Virgil asked about Nash’s friends. “I don’t think he had any real friends, but he did have, like, an acolyte. This guy who followed him around and did chores for him. His name was Dex—short for Dexter, I think. I don’t know if I ever knew Dex’s last name. He was a short, stumpy guy. Like one of the Seven Dwarfs, only two feet taller. Among other things, I think he got Boyd’s dope for him. I’m not sure if Dex knew a dealer or was a dealer, but he held Boyd’s coke.”
“If you only went out three times, how did you get to know Dex?”
She smiled for the first time. “Because he sorta came on the date with us. All three times he was in the backseat when Boyd showed up, then Boyd would drop him off somewhere near the place we were going for dinner, he’d disappear, and I wouldn’t see him again until the next date. He had a line of patter he’d keep going from the backseat: news stories, stuff about the city, about where we were going, about people he knew. It was weird. I actually sorta liked Dex better than Boyd, except he was funny-looking. A funny-looking guy. I think he was probably in his thirties maybe. But he looked old. He had a sixty-year-old face.”
When Virgil ran out of questions, Nord said, “I hope you get him. I know I shouldn’t have settled, but I really, really needed the money. And Virgil”—she reached across the gap betweentheir chairs and touched his knee—“you be careful. I do think Boyd could kill somebody. Maybe he already has. He’s a bullshitter, but there’s a mean bastard under that fat face.”
Virgil was on his way out the door when he was struck by a thought. He turned back, and asked, “You wouldn’t have a picture of him, would you?”
Nord said, “Hmm, probably. I take pictures of everyone and never clean them out of my phone. Let me look.”
She scanned photos for a moment, her thumbs and fingers moving as fast as a longtime typist’s, and then: “Ah. Here we go. What’s your number, I’ll send it to you.”
A moment later, it popped up on Virgil’s phone: a smiling, overweight man with reddish brown hair pulled back in a ponytail.
Back in his car, he called O’Hara, the map thief. When she answered, he said he was going to send her a photo. “Could you take a moment to look at it?”
“Of course.”
He sent the picture, and a moment later O’Hara said, “That’s the man.”
—
His next call went to Del Capslock, got his wife. He knew Cheryl, and they chatted about Frankie’s pregnancy for a moment while Capslock got out of the bathroom. When he did, Cheryl handed him the phone. “What’s up?”
“Did you ever know a guy named Dex, maybe Dexter, may or may not have dealt drugs, looks like a taller version of one of the Seven Dwarfs?”
“Sure. Dexter Hamm. He’s a hangout guy, does this and that.”
“Selling drugs?”
“Maybe, at one time or another, but not as a profession. He might have dealt to friends as a favor. Deals a little real estate, buys cars out at the auction, resells them. He puts this guy with that guy, and deals get done. He’s been around forever, knows everybody. Like that.”
“A street guy, then,” Virgil said.
“Yeah, but not a bottom-feeder. He’ll make a few bucks by the end of the year.”
“Where would I find him?”
“Damned if I know,” Capslock said. “He’s more Minneapolis than St. Paul. I’ve never been to his place, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a set address. Check the DMV.”
“Thanks for that,” Virgil said.
“Sure. Hamm—two ‘m’s. I get the feeling that I’m your new go-to guy for dirtbag contacts.”
“Well, yeah.”
—
According to the DMV, Hamm lived in a condo in what used to be the warehouse district adjacent to downtown Minneapolis. Though it was getting late, Virgil decided to take a shot at a contact and headed downtown.
Hamm’s place was a brick-and-glass cube, a couple of decades old, with a keypad at street level to get into the lobby and a video camera that looked down at a brass plate with buttons for each individual apartment. Hamm was listed, and when Virgil pushed the button, he answered, “Do I know you?”
“No. I’m an agent with the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension,” Virgil said. “I need to speak to you for a few minutes.”
“About what?”
“Boyd Nash.”
