Bloody Genius (Virgil Flowers, #12)(81)

“I have no idea what he’s doing,” Virgil said. “I’ve never seen the guy or spoken to him. So, what do you know?”

“He won’t hear it came from me? Because he could be a killer, and I know he holds a grudge,” Hamm said.

“I’ll keep it under my hat best I can,” Virgil said.

Hamm took another swallow of beer, then said, “Have you ever heard of a company called Surface Research?”

“No.”

“It’s not huge,” Hamm went on. “But, it’s not small, either. The engineers who started it, they have a private jet, you know. A small jet, but they’d like to have a big one. What they do is, they develop paints for different kinds of difficult to cover surfaces. That’s where their name comes from—they cover surfaces.”

“Paint?”

“Yeah. Big money in it, you’d be surprised,” Hamm said. “Stock tip: you can buy Surface Research for ten bucks a share right now, and it’s going to fifty in two years, maybe more.”

“Why would—”

“—Boyd be interested in paint? Because of the money involved,” Hamm said. “What I hear is, Surface Research is developing a glass-and-metal-based paint for striping highways. It has to be certain specific colors—white and yellow, I guess—and, I’m told, also a clear paint, transparent. It has to be way durable and make it through all kinds of traffic and temperature extremes twenty-four hours a day.”

“The road paint they’ve got now isn’t good enough?” Virgil asked. “Seems like there might be a lot of competition.”

“This paint is designed to get driverless vehicles down the road,” Hamm said.

Virgil said, “Ah.”

“Yeah. It has some built-in components that’ll work with car sensors and even allow, you know, road painters—the state, I guess—to paint instructions on roads that people can’t see but the cars can pick up to warn about hazards and so on. If this all works, Surface Research will go to a thousand bucks a share, and we’ll all be billionaires. I’ve got a thousand shares myself, and I’m seriously thinking about mortgaging this place and buying another ten thousand.”

“What’s Nash doing?”

“Boyd’s been scouting them for a while—even back when I was working with him. Lately, I’ve heard, he’s gotten inside. He’s got some kind of low-level connection inside the company, and he’s been in there at night taking pictures.”

“Pictures?”

“Yeah. You know, photographs. Get a computer up, start pulling files, taking photos of the screen. If they’re getting close to a viable product, and he moves that stuff over to another paint company, could be a major score.”

“He’s still doing this?”

“That’s what I’ve heard,” Hamm said. “Friday, Saturday, Sunday nights, when the place is empty. I thought about calling the cops, but that could lead to some awkward questions.”

“Like, how you know all this?”

“Exactly. Cops never leave well enough alone.”

“How do you know all this?”

“That’s hard to explain . . . to most cops,” Hamm said. “I’m talking to you because you took a beer on duty. I knew about Surface Research from back when I was working with Boyd. Then he screwed me on the real estate deal and I told him to go fuck himself. Still, I’m out there, looking for deals, and I hear shit from all kinds of people. That’s what I do: I hear shit. People know I used to work with Boyd, so his name comes up. He’s got another guy working with him now, and I think that guy might have talked to some people I know and the word starts leaking out.”

“Okay. You think he might be working right now?”

Hamm shook his head. “Too early. This kind of thing, Boyd would be going in after midnight or later. Two in the morning, four—those are the dead times when nobody’s around, except a few cop cars. He can get some serious quiet to work in.”

Hamm finished his beer, and Virgil did, too. Hamm asked, “You want another?”

“No, I’m good,” Virgil said.

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m investigating a murder, not a paint theft,” Virgil said. “Still, this is interesting. Nash sounds like a possibility. You’re the second person who’s told me that he could kill.”

“Wouldn’t bother him a bit,” Hamm said.

“I’m gonna look at him,” Virgil said, standing up. He put his beer bottle on the kitchen counter, and said, “And you keep your mouth shut.”

“Don’t worry. I want you to do good. Get me some payback,” Hamm said. “When it’s done right, payback’s a bitch, huh?”



* * *



—

Thursday night. If Hamm was right—and he did sound like he knew what he was talking about—Nash wouldn’t be making another run at Surface Research for at least twenty-four hours.

He could wait. If Nash was actually doing industrial espionage, catching him in the act would generate a lot of leverage.



* * *



—

Virgil headed back to the hotel, had dinner, stuck his head in the bar. Harry wasn’t there, but Alice was, and she asked about the case.