She had the feeling that he was usually good with women, but he was too worried and otherwise occupied to try to assert what she assumed was considerable charm. She could see that part of him was still appreciative of her looks and her relative closeness. But she, too, was where she wanted to be. Not across the table from him, but next to him. Well within reach. She shook her head and just looked at him.

He nodded and glanced down at his drink, but didn’t take a sip.

“I’m not,” he said, paused. Obviously making an effort, he started again. She could barely hear his quiet voice over the music. “I am not a snitch,” he said.

She nodded agreeably. “Where’s your partner and Agent Norwood?”

“You know they’re working together?” he asked, glancing up at her and then away again.

The Angel just nodded. She’d learned things from Jamal’s notes on the computer, but there were still many missing details. One of the things she didn’t know was how much she could trust Stevens.

“I should be with them,” he said in an even softer voice that the Angel could barely discern.

“Why aren’t you?” she asked reasonably.

“Franny”—he almost choked on the name—“wouldn’t let me go with them. I have a family—two wives, a young daughter—”

The Angel’s eyebrows rose.

“—I would have gone anyway, but Franny and your man left without me.” The dam within him burst and Stevens looked right at her and spoke rapidly and almost pleadingly. “It was the jokers, the missing jokers. They were being taken off the streets—”

“Kidnapped?”

Stevens nodded. “Yeah, and something wasn’t right. There was no … interest … in the case upstairs, but Franny kept pushing, kept gnawing on it. He went against orders, kept investigating. Finally he and Norwood caught a break with this TV guy, this Michael Berman. They disappeared, vanished. I don’t know where and how, but this chick, Mollie—she was on American Hero—”

“The teleporter?”

“Yeah. And yesterday, a bunch of the jokers just reappeared, right in the middle of the precinct. It was a fucking circus. They kept babbling about the games, death matches. Father Squid—” Stevens choked and almost broke down.

“What about him?” the Angel asked. She had met the kindly old joker priest several times. He was, many said, the soul of Jokertown, and she believed that. She didn’t know what denomination he was, but there was no doubt in her heart that he served the Lord.

“They say he’s dead.”

She felt suddenly cold. “And Jamal and your partner?”

Stevens shook his head miserably. “They weren’t among the jokers.”

“What happened to them?” the Angel asked, her jaw clenched.

“They’re … gone. Vanished. Supposedly the Feds swooped them up.”

“I would have heard,”

“I know,” the cop said. “There’s … something wrong in the precinct.” He had to force the words out of his mouth.

“You think?”

He nodded. The Angel stared at him. He didn’t avert his eyes. There was misery in them, and worry for his partner and Jamal, and more than a hint of shame because he wasn’t with them.