The Tender Shore: A Matt Ransom Mystery

by Bobby Underwood

  "Matt, what did you mean about the numbers?" she asked while folding clothes and arranging them in our suitcase.

  "Miami and Rio are two places that still have bus lockers. They were the last two cities on the list to have them removed during the final stages of the military surge against drug trafficking. The military had already taken out most of the cartels when volcanos devastated the growing regions in South America and Latin America and it became unnecessary."

  "Why do I get the feeling there's more, Matt?"

  I glanced outside. Stacy was fervently taking to Edna on the telecom.

  "You need more than just the number to open it. There is a retinal scan as well. Danny is in Miami, but he's dead."

  "Oh no," LeAnn lamented, glancing outside as well. "How much can Stacy take? This is truly horrible." There was tender compassion in her voice as she leaned against me. I put my arms around her. "I know," I whispered. "I know."

  Chapter Thirteen

  For she once belonged to dreams, but then her tender shore was sighted, sails were cast upon her velvet sea, and she walked in dreams no more

  Stacy fingered the velvety petals of the single yellow rose that lay in the seat beside her. Pedro's gift had arrived as they were leaving. She felt only tenderness for this boy who had offered her a place to hide in her darkest hour. Her guilt about her behavior after John's death, the fear that she had been disloyal to him, had faded after talking with LeAnn and Edna. She realized now that she had been hurting, and needed to say goodbye to John in her heart. Pedro had unknowingly helped her do this. In turn, she had given him the memory of a beautiful girl on the beach who shared her love with him. She caressed tenderly the note that accompanied the flower, unfolding it to read his words once more:

  Stacy,

  I know that I will never see you again, but I wanted to tell you how wonderful you are, and how much last night meant to me. I was on the beach because my girlfriend had dumped me for someone with better prospects. To have someone wonderful like you want to be with me and share with me what you did made it okay. I realize I was too good for her because of you, and now I can move on. I hope one day to marry a girl like you. Perhaps she will be blonde and lovely, perhaps not. But I know that she will get the kind of love you gave to me, and I will always try to make her feel the way you made me feel last night. You are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen, or ever will, but it is the beauty my eyes cannot see which make you wonderful. I will keep a special place in my heart for you that no one else will ever touch,and remember you always. ---- With Love, Pedro

  She smiled, folding the letter carefully, saving it to be placed later among her most cherished things. She would remember Pedro fondly, sweetly, but she had loved John with everything she was, and she would hold him in her heart forever. There was pain and sorrow now, but much deeper, there was hope. She had realized just how happy he had made her while talking to LeAnn, and then Edna. Edna wanted to hear how they’d met, and what kind of man he had been. Talking about him had cemented in Stacy's heart all the wonderful things about him, and now those things would be what she remembered. Even before Edna had proffered the notion that Stacy herself must be terribly special for someone so fine to have loved her so, she had begun to think along those lines. She was worthy of his love, and though it seemed far away, she knew a time would come when she would love again, and be loved again. But not today.

  Out the window, the blue sky had disappeared, replaced by the browns and grays which sometimes made Earth look like the Klingon home world from Star Trek, as Matt was fond of saying. Stacy admitted to herself for the first time today that some part of her had always been a bit jealous of her best friend. Jealous of the way Matt loved her and wanted her. Jealous of the easy love the two of them shared together. She admitted it to Edna also, who understood, and did not judge. John had changed all that, and now Stacy knew what it felt like to love and be loved like LeAnn was loved. Experiencing that happiness for herself had opened up new worlds for her. Edna told her the doors to those new worlds did not close with John's passing, but would only close if she allowed them to close.

  Edna hinted at plans she had for Stacy, whenever she was ready to move forward. Even in her sorrow, there was curiosity and a bit of excitement at what those plans might be. Stacy would not allow John's death to close those doors. He had opened them by loving her, and it would dishonor his memory if she did not see what was on the other side.

