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They stopped. Zed joined them, carrying his own flashlight.

“What do you think, Bosch?” Novak said. “Brings back memories, right?”

Bosch didn’t respond.

“You know what the Poes called me back then?” Novak said. “They called me the king of the bedwetters because all the kids were so afraid of me. Were you a bedwetter, Bosch?”

“No,” Bosch said. “And neither was Charlie Lamb.”

Novak paused for a moment before responding.

“Chops,” he said wistfully, as if fondly recalling a long-lost friend.

He reached into the paper bag.

“I got something for you here, Bosch,” he said. “Something I think you’re gonna like.”

From the bag he pulled the Regency transistor radio Bosch’s mother had given him so many years before. And that Bosch had given to Charlie Lamb.

“Remember this?” Novak said. “Vin Scully and the Dodgers?”

Bosch was stunned silent.

“You should have given it to me, Bosch,” Novak said. “Should’ve let me have it. If you had, who knows, maybe we wouldn’t be here right now.”

“You,” Bosch said. “You killed him for a fucking radio.”

Novak dropped the empty bag to the floor.

“You’ve become a problem,” he said. “And now I have to deal with it.”

“And you think putting me down in this place does that?” Bosch said. “You think that’s going to fly? It won’t.”

“They’ll write this off as just another fucked-up guy who came out of this place and couldn’t go the distance on the outside. End of story. It won’t matter that you were a cop. Or that you were the father of a cop.”

“The people you need to sell this to aren’t going to buy it, Novak.”

“Who, your daughter in the fraud department? She’ll buy it, or if not, who knows, she might have an accident or something. Something bad.”

“I’m not talking about my daughter. I’m talking about the feds, Novak. Because I know about the missiles and nobody’s going to believe I ate the gun with that still on the table. Nobody.”

Novak couldn’t hide the surprise in his eyes. Or the confusion as he tried to figure out how Bosch could be part of both investigations.

Just then, they heard a loud banging, like a door slamming, farther inside the complex. Bosch knew there was only one door left in the place.

Novak looked at Zed.

“I thought you said no security,” he said.

“There is no security,” Zed said. “The place is empty. I checked.”

“Bullshit,” Novak said. “Slow, give me the other gun and go check it out.”

The heavies now had names. Bosch watched as the one called Slow reached into a coat pocket and pulled out Bosch’s boot gun. He handed it to Novak in exchange for the flashlight, then headed to the open doorway Bosch knew led to the main hall of the building. That was where the hollow was, and he thought of Bobby Walker living in there and not knowing what was going on out here.

“There’s a guy under the stairs!” Bosch yelled. “You don’t have to hurt him. He’s harmless.”

Novak pointed the gun at Bosch.