Fic: The Usual Suspect
Title: The Usual Suspect
The Enemy You Know, Book I
Fandom: Veronica Mars
Rating: R-ish
Pairing: Veronica/Weevil
Spoilers: Through Mars vs. Mars only (no Ruskie Business events)
Thanks: Trixie "Beta Reading for the Emotionally Unstable" Firecracker (trixalicious), and logovo for language tips.
Summary: When dealing with an opponent who may be smarter than you, it's best to let them think themselves to death.-- CJ Cherryh, paraphrased.
A/N: In my little universe, Veronica did not blurt her life story out to Sheriff Leo.
Chapter I
You don't have to be a cop's kid to know there's something strange about Weevil's arrival at school on Monday.
It isn't just that his motorcycle is nowhere to be seen; it's not because he's driving a car instead.
It's that the car he's driving is a Corvette.
A late-model Corvette, no less, with a cobalt-blue paint job that shines like new glass in the weak morning sunshine.
It's a real attention-grabber as it rolls through the parking lot; the in-your-face paint job and the ornate chrome mags do nothing to grant the car any subtlety. Neither does the olive-skinned driver in his shades and leather jacket. And anyway, Corvettes are surprisingly uncommon here: most 09er kids have reached such rarefied levels of adolescent consumerism that they would hardly be seen driving a mundane domestic number like that. Their tastes run to imported luxury sedans, expensive sport vehicles--and if one absolutely has the need for speed, what's wrong with a Porsche?
American sports cars, Veronica knows, possess a certain lottery-winning, drug-dealing tackiness--to people of a certain income bracket. Not subtle at all.
Speaking of subtlety. Veronica turns away. Once people catch you staring, the game is up. And Weevil, with his street-bred nerves, is more observant than most.
And as she walks on towards class, she hears the Corvette idle through the lot behind her; feels it in her stomach as the engine rumbles along in its distinctly non-European way.
***
Veronica sleeps though first period, but during second period her mind turns back to the mystery at hand. As her mind is fucking wont to do.
She has a lot of reliable intel on Weevil. She considers him a business associate, so of course she's totally checked up on him. Helps to avoid nasty surprises. She knows a lot of things he doesn't know she knows--and that's the name of the game. Stuff you just can't find on your basic background dossier, like how he got his nickname (a disappointing anecdote, really), and his sad parental history (more than a match for her own).
More importantly, she knows the rough bluebook value on his bike--whatever he's done with it--and she can make a fair guess at the kind of money he makes while mostly attending high school and mostly staying out of trouble with the law.
She knows he has no established credit. That one is easy. Scary, how simple it is to get someone's social security number.
All of which adds up to: How the hell did Weevil get his hands on a forty-thousand dollar car?
Veronica rejects the obvious conclusion, that he simply ganked it somewhere--when the Weevils of the world boost a sweet ride like that, it goes straight to the chop-shop. They don't drive it to school the next day.
So figure it's legit, or something close. Veronica idly calculates the monthly insurance payments on a seventeen-year-old male driving a two-door sports car with a V8 engine and over four hundred horses, and figures it's about as much as the rent Dad pays on their seaside apartment.
She knows some non-09er kids who work long hours and put literally all their money into fancy cars they can't really afford, because it's the only way they can shore up their self-esteem in this land of haves and have-nots.
Weevil doesn't seem the type to have self-esteem issues.
Besides, how can you be the leader of a bike club with no bike?
***
Getting the tags on the Corvette is a trivial matter. It's a joke. You just pretend to get something from your car during lunch, and you make a point of passing behind the suspicious vehicle on your way back through the lot. Memming a license plate number is cake, hardly the kind of thing you need to write down and be all obvious about.
It's practically not even spying. The information is out there, publicly, and what you do with it privately is your own damn business.
One of the side perks of Dad's brief re-acquaintance with the Sheriff's office is that Veronica was able to swipe the newest passwords for the DMV; no more awkward phone calls. Online is so much easier, and she can do it from the computer lab at school.
She logs in, maneuvers to the appropriate menu, taps in the tag number.
And is somehow not surprised to see that the 2003 Chevrolet Corvette, VIN number 1Z398442340985404, is newly registered to one Eli Navarro.
She thinks and thinks about it for the rest of the day, until finally it pushes a whole slew of bigger matters out of her mind.
