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“He’s a good actor, I’ll give him that,” Sidewalls said. “But I saw through it.”

“Not fast enough,” Novak said. “The damage is done.”

The van slowed, took a right turn, went up and down over a speed bump, and came to a stop. The engine was shut off and Bosch heard two doors open and close. He heard the muffled conversation outside the vehicle between Novak and the man he now knew as Zed.

“Any problems?” Novak asked.

“No, the place is empty,” Zed said.

“No security?”

“For what? The whole place has been stripped.”

“Okay, let’s get him out and cut him loose.”

Bosch heard doors open right behind him and felt hands grab him and pull him across the floor of the vehicle.

“Rise and shine, Bosch,” Novak said.

Bosch was put on his feet and held in place by his arms. The zip tie binding his wrists was cut and the hood was roughly pulled off his head. Novak was standing in front of him, and the other two men held him up.

“Welcome home,” Novak said.

It was dark out, but the van’s headlights were on and Bosch recognized the back doors of the building they stood in front of. They were at MacLaren.

34

THEY WERE IN MacLaren’s rear delivery area, where the entrance to the kitchen was located. Bosch knew it well from having smoked many cigarettes on the stoop. Plywood boards had been removed and stacked against the wall. The double doors were wide open, presumably thanks to Zed’s advance work. Bosch saw his own Jeep parked next to the van that had brought him here. Zed must have found the Jeep’s keys in Bosch’s pocket and driven it here. Seeing the car gave Bosch a clearer idea of what Novak had planned.

“Okay, close the gate,” Novak said. “Let’s go in.”

Zed went to shut the gate, and Sidewalls kept a tight grip on Bosch’s left upper arm as he pushed him toward the doors.

“Keep moving,” Sidewalls said. “One foot in front of the other.”

Novak was wearing driving gloves and carrying a paper bag. He pulled a flashlight out of it and turned it on as they approached the doors.

“What are we doing here?” Bosch asked.

“I thought you would want to see the place one last time,” Novak said. “They’re about to knock it down. Did you know that, Bosch?”

Bosch stumbled on the step but Sidewalls kept him from falling.

“I knew,” Bosch said.

“They’re going to turn it into a park,” Novak said. “A fucking park with trees and swing sets, if you can believe that shit.”

“I heard.”

“But you know what? This is the first time I’ve been back since the day I left with my father. I was barely sixteen years old.”

“He wasn’t your father and you aren’t Nikolai Novak. You’re Nick Stokely from MacLaren and you can’t ever change that, no matter what name and accent you use.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Bosch. In America, you can be anybody you want to be. I’m proof of that. And when this place is gone, its history dies with it.”

Novak led the way with the light, and they moved inside and through what had been the kitchen but was now just an open space that had been stripped of equipment and prepped for demo. They walked into the dining hall. The long tables and chairs Bosch remembered were gone. Exposed wires hung from the ceiling where there had once been light fixtures and fans.

“This is good right here,” Novak said.