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 all," I said. "Sitting here reading the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe. I'm scaring myself shitless."

He laughed politely.

"But does any of it look good-as far as the suicides go?"

Just then I realized something.

"Hey, where are you calling from?"

"Home. Why?"

"Didn't you say you live up in Maryland?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Then this is a toll 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 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 pall Upon that spot, as upon all, And the mystic wind went by Murmuring in melody Then-ah 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 a half to me and put a cold finger on my chest.

Death was in that poisonous wave, And in its gulf a fitting grave I finished reading the last poem at three o'clock in the morning. I had found only one more correlation between the poetry and the suicide notes. The line attributed in the reports to Dallas detective Garland Petry-"Sadly, I know I am shorn of my strength"-was taken from a poem entitled "For Annie."

But I found no match of the last words attributed to Beltran, the Sarasota detective, with any poem that Edgar Allan Poe had written. I began to wonder if through my fatigue I had simply missed it but knew that I had read too carefully, despite the lateness of the hour. There simply wasn't a match. "Lord help my poor soul." That was the line. I now thought that it had been the last true prayer of a suicidal man. I scratched Beltran from the list, thinking that his words of misery were truly his.

I studied my notes while fending off sleep and decided that the McCafferty case of Baltimore and the Brooks case of Chicago were too similar to be ignored. I knew then what I would do in the morning. I would go to Baltimore to find out more.

That night my dream came back. The only recurring nightmare of my entire life. As always, I dreamed I was walking across a vast frozen lake, the ice blue-black beneath my feet. In all directions I was equal distances from nowhere, all horizons were a blinding, burning white. I put my head down and walked. I hesitated when I heard a girl's voice, a call for help. I looked around but she was not there. I turned and headed on. A step. Two. Then the hand came up through the ice and gripped me. It pulled me toward the growing hole. Was it pulling me down or trying to pull its way out? I never knew. In all the times I'd had the dream I never knew.

All I saw was the hand and slender arm, reaching up from the black water. I knew the hand was death. I woke up.

The lights and the television were still on. I sat up and looked around, not comprehending at first and then remembering where I was and what I was doing. I waited for the chill to pass and then got up. I flicked the TV off and went to the minibar, broke the seal and opened the door. I selected a small bottle of Amaretto and sipped it without a glass. I checked it off on the little list they give you. Six dollars. I studied the list and the exorbitant prices just to give myself something to do.

Eventually, I felt the liquor start to warm me. I sat on the bed and checked the clock. It was quarter to five. I needed to go back. I needed sleep. I got under the covers and pulled the book off the bed table. I turned to "The Lake" and read it again. My eyes kept returning to the two lines.

Death was in that poisonous wave, And in its gulf a fitting grave Eventually, troubled thoughts gave way to exhaustion. I put the book down and collapsed back into my bed's shell. I slept the sleep of the dead after that.

It was against Gladden's instincts to stay in the city but he couldn't leave just yet. There were things he had to do. The wired-funds transfer would land at the Wells Fargo branch in a few hours and he had to get a replacement camera. That was a priority and that couldn't be done if he was on the road, running to Fresno or someplace. So he had to stay in L.A.

He looked up at the mirror over the bed and studied his image. He had black hair now. He hadn't shaved since Wednesday and already the whiskers were coming in thick. He reached to the bed table for the glasses and put them on.

He had dumped the colored contacts in the trash can at the In N Out where he'd eaten dinner the night before. He looked back up at the mirror and smiled at his new image. He was a new man.

He glanced over at the television. A woman was performing fellatio on one man while another was having sex with her in the position instinctively favored by dogs. The sound was turned down but he knew what the sound would be if it wasn't. The TV had been on all night. The porno movies that came with the price of the room did little in the way of arousing him because the performers were all too old and looked world-weary. They were disgusting. But he kept the TV on. It helped him remember that everyone had unholy desires.

He looked back to his book and began to read the poem by Poe again. He knew it by heart after so many years and so many readings. But, still, he liked to see the words on the page and hold the book in his hands. He somehow found it comforting.

In visions of the dark night I have dreamed of joy departed But a waking dream of life and light Hath left me broken-hearted Gladden sat up and put the book down when he heard a car pull to a stop outside his room. He walked to the curtains and peeked through at the parking lot. The sun hurt his eyes. The car was just somebody checking in. A man and a woman, they both looked drunk already and it wasn't yet noon.

Gladden knew it was time to go out. He first needed to get a newspaper to see if there was a story about Evangeline. About himself. Then to the bank. Then to find the camera. Maybe, if there was time, he'd go searching after that.