She knows she can't just come out and ask: Where'd you get the new ride, homeboy?
Because this isn't a business matter, and in personal dealings being too direct gives away too much. People can learn a lot about you from the questions you ask. Veronica never wants anyone to know anything real about her ever again. And no matter how badass-blond-chick she acts around Weevil, and as cooperative as he's been lately, he can still be unnerving when he stares you down.
Nice eyes, Eli Navarro has; Veronica's always thought so. Pretty eyes and a smile that could make a girl of lesser resolve go all fluttery inside. But he's got this habit of radiating aggression in every move he makes, and Veronica is too smart and too world-weary to find that appealing. Never mind that the merest suggestion out loud that he had pretty eyes would make her father's head explode on the spot. From three states away.
Mostly she feels she has the upper hand with him. But she damn well keeps her distance, always has, except when they have business dealings, or when Weevil gets himself crosswise of some 09er fiasco. Which, to be honest, he's got a knack for doing.
Bottom line, no way should she be getting involved in this Corvette situation--when it doesn't affect her and doesn't bear at all on her long-term interests. It isn't like he's done anything illegal. That she knows of. She doesn't even know why she's given it more than the two spare neurons it deserves.
But it's a mystery, dammit.
And she never has learned how to leave well enough alone.
***
Veronica sees Weevil walking away as she's leaving school that afternoon. She can't tell for sure--does he look nervous? He's fidgeting with his keys, spinning them around his index finger; frowning and glancing this way and that as he walks down the steps, like he's expecting incoming fire.
She'd like to go up to him, try out some casual banter on him; nothing about the Corvette, just kinda feel things out. But he's flanked by Felix and a couple of the other PCH biker proto-criminals. If she tries to talk to him about non-biz matters in front of them, she's pretty sure that Weevil will have to follow some unwritten code of thug behavior and blow her off. These boys have their reps to think of, after all. She's just a chick.
It's enough to make you want to roll your eyes right out of your head.
But she owes Weevil basic consideration for his position. So she just nods at him. He returns the nod, throws some little hand-sign she can't interpret--could be call me, surf's up, or possibly I worship satan--and allows the barest hint of a smile her direction.
Then he puts on his new, Corvette-driving shades and keeps walking.
So she's got nothing.
***
It's pretty much the same thing all week. He drives the Corvette to school every day, and every day Veronica can't come up with a good excuse to pry. And it's almost like he's avoiding her now: she keeps catching glimpses of him turning a corner, or walking into a class they don't share. Or driving away.
She listens in the girls' bathroom, and she listens in the hallways, and she listens at lunch. No one is talking about it. She asks around, as discreetly as she can; no one knows where or how he got the car.
The next step is obvious: routine surveillance.
Thursday night, Veronica sits in the Le Baron a block and a half from the Navarro house. She listens to bad AM radio--the better to stay awake to. It is after nine, and nothing at all has happened for the three hours she's been watching. But diligence is the price of information. It's when people deviate from their usual routine that you catch them out, so figuring out their routine in the first place is crucial. This is as exciting as watching nail polish dry, but it's time well invested.
The pretty blue Corvette is parked on the street. It just hangs out there on the asphalt, taunting her. The motorcycle is gone, nowhere in sight.
Veronica rests her chin in her hand and daydreams a little, the tinny music fading away from her consciousness. And when her thoughts begin to drift to Duncan, and to the lovely, conflicted feelings the thought of him evokes, she forces herself to sit up straight and snap out of it.
If only she could stop paying these little mental visits to ancient history.
Compartmentalize, dammit. What would Sydney Bristow do?
Old joke with herself. Not as funny as it used to be.
She sighs and checks her watch. Nine-thirty. A car passes by and she tenses, but it doesn't even slow down, and eventually the tail-lights disappear in the distance. She slumps down in her seat again.
Not the best neighborhood, not the worst. Probably no need to worry about a drive-by, but your basic carjacking isn't out of the question. So of course she always remembers to keep her doors locked.
Which is why, when someone opens the passenger door and sits down beside her, she feels justified in shrieking and reaching for her taser.
The intruder grabs her forearm in mid-reach. Veronica gets a good look at him and gasps, "Weevil?"
He turns her arm loose. "Hey. Veronica Mars. Ain't exactly your side of town, is it?" He picks up the taser and pushes the buttons a few times, watching the electricity arc. Then he looks at her. "You know, you really oughta lock your doors."
