“Sergeant?”

“Taylor,” the desk man supplied, after Ray paused for a moment.

Ray nodded. “Taylor. We need to see the top officer on duty. Captain Maseryk?” The name was a question.

Taylor shook his head, his wings rustling slightly as he moved. The Angel wondered if his nickname around the shop was Bat Man.

“Captain Mendelberg, she’s—”

“Busy,” a voice supplied from behind them.

The Angel turned. It was the female detective who’d responded to the call at Norwood’s hotel room. Razor Joan barely acknowledged the Angel with a flicker of her cold eyes. Instead, she focused on Ray.

“So this is the famous Billy Ray,” she said speculatively, her eyes gliding over him, the Angel thought, as if he were a particularly tasty-looking T-bone on display in a butcher’s shop window.

“Billy,” the Angel said. “This is Detective First Class Lonnegan. She and Stevens responded yesterday to the situation at Jamal’s hotel room,” the Angel told him. She and the detective exchanged brief nods and glances.

“I see,” Ray said. He frowned, as if he didn’t. Really. “Any further developments?”

Razor Joan looked up at Sergeant Taylor, who suddenly looked down and found something very interesting in the papers that had been spread before him upon his desk. He picked up a pen and started to write furiously. She looked back at Ray and her expression changed, becoming noncommittal without softening.

“We should find someplace rather more private,” she said, “to discuss this.”

“How about the captain’s office?” Ray asked. “Who’s on day duty? Maseryk or Mendelberg?”

“Mendelberg,” Lonnegan said. “But—”

“But what?” Ray asked. His tone had grown colder, his expression tauter during the brief exchange. The Angel could read the slight signs, see the tension in face and eyes and even the way he held himself. It had quickly turned into a contest between him and Lonnegan.

“You may have heard that we had some excitement here yesterday,” the cop said.

“Yeah. I heard it rained jokers inside the precinct.”

“That’s one way of putting it. Since then, Mendelberg has been—” She paused slightly, as if searching for the proper word. The one she chose sounded oddly neutral to the Angel. “—occupied by the problem.”

“I’ll bet,” Ray said. “Well, we’ve come to see her about this little problem. And others.”

Lonnegan continued to stare at Ray, then she slowly nodded. “Yes,” she finally said. “The captain’s office. That might just be the place. Come right this way, Mr. Ray—”

“Billy,” Ray said brusquely. The tautness of his expression, the Angel noticed, had gone down from eleven back to ten.

Lonnegan nodded approvingly. “Billy.” She glanced at the Angel. “Bathsheeba—come this way.”

She stepped aside as she gestured toward a corridor that led apparently into the core of the ancient precinct. Not to be outdone, Ray paused, unbent ever so slightly.

“After you, ladies,” he said, and together they went down the hallway, abreast, Ray between the Angel and Lonnegan while the sergeant still studiously pushed papers around the surface of his battered old desk.