Just a little chapter about Veronica and Dick before we get back to MaDi
Present Day
Veronica Mars sat low in her boyfriends BMW, her camera casually leaning on the edge of the open window complete with telephoto lens. It was focused on the new hotel downtown. The Halimede. A huge glass structure all curves and light. It was quite beautiful in a modern architectural sort of way.
She had seen the brochure for the place. It had state of the art everything. Gym, Spa, it already had a Michelin star restaurant and was just a stones throw from the 09er club. It was the latest attempt to make the downtown upmarket.
Veronica was there on a case. The manager of the Halimede had a suspicious wife who had procured the PI's services. Late night phone calls and mystery meetings had got wifey thinking her husband of 12 years was having an affair. It was supposed to be a bread and butter job, help pay the bills. But after a week of surveillance Veronica found that Mr Eddie Mayes' activity was much more criminal than extra marital.
Veronica slinked down in her seat, camera readied as she saw the man in question walk out the front door with another guy. The angle was bad and she couldn't see the other man clearly. Clicking away with the camera she hoped it would provide better results than her eyes, after only a minute the two shook hands and walked away from each other.
Leaning a little forward for a better view, Veronica saw the other man's blonde shag of hair and recognised that it belonged to a certain best friend of her boyfriend. Dick Casablancas!
Why was she not surprised to see him at the scene. It seemed that a good chunk of her cases over the years had some link back to the dim-witted surfer. He walked a little up the street as far as a black Audi R8. Veronica quickly put the camera out of sight and shouted over to him.
"Dick! "
He looked out to the direction of the voice, cursing and shaking his head with irritation when he eventually located the source. Veronica just gave a little evil smile and crooked her finger, beckoning Dick to come join her. She loved to see him squirm.
"Step in to my office" she offered pointing towards the car's passenger seat.
He reluctantly hopped inside shoving away a number of fast food wrappers to make way.
"What are you up to?" Veronica asked, her eyes narrowing with suspicion.
"Minding my own business, you should try it sometime" came Dick's biting response.
Veronica smiled slyly. She always did like the challenge of a mystery but felt she needed to offer her prey a fighting chance.
"You know I'll find out anyway, so you might as well just tell me."
Dick looked away, choosing not to play along. His familiar little pout apparent as he pushed away his hair from his eyes. It made Veronica's smile a little more, she had missed that pout these past nine years.
"It's disgusting in here Veronica" Dick said looking to change the subject and pulling his face at all the litter scattered inside the vehicle. "Remind me never to let you borrow my ride if I leave town for 6 months" he added.
Turning briefly to look behind the front seats Dick found a basket of laundry.
"Honestly Ronnie, I thought PI 's sifting through dirty laundry was metaphorical, didn't think you actually did it" he let his hand fall across some material on top of the pile letting it slide through his fingers.
"It's freshly laundered and it belongs to a friend." Veronica yelled trying to pull his hand away but Dick's hand had frozen holding on to a t-shirt on the top.
Goosebumps rose up his arm at the touch. It was very familiar. The material was thin, proving it to be well-worn but he still recognised it as belonging to him. He remembered buying it down in Tijuana. His little finger tried to push through the tiny burn hole from where he dropped a joint. Twisting it further around his fingers Dick saw the 'bear holding a gun' depiction. It caused an image of Mac led across his bed in the Neptune Grand only wearing that shirt to flood his mind.
She still had it after all this time, he hadn't even noticed she never gave it back.
"Why do you have Mac's laundry?" his voice cracked slightly as he asked. The discovery had taken him by surprise.
"I said it was a friends, what makes you think it's Mac's?." Veronica's eyes narrowed again at his correct assumption.
Shit!
"Err…I plucked the name out of the millions of friends you've managed to acquire with your warm and fuzzy nature" Dick answered rich with sarcasm.
Veronica's witty response was to give him the finger. Very lady like.
"It was either going to be Mac's or Wallace's and I don't think it belongs to teacher-boy" he said eying feminine underwear visible under the shirt" He forced his hand to release the threadbare material and all the memories it created.