***
"I swear," Weevil continues, while Veronica waits for her heart to dislodge itself from her throat, "You have got to be the nosiest white girl I ever met."
Veronica draws a breath, tries to get her conversational balance. "Oh, Eli. It's so sweet of you to notice."
He doesn't laugh, doesn't smile, not a flicker. Instead, he tosses the taser back into the console, looks away and says, "The car was my uncle's."
She waits until he turns to look at her again, then tries a head-tilt on him, just for old times' sake. "Excuse me? What car?"
"Don't even go there. The Corvette. The reason you been following me around, asking questions, staking out my house..."
Oh. Damn. So much for discretion. So she drops the denial act. "Your uncle? Is he--"
"He's ain't dead, no," Weevil says. "But he's doing a dime at MCC."
Ten-year sentence, then; and MCC San Diego is a Federal prison, so figure one of the juicier felonies. "This the uncle with the chop shop?"
"Yeah. S'more complicated than that, though."
"I wasn't going to ask."
He glances sidelong at her, snorts. "Like you won't just go find out on your own anyway."
"I do have some respect, you know." She says it as sincerely as she can.
His expression eases a little, like maybe he believes her. It's hard to tell. He's going for this cleaner-shaven look lately but it's not making it any easier for a girl to get a read on him.
"Anyway," he says, waving a hand dismissively, "that car was his favorite thing in the world. Only thing the Feds didn't confiscate. He signed it over to me after he was sentenced. Said he didn't want it rotting in storage." Faint smile. "Said if I let anything happen to it he'll bust out of jail just to kick my ass."
"How are you paying for the insurance?" Veronica asks, too bluntly.
He looks at her directly. His expression is not friendly now. "Why are you worryin' about it? For that matter, why you even here?"
"Um--look," Veronica begins, a little at a loss for words. She's not used to feeling less than justified in these situations. "I was just curious, that's all. I don't have some hidden agenda."
"Yeah, right. You always got an agenda. You figured the dumb gangbanger's getting himself in trouble again, he stole some car or he's gonna take up armed robbery to pay for it, right?"
"No!" she snaps. Then, quieter: "I never thought that..."
Problem is, she's lying. And they both know it.
So she tries again. "I don't think you're dumb."
That much is true. She's seen his standardized-test scores.
Weevil shakes his head, opens his door. "Come on," he says, and climbs out.
Veronica hesitates for a second, then gets out on her side and looks at him across the roof of the car. "Where are we going?"
He gestures over his shoulder. "Let's go for a drive." He looks down his nose at her Chrysler. "Your car sucks."
Then he turns and walks towards the Corvette.
Veronica considers this. "I'm not supposed to ride in cars with strange boys," she says, figuring the irony isn't lost on him.
He turns around, spreads his arms wide in a gesture that invites the world to take its best shot. He says, "Then bring your taser."
Then he turns on his heel and keeps walking; he doesn't wait to see if she follows.
"My car does not suck," she calls at his back, and grabs her purse.
She leaves the taser.
***
She's ridden in a lot of expensive cars but never a Corvette; inside it's so low-slung and horizontal you feel like you're settling down into a very comfortable leather kayak. The long, heavy door thunks shut solidly and she's got about thirty seconds to think how dumb this is before Weevil gets in and turns the ignition.
"Where're we going?" she asks again as they back out. She knows that this whole thing is some kind of game between them and that she's losing points by asking.
But she can't help herself. It's her last farewell to common sense.
Weevil shrugs. "Does it matter?" he asks.
"I guess not." Which is the only answer she can give. She got in the car of her own free will, and now she's got to play along or else admit to being nervous.
And you never, ever admit that.
But there's not much of a strip in the Neptune area, even the bad parts of town are a little too suburban for that. So there's really only one place anyone cruises, and that's the beach, and thus she's not surprised when they head west and then south on the PCH.
Veronica, of course, has cruised this beach at night many a time, in many a smooth-riding 09er vehicle. But it's different tonight. It's very dark out, only a sliver of a quarter-moon, and not much traffic at all. Seems the Corvette's engineers weren't fanatical about shutting out road noise during this particular model year, and the engine purr is omnipresent. But the sound is relaxing, like the sound of a heavy rain.
Lilly loved storms.
