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Bosch held his hands up in surrender.
“Okay, but I need to sit down,” he said. “I think that punch did something. Tore some muscles or ruptured something.”
“That’s too fucking bad,” Topknot said. “You just stand right there. You’ll be on your ass soon enough.”
Bosch did the surrender move with his hands again. He wanted Topknot to get accustomed to it.
Two minutes later, the side door opened and Sidewalls stepped in, followed by a man Bosch immediately recognized from the DMV photo as Nikolai Novak. He just as readily recognized him as Nick Stokely. He had the same bearing, although he was bigger than he was in Bosch’s memory, thicker in the middle the way aging bodybuilders got. But there was no doubt it was Nick Stokely. Now the question was whether he would recognize Bosch.
Novak walked directly up to Bosch, invading his space, and looked him in the eye.
“So your name is Bosch,” he said. “Do I know you?”
“I don’t think so,” Bosch said.
“Then why were you watching my house?”
“I wasn’t. I was watching — I tried to tell these guys — I was watching a bird.”
“An owl, you say.”
“Yes, an owl.”
“Owls fly at night.”
“Not always. But yes, I was surprised when I saw it. That’s why I pulled over.”
“You a cop?”
“No. I’m not a cop.”
“Who’s this?”
Without moving his eyes off Bosch’s face, he held up Bosch’s phone. On the screen was a photo of Bosch’s daughter, Maddie, in full police uniform. He knew they’d probably already expanded the photo and seen her nameplate. There was no sense in lying.
“My daughter,” Bosch said.
“She send you up here?” Novak asked.
“No. Why would she send me here? She’s a patrol cop who works in the south end. I told you, like I told everybody, I was driving along Mulholland when I saw the bird. A great horned owl — I think. I pulled over and went up the — Shit.”
“What is it?”
“My binoculars. I dropped them when your man punched me.”
“So you see this owl flying around, and you just happen to have binoculars with you?”
Bosch realized that Novak, too, spoke with a slight accent. Had he taken on an accent after being adopted by Czech parents? Or was it fake?
“I’m a birder — I always carry binoculars,” he said. “I keep them in the glove compartment. You never know what you’re going to see.”
Novak studied him without speaking. As if deciding something.
“Can I go now?” Bosch asked.
“Not yet,” Novak said. “I’m still making up my mind. What’s a guy from North Hollywood doing all the way up here? And don’t say bird-watching.”
Bosch had anticipated the question and had a ready answer. He understood the North Hollywood reference. When he’d worked for the LAPD, he used the address from a mail drop in North Hollywood on his driver’s license as protection. After he retired, he never changed it. Novak believed he had Bosch’s home address.