  Chapter Fourteen

  For a man loved by a woman can never truly lose his way, because her light shines even in the darkest places

  Edna's limo was waiting for us when we disembarked. I smiled, remembering the hot-ass but wholesome-looking chauffeur in Paris who could easily have passed for a Playboy Bunny. Stacy smiled at me. Whatever Edna had said must have helped her. Behind that tough businesswoman facade and that Southern genteel lady affectation was one of the kindest and most morally grounded people I knew. Edna's faith in God was strong and it always seemed to rub off on the people she came in contact with, even me. I wondered how she was doing with crusty old Doc Martin.

  A girl in a chauffeur's uniform opened the driver door and stepped out. She was cute as a button and if Edna hadn't sent her I would have bet good money the diminutive girl wasn't old enough to drive. Maybe it was the pigtails. Maybe it was the grillwork. Her smile was like looking into the Miami sun, which was reflecting off a mouthful of old-style braces. It was rare to see them in the twenty-second century, not because the need to straighten teeth no longer existed, but because advancements in orthodontics included a method of realignment much less conspicuous. Something about the procedure affected one out of every fifty-thousand people or so adversely, however, and they were forced to go old-school for a year.

  "Your mouth is going to break if you keep that up," I said as we approached.

  "Just ignore my husband, he's not used to people being nice to him."

  "Oh, that's okay," she replied.

  "I must be doing something right," I commented to LeAnn, "or else why would you have pursued me with such fervor?"

  "That was just youthful exuberance, coupled with inexperience. If only I had known."

  Stacy was shaking hands with the chuckling, smiling young girl, who seemed to think LeAnn and me were hilarious.

  "I don't believe we've met," Stacy said.

  "I know!" She seemed very excitable. "The boss has told me all about you, though. She says you won't be driving her around anymore. Oh crap! I wasn't supposed to say anything. Please don't tell Miss Edna. I don't want her to think I'd ever let her down."

  "Your secret is safe with me," Stacy assured her. I could tell, however, that Stacy's wheels were spinning.

  "Thanks! My name's Jennie. I know who all of you are, of course, so no need for introductions."

  Our bags were brought to us on the tarmac even though I hadn't seen anyone unloading the cargo hold. Edna's name always meant treatment something above first class. Her name got you the kind of service that couldn't be bought, it had to be earned. I helped Jennie put our luggage into the trunk. She was so slight I expected her to have trouble, but she surprised me. She went rigid like a wooden nutcracker and flexed her muscles.

  "Short but stout!" she said cheerfully, laughing.

  I could see why Edna hired her. Up close, I could tell that the pigtails were deceptive. She was still young, just not as young as she looked. It was the eyes that gave her away first. And then the circled V glimpsed when she stretched forward to arrange our suitcase with the carry-on luggage. She had to be in her early twenties. Damn. So much for first impressions.

  "Everybody ready?" she asked.

  Soon she was weaving her way through Miami like Crockett and Tubbs. Miami was still as I remembered it and still as it was centuries ago. Just as Paris would always be Paris, Miami would always be Miami. The trafficking was gone, of course, but gambling was bigger than ever. The contrast between the glamour and exotic nightlife of those driving Ferraris and
Lamborghinis with the almost Third World feel of certain Hispanic areas was stark. Miami was palm trees and the smell of good leather and expensive perfume. It was the ocean and the harbor, it was casual extravagance, it was sexy legs in stilettos, and it was trendy clubs with dazzling white and brown ass in tight fitting skirts ripe for the taking. They had it and knew you wanted it, and you knew they wanted it as much as you did. That Miami required money and charm, but usually just money.

  To anyone who knew Earth's history as I did, the other Miami reminded one more of Castro's Cuba than America. Only these Cubans didn't dream of fleeing some oppressive regime, they dreamed of escaping to the good life just a few blocks away. Dominicans, Puerto Ricans, and a potpourri of Latinos and Caribbean Islanders lived alongside Cubans who had flocked to Florida during the final stages of the war on terrorism. It had devastated their country of birth as the cells who had been driven out of their own countries had sought haven and a foothold in Cuba to make their last stand. The war was bloody and final. Financial enablers and weapons suppliers to terrorist organizations were dealt with brutally, in a coordinated military effort similar to the one mounted against the drug cartels just over a decade prior. Cubans who had escaped from the violent war to Miami had stayed, because even a have-not in Miami was a king by comparison to the squalor of Cuba. And they could always visit paradise just a few blocks away, and dream.