Veronica blinks back a memory--Lilly, leaning out her bedroom window: Veronica! Come here and smell the rain!--and tries to figure out what she's doing here. Her relationship with Weevil has never been much more than an uneasy alliance, and there was no reason for him to have made this strange overture and damned sure no reason for her to have gone along with it.
Except--and this is thing she's been trying not to think about, she realizes now--she wants to know if he and Lilly were really together. It's so hard to accept the idea of Lilly keeping something like Eli Navarro from her. And maybe that's why she's been pushing it out of her head, ever since the day she overheard his session in the counselor's office.
Did he get to see a side of Lilly she never even knew?
And if so--how is that fair?
Did Lilly actually care at all about him? She was flighty and mercurial and in love with life, but as far as Veronica knows she wasn't exactly the type to go randomly sleeping around behind Logan's back. So did she see in Weevil something other than the stereotype, the walking cliche? Could it possibly have been something more than revenge against Logan or her mother?
And if so, why did she end it?
A thought occurs to Veronica: maybe Lilly is the reason Weevil's here tonight, too, and maybe he doesn't know how to bring it up.
Maybe she's been following her investigative instincts all along and didn't even realize it.
They've been riding in silence, a silence that was becoming comfortable--until now, because all these thoughts have coalesced in her head, all at once, and suddenly her pulse is racing and the seatbelt is too tight, and she knows that she's not going to be able to keep it all inside.
And with a total lack of finesse that's getting to be a bad habit, she turns to Weevil and blurts out:
"I know about you and Lilly."
And almost immediately regrets it.
He doesn't say anything in response, doesn't even look at her. He exhales and tightens his grip on the steering wheel a little, that's all.
The words just linger there. Veronica winces.
It's like all the air has been sucked out of the car's interior; and she has a moment, in that awful vacuum, to reflect on how badly she is fucking this one up.
Then Weevil brakes and abruptly pulls the car off the road and into one of the little public lots overlooking the beach. And before Veronica can react to that, he shuts off the engine and is out of the car and walking away, down to the sand.
He's left the keys hanging in the ignition.
"I am so not going out there after him," Veronica says to the dashboard, after the initial moment of shock.
Then she grabs the keys and goes out there after him.
***
Chapter II Here
The Enemy You Know, Book I
Fandom: Veronica Mars
Rating: R-ish
Pairing: Veronica/Weevil
Spoilers: Through Mars vs. Mars only (no Ruskie Business events)
Thanks: Trixie "Beta Reading for the Emotionally Unstable" Firecracker (trixalicious), and logovo for language tips.
Summary: When dealing with an opponent who may be smarter than you, it's best to let them think themselves to death.-- CJ Cherryh, paraphrased.
A/N: In my little universe, Veronica did not blurt her life story out to Sheriff Leo.
Chapter I
You don't have to be a cop's kid to know there's something strange about Weevil's arrival at school on Monday.
It isn't just that his motorcycle is nowhere to be seen; it's not because he's driving a car instead.
It's that the car he's driving is a Corvette.
A late-model Corvette, no less, with a cobalt-blue paint job that shines like new glass in the weak morning sunshine.
It's a real attention-grabber as it rolls through the parking lot; the in-your-face paint job and the ornate chrome mags do nothing to grant the car any subtlety. Neither does the olive-skinned driver in his shades and leather jacket. And anyway, Corvettes are surprisingly uncommon here: most 09er kids have reached such rarefied levels of adolescent consumerism that they would hardly be seen driving a mundane domestic number like that. Their tastes run to imported luxury sedans, expensive sport vehicles--and if one absolutely has the need for speed, what's wrong with a Porsche?
American sports cars, Veronica knows, possess a certain lottery-winning, drug-dealing tackiness--to people of a certain income bracket. Not subtle at all.
Speaking of subtlety. Veronica turns away. Once people catch you staring, the game is up. And Weevil, with his street-bred nerves, is more observant than most.
And as she walks on towards class, she hears the Corvette idle through the lot behind her; feels it in her stomach as the engine rumbles along in its distinctly non-European way.
***
Veronica sleeps though first period, but during second period her mind turns back to the mystery at hand. As her mind is fucking wont to do.
She has a lot of reliable intel on Weevil. She considers him a business associate, so of course she's totally checked up on him. Helps to avoid nasty surprises. She knows a lot of things he doesn't know she knows--and that's the name of the game. Stuff you just can't find on your basic background dossier, like how he got his nickname (a disappointing anecdote, really), and his sad parental history (more than a match for her own).
