while the frame was still in my hand. It was Warren and I felt embarrassed. He paid no notice.

"Okay, we're ready."

And like two spies we snuck out under cover of darkness.

Warren was silent almost all the way back to the hotel. I think it was because his involvement was over and he knew it. I was the reporter. He was the source. It was my story. I felt his jealousy and desire. For the story. For the job. For what he'd once been and had.

"Why'd you really quit, man?" I asked.

This time he dropped the bullshit.

"My wife, family. I was never home. One crisis after another, you know. I had to cover them all. Finally, I had to make a choice. Some days I think I made the right one. Some days I don't. This is one of those that I don't. This is a hell of a story, Jack."

Now I was silent for a while. Warren drove into the hotel's main entrance and headed around the circle to the doors. He pointed through the windshield to the right side of the hotel.

"See down there? That's where Reagan got it. I was there. Fuckin' five feet from Hinckley while we were waiting. He even asked me what time it was. Almost no other reporters were out there. Back then, most of them didn't bother staking his exits. But they did after that."

"Wow."

"Yeah, that was a highlight."

I looked over at him and nodded seriously and then we both laughed. We both knew the secret. Only in a reporter's world would it be a highlight. We both knew that probably the only thing better than witnessing a presidential assassination attempt as a reporter was witnessing a successful assassination. Just as long as you didn't catch a bullet in the crossfire.

He pulled over at the door and I got out and leaned my head back into the car.

"You're showing your true identity there, pal."

He smiled.

"Maybe."