"Ok, maybe it is Mac's, but I'll have you know I been called a marshmallow." Veronica conceded whilst trying to defend herself against his remarks that she was not easy to like. Dick sniggered loudly.
"A marshmallow? Yeah, one that's fallen off the stick and landed at the bottom of the camp fire maybe"
Dick stepped out of the car his mind reeling with images of Mac standing in his shirt. He had to get away from Sherlock Mars, another few minutes in her company and she would surely be able to guess why his temperature had just risen.
"I will find out what you are up to." she shouted over at Dick, watching him walk back towards the Audi. He threw off the weight of his thoughts and pulled back on his carefree façade.
"Whatever Ronnie, I'm too busy for this, places to go and chicks to do" he called.
Veronica watched him climb in to his car, the deep growl of the engine echoing off the downtown buildings. She leaned down into the passenger foot well and saw amongst the food wrappers a flyer that must have fallen out of his pocket. There was little information on it, just the words 'NYC Ball. The party of the year!' across the centre of the sheet. It reminded her of the 09er parties in high school, all secret codes to prevent the riff-raff from attending. This flyer looked the same but just more high-class.
Another mystery to solve along with Eddie Mayers extra curricular activities. She always was brilliant at multitasking.
A truck pulled up outside the hotel as she pocketed the flyer. PD Catering services bannered across it's side.
"Excellent" Veronica tapped her fingers together in a wicked manner. She looked up at the catering van. The perfect way to infiltrate the party to see what Dick was up to and also to get closer to Eddie Mayers, had just presented itself.
Mac stood inside the vast kitchens of The Hallimede holding on to a silver platter of tiny pink appetizers. She was working undercover dressed in the catering firms uniform. The white blouse was a little tight around the chest and the black pencil skirt a few inches too short for her liking, but the worst was the powder pink bow tie. The colour scheme of the 1980's. Somewhere across the other side of the hotel Veronica was dressed in identical garb.
Mac had asked her friend why she had been dragged in to help with all this.
"Because this is what you signed up for when you jacked in your job at Kane Software to come and work for Mars Investigations" Veronica had replied.
"I signed on to be the techie, the gadget girl. The investigations part is supposed to be done by a 'Mars', hence MARS investigations" Mac tried to plead but to no avail.
So now Mac was skulking around the kitchens pretending to know what she was doing whilst trying to catch the creepy manager guy up to no good.
Luckily it didn't take long, she heard raised voices and caught sight of the manager through some swinging doors that batted back and forth a few times. Mac called V to tell her the good news.
The two girls met in the kitchen and Mac passed on the facts she had gathered so far. She had seen boxes piled behind the swinging doors and heard Eddie say something about 'it not being the agreed time and the drop off was supposed to be much later'.
Mac wanted to tell her friend more but they were interrupted by the catering team leader. He was a keen looking man with a striking resemblance to Vinnie Van Lowe but without the smarmy overconfidence. He thrust the platter of food at Mac and insisted she deliver it to the ballroom. Veronica looked at her friend with apologetic eyes, then ensured Mac that she would handle the manager. Mac reluctantly walked away.
Veronica stepped close to the swinging door and turned on her cell phone voice recorder capturing the illicit conversation. She had learned that in Neptune the law can be bought and only comprehensive proof together with threats of media involvement would ensure correct justice was done.
She wasn't as stealthy as she thought because suddenly a hand appeared from around the door clutching at her throat and pulling her into the room. The manager was alone now, whoever else had been there was gone.
"What are you doing out there?" Eddie menacingly asked.
Veronica struggled to answer because of the tight grip he had around her neck. Her eyes scanned the room and hidden within some of the opened boxes Veronica could see bags of pills buried amongst jars of pickled onions. They looked like Ecstasy but she had no real clue. She was kind of out of the loop as to what the kids were using these days.
"Are you going to sell those pills?" she asked through a croaky voice and the question threw Eddie off for a minute. Veronica was a little scared by him but in all honesty she had been in much worse situations than this one.