More importantly, she knows the rough bluebook value on his bike--whatever he's done with it--and she can make a fair guess at the kind of money he makes while mostly attending high school and mostly staying out of trouble with the law.
She knows he has no established credit. That one is easy. Scary, how simple it is to get someone's social security number.
All of which adds up to: How the hell did Weevil get his hands on a forty-thousand dollar car?
Veronica rejects the obvious conclusion, that he simply ganked it somewhere--when the Weevils of the world boost a sweet ride like that, it goes straight to the chop-shop. They don't drive it to school the next day.
So figure it's legit, or something close. Veronica idly calculates the monthly insurance payments on a seventeen-year-old male driving a two-door sports car with a V8 engine and over four hundred horses, and figures it's about as much as the rent Dad pays on their seaside apartment.
She knows some non-09er kids who work long hours and put literally all their money into fancy cars they can't really afford, because it's the only way they can shore up their self-esteem in this land of haves and have-nots.
Weevil doesn't seem the type to have self-esteem issues.
Besides, how can you be the leader of a bike club with no bike?
***
Getting the tags on the Corvette is a trivial matter. It's a joke. You just pretend to get something from your car during lunch, and you make a point of passing behind the suspicious vehicle on your way back through the lot. Memming a license plate number is cake, hardly the kind of thing you need to write down and be all obvious about.
It's practically not even spying. The information is out there, publicly, and what you do with it privately is your own damn business.
One of the side perks of Dad's brief re-acquaintance with the Sheriff's office is that Veronica was able to swipe the newest passwords for the DMV; no more awkward phone calls. Online is so much easier, and she can do it from the computer lab at school.
She logs in, maneuvers to the appropriate menu, taps in the tag number.
And is somehow not surprised to see that the 2003 Chevrolet Corvette, VIN number 1Z398442340985404, is newly registered to one Eli Navarro.
She thinks and thinks about it for the rest of the day, until finally it pushes a whole slew of bigger matters out of her mind.
She knows she can't just come out and ask: Where'd you get the new ride, homeboy?
Because this isn't a business matter, and in personal dealings being too direct gives away too much. People can learn a lot about you from the questions you ask. Veronica never wants anyone to know anything real about her ever again. And no matter how badass-blond-chick she acts around Weevil, and as cooperative as he's been lately, he can still be unnerving when he stares you down.
Nice eyes, Eli Navarro has; Veronica's always thought so. Pretty eyes and a smile that could make a girl of lesser resolve go all fluttery inside. But he's got this habit of radiating aggression in every move he makes, and Veronica is too smart and too world-weary to find that appealing. Never mind that the merest suggestion out loud that he had pretty eyes would make her father's head explode on the spot. From three states away.
Mostly she feels she has the upper hand with him. But she damn well keeps her distance, always has, except when they have business dealings, or when Weevil gets himself crosswise of some 09er fiasco. Which, to be honest, he's got a knack for doing.
Bottom line, no way should she be getting involved in this Corvette situation--when it doesn't affect her and doesn't bear at all on her long-term interests. It isn't like he's done anything illegal. That she knows of. She doesn't even know why she's given it more than the two spare neurons it deserves.
But it's a mystery, dammit.
And she never has learned how to leave well enough alone.
***
Veronica sees Weevil walking away as she's leaving school that afternoon. She can't tell for sure--does he look nervous? He's fidgeting with his keys, spinning them around his index finger; frowning and glancing this way and that as he walks down the steps, like he's expecting incoming fire.
She'd like to go up to him, try out some casual banter on him; nothing about the Corvette, just kinda feel things out. But he's flanked by Felix and a couple of the other PCH biker proto-criminals. If she tries to talk to him about non-biz matters in front of them, she's pretty sure that Weevil will have to follow some unwritten code of thug behavior and blow her off. These boys have their reps to think of, after all. She's just a chick.
It's enough to make you want to roll your eyes right out of your head.
But she owes Weevil basic consideration for his position. So she just nods at him. He returns the nod, throws some little hand-sign she can't interpret--could be call me, surf's up, or possibly I worship satan--and allows the barest hint of a smile her direction.
Then he puts on his new, Corvette-driving shades and keeps walking.
So she's got nothing.
***
It's pretty much the same thing all week. He drives the Corvette to school every day, and every day Veronica can't come up with a good excuse to pry. And it's almost like he's avoiding her now: she keeps catching glimpses of him turning a corner, or walking into a class they don't share. Or driving away.
She listens in the girls' bathroom, and she listens in the hallways, and she listens at lunch. No one is talking about it. She asks around, as discreetly as she can; no one knows where or how he got the car.
The next step is obvious: routine surveillance.
Thursday night, Veronica sits in the Le Baron a block and a half from the Navarro house. She listens to bad AM radio--the better to stay awake to. It is after nine, and nothing at all has happened for the three hours she's been watching. But diligence is the price of information. It's when people deviate from their usual routine that you catch them out, so figuring out their routine in the first place is crucial. This is as exciting as watching nail polish dry, but it's time well invested.
The pretty blue Corvette is parked on the street. It just hangs out there on the asphalt, taunting her. The motorcycle is gone, nowhere in sight.
Veronica rests her chin in her hand and daydreams a little, the tinny music fading away from her consciousness. And when her thoughts begin to drift to Duncan, and to the lovely, conflicted feelings the thought of him evokes, she forces herself to sit up straight and snap out of it.
If only she could stop paying these little mental visits to ancient history.
Compartmentalize, dammit. What would Sydney Bristow do?
Old joke with herself. Not as funny as it used to be.
She sighs and checks her watch. Nine-thirty. A car passes by and she tenses, but it doesn't even slow down, and eventually the tail-lights disappear in the distance. She slumps down in her seat again.
Not the best neighborhood, not the worst. Probably no need to worry about a drive-by, but your basic carjacking isn't out of the question. So of course she always remembers to keep her doors locked.
Which is why, when someone opens the passenger door and sits down beside her, she feels justified in shrieking and reaching for her taser.
The intruder grabs her forearm in mid-reach. Veronica gets a good look at him and gasps, "Weevil?"
He turns her arm loose. "Hey. Veronica Mars. Ain't exactly your side of town, is it?" He picks up the taser and pushes the buttons a few times, watching the electricity arc. Then he looks at her. "You know, you really oughta lock your doors."
***
"I swear," Weevil continues, while Veronica waits for her heart to dislodge itself from her throat, "You have got to be the nosiest white girl I ever met."
Veronica draws a breath, tries to get her conversational balance. "Oh, Eli. It's so sweet of you to notice."
He doesn't laugh, doesn't smile, not a flicker. Instead, he tosses the taser back into the console, looks away and says, "The car was my uncle's."
She waits until he turns to look at her again, then tries a head-tilt on him, just for old times' sake. "Excuse me? What car?"
"Don't even go there. The Corvette. The reason you been following me around, asking questions, staking out my house..."
Oh. Damn. So much for discretion. So she drops the denial act. "Your uncle? Is he--"
"He's ain't dead, no," Weevil says. "But he's doing a dime at MCC."
Ten-year sentence, then; and MCC San Diego is a Federal prison, so figure one of the juicier felonies. "This the uncle with the chop shop?"
"Yeah. S'more complicated than that, though."
"I wasn't going to ask."
He glances sidelong at her, snorts. "Like you won't just go find out on your own anyway."
"I do have some respect, you know." She says it as sincerely as she can.
His expression eases a little, like maybe he believes her. It's hard to tell. He's going for this cleaner-shaven look lately but it's not making it any easier for a girl to get a read on him.
"Anyway," he says, waving a hand dismissively, "that car was his favorite thing in the world. Only thing the Feds didn't confiscate. He signed it over to me after he was sentenced. Said he didn't want it rotting in storage." Faint smile. "Said if I let anything happen to it he'll bust out of jail just to kick my ass."
"How are you paying for the insurance?" Veronica asks, too bluntly.
He looks at her directly. His expression is not friendly now. "Why are you worryin' about it? For that matter, why you even here?"
"Um--look," Veronica begins, a little at a loss for words. She's not used to feeling less than justified in these situations. "I was just curious, that's all. I don't have some hidden agenda."
"Yeah, right. You always got an agenda. You figured the dumb gangbanger's getting himself in trouble again, he stole some car or he's gonna take up armed robbery to pay for it, right?"
"No!" she snaps. Then, quieter: "I never thought that..."