"What? What do you care?, they belong to me not you"
It felt almost too easy to get a confession from him. He saw a tiny smile across her face and realised what he had done.
Veronica's smile vanished when she saw a change in him, fear did show in her face then. Hatred filled his eyes, he pulled back a fist and Veronica desperately tried to pull herself free.
"Say 'incredibly expensive Stilton'" someone said causing them both to turn.
A flash of light hit their eyes and it took them both a moment to see Dick standing there with his camera phone capturing Eddie's threatening image.
In the next moment Dick had punched the manager hard in the face sending the guy straight to the floor. He was out cold and Dick looked stunned by the power of his own strike.
Veronica was immediately on the phone calling for the police while Dick tried to calm a growing storm inside him. After she had finished giving her report over the phone and taking a few pictures of the pills, Veronica looked over at Dick who seemed to have lost a little colour to his face.
"You ok?" she asked not really caring to hear the answer.
He turned to face her , words exploding uncontrollably from his mouth
"I'm not ok, Ron. You can't do this Shit on my watch" he motioned around to the crime scene they stood amongst.
"Don't make me be the one who has to tell Logan that you got hurt on a job or even that you got killed. He doesn't cope well having to get over you Veronica"
She had seen Dick angry on occasion. The time she drove over his surfboard in school was a particularly strong example, but she had never seen him like this. He was boiling over with rage and it was laced with fear. His comment made her wonder if there was more to Logan's moping, and weekend benders to Mexico when she had left Neptune almost a decade ago.
"If you died it would kill Logan and I can't lose anyone else important in my life" he added and it was the first time Veronica saw just how important Logan's friendship was to him.
The outburst seem to show how much both of them were missing Logan and before Veronica could offer an apology the doors opened and a couple of deputies entered the room with a thousand questions.
It was still early in the evening but guests were starting to arrive for the NYC Ball. Mac had been searching for Veronica. She tried to go back into the kitchen but a mass of law enforcement was stopping her progress. Then she tried to search through the rest of the hotel but kept getting stopped by people actually believing she was a waitress and wanting drink orders.
At some point she found a quiet area. It was set way back at the other side of the lobby, it didn't seem to attract a lot of footfall. There was a rich carpet and a couple of high-backed chairs that looked out through large windows to an oriental garden beyond. She imagined businessmen sat here quietly reading the daily broadsheet before work.
In the peace Mac called her friend for the 6th time and felt a flutter of relief when the ringing could be heard just around the corner and Veronica walked into view.
Veronica spent a few minutes bringing her friend up to date on the situation ensuring her that she was well. When Veronica was finished Mac couldn't stop from asking a certain question. The one thing that was bothering her over everything else.
"What was Dick doing there?"
Veronica shrugged "I thought he may have been involved with what ever Eddie was in to but I think he may have just been here for the party" Veronica answered.
"Speaking of which I might just go and see what the 'party of the year' looks like before we leave" Veronica said beckoning her friend to join her.
Mac nodded and told Veronica she would come in a few minutes. She needed to find Dick. After the meeting at his house with the heat stroke and memory stick, Mac made a vow that she would ask him about the night at the Neptune Grand. This was a good a time as any.
It was at the point Dick appeared from around the same corner that Veronica had emerged from.
He looked good. It annoyed her how men seem to get better looking as they got older. Dick stood staring back at her clearly shocked to see her there. He wore a dark suit that seemed to fit him exceptionally well. It looked expensive and was a world away from when she last saw him dressed in beach wear.
His eyes ran up and down her body looking at the tiny uniform she wore. She could feel his intense gaze and it made her heart beat a little faster.
"Do you have a minute?, I'd like to talk to you." Mac quickly asked before she changed her mind.
Dick took a step forward, quickly glanced at his watch then returned his burning gaze to Mac's legs, slowly lifting his eyes past her tight blouse eventually settling lustfully on her lips.
"For you? I have all the time in the world".