Problem is, she's lying. And they both know it.
So she tries again. "I don't think you're dumb."
That much is true. She's seen his standardized-test scores.
Weevil shakes his head, opens his door. "Come on," he says, and climbs out.
Veronica hesitates for a second, then gets out on her side and looks at him across the roof of the car. "Where are we going?"
He gestures over his shoulder. "Let's go for a drive." He looks down his nose at her Chrysler. "Your car sucks."
Then he turns and walks towards the Corvette.
Veronica considers this. "I'm not supposed to ride in cars with strange boys," she says, figuring the irony isn't lost on him.
He turns around, spreads his arms wide in a gesture that invites the world to take its best shot. He says, "Then bring your taser."
Then he turns on his heel and keeps walking; he doesn't wait to see if she follows.
"My car does not suck," she calls at his back, and grabs her purse.
She leaves the taser.
***
She's ridden in a lot of expensive cars but never a Corvette; inside it's so low-slung and horizontal you feel like you're settling down into a very comfortable leather kayak. The long, heavy door thunks shut solidly and she's got about thirty seconds to think how dumb this is before Weevil gets in and turns the ignition.
"Where're we going?" she asks again as they back out. She knows that this whole thing is some kind of game between them and that she's losing points by asking.
But she can't help herself. It's her last farewell to common sense.
Weevil shrugs. "Does it matter?" he asks.
"I guess not." Which is the only answer she can give. She got in the car of her own free will, and now she's got to play along or else admit to being nervous.
And you never, ever admit that.
But there's not much of a strip in the Neptune area, even the bad parts of town are a little too suburban for that. So there's really only one place anyone cruises, and that's the beach, and thus she's not surprised when they head west and then south on the PCH.
Veronica, of course, has cruised this beach at night many a time, in many a smooth-riding 09er vehicle. But it's different tonight. It's very dark out, only a sliver of a quarter-moon, and not much traffic at all. Seems the Corvette's engineers weren't fanatical about shutting out road noise during this particular model year, and the engine purr is omnipresent. But the sound is relaxing, like the sound of a heavy rain.
Lilly loved storms.
Veronica blinks back a memory--Lilly, leaning out her bedroom window: Veronica! Come here and smell the rain!--and tries to figure out what she's doing here. Her relationship with Weevil has never been much more than an uneasy alliance, and there was no reason for him to have made this strange overture and damned sure no reason for her to have gone along with it.
Except--and this is thing she's been trying not to think about, she realizes now--she wants to know if he and Lilly were really together. It's so hard to accept the idea of Lilly keeping something like Eli Navarro from her. And maybe that's why she's been pushing it out of her head, ever since the day she overheard his session in the counselor's office.
Did he get to see a side of Lilly she never even knew?
And if so--how is that fair?
Did Lilly actually care at all about him? She was flighty and mercurial and in love with life, but as far as Veronica knows she wasn't exactly the type to go randomly sleeping around behind Logan's back. So did she see in Weevil something other than the stereotype, the walking cliche? Could it possibly have been something more than revenge against Logan or her mother?
And if so, why did she end it?
A thought occurs to Veronica: maybe Lilly is the reason Weevil's here tonight, too, and maybe he doesn't know how to bring it up.
Maybe she's been following her investigative instincts all along and didn't even realize it.
They've been riding in silence, a silence that was becoming comfortable--until now, because all these thoughts have coalesced in her head, all at once, and suddenly her pulse is racing and the seatbelt is too tight, and she knows that she's not going to be able to keep it all inside.
And with a total lack of finesse that's getting to be a bad habit, she turns to Weevil and blurts out:
"I know about you and Lilly."
And almost immediately regrets it.
He doesn't say anything in response, doesn't even look at her. He exhales and tightens his grip on the steering wheel a little, that's all.
The words just linger there. Veronica winces.
It's like all the air has been sucked out of the car's interior; and she has a moment, in that awful vacuum, to reflect on how badly she is fucking this one up.
Then Weevil brakes and abruptly pulls the car off the road and into one of the little public lots overlooking the beach. And before Veronica can react to that, he shuts off the engine and is out of the car and walking away, down to the sand.
He's left the keys hanging in the ignition.
"I am so not going out there after him," Veronica says to the dashboard, after the initial moment of shock.
Then she grabs the keys and goes out there after him.
***
Chapter II Here