  "We're here."

  Jennie's proclamation had caught me off-guard. I had been thinking about getting LeAnn's panties off and tearing her up. She had worn an emerald green velvet dress that hugged every curve and was long enough to be proper, yet short enough to let me know there were panties to match whenever she moved a certain way, which she did as often as she could. Stacy sat up front and had been chatting with Jennie during the drive while I enjoyed the contrast of LeAnn's beautiful white legs against the soft emerald green. I ached for an even softer velvet that was so close and yet so far away. I wondered if we would have time before we met Edna and Doc.

  When we stepped out of the limo I was somewhat surprised at where we were. It wasn't shantytown by any means, but it certainly wasn't the Delano or the Ritz-Carlton either. The area was upscale but ordinary, the very low end of high-class. It was nice, but not art deco. It really didn't matter to me, or LeAnn for that matter, but this wasn't Edna's style at all. It was out of character.

  "Here are your keys," Jennie said, handing them to LeAnn while I unloaded the bags. "I think it's just down there," she pointed. "Yours too," she told Stacy. "But I'm supposed to take you to see Miss Edna first."

  She turned back to us, all bright-eyed and bubbly. In someone else it might have been annoying, but in Jennie it was endearing, because it was genuine. She was a Cherry 6, and a young one like LeAnn had been, so who knew what special kind of hell she'd been through. "Miss Edna says she'll contact you tomorrow around noon, and not to do anything until then."

  She made a scrunched up face, probably in reaction to my troubled expression at this turn of events. "Sorry. She said to tell you to enjoy your evening. Oh! I almost forgot. She told me to give you these." They were car keys. Actual metal keys, like the ones to our Olds 98 back in New Chicago, the Yank tank LeAnn loved to drive back and forth to work. The Ferrari logo was on the black leather fob. Well, well, Edna was just full of surprises.

  Chapter Fifteen

  For how can man not believe, once he has held in his arms the greatest of creations, and glimpsed in her eyes the beauty and wonder of heaven

  She threw her soft white arms around me as soon as we closed the door behind us, offering herself to me with carefree abandon. I kissed her soft lips and explored her warm moist tongue with mine as my hands caressed the curvature of her soft and beautiful derriere. She slipped off my shirt and I felt the crushed emerald velvet against my bare chest. My hands found silk and slid them over the lovely rise of her ass and they fell to her feet. She kissed me sweetly, want and need mingling with deep love and caring, each of us wanting the other, but wanting even more to make the other happy. I unzipped her dress in the back and slid it off her shoulders while it remained wrapped around her waist. She unfastened her emerald silk top and her milky white breasts with their lovely pink tips created in me a hunger that kept us standing against the door while I loved them, adored them, gobbled them up like candy as she moaned and sighed and ran feminine fingers through my hair. I held her waist while I traveled downward with my kisses until I was buried in a softness like the clouds that promised heaven. She was delicious and sexy, and I could never get enough of the girl I loved, the woman I adored.

  I heard her whispers of affection and explored her with a tenderness born of my love for her. I finally could take it no more, wrapping my arms around her legs and lifting her off the floor amid wonderful girlish laughter. We somehow found the bedroom, laughing the entire time, and I sat her down on the edge of the bed. She smiled, lifting her pretty white legs perpendicular against my chest. I plunged into her velvet sea while I stroked her white legs gently, and after a time clenched them fiercely as I swam harder and farther out into an unending ocean of femininity. From somewhere far away I could hear someone playing the cylindrical and hypnotic Planets of the Universe of Stevie Nicks. I loved her harder and growled, "You're a girl!" as the sounds of Miami and the quiet echo of Stevie Nicks's raspy, sexy voice drifted through the open window. LeAnn smiled, then arched her back against the mattress as she grabbed for dear life the covers and screamed out in a moment of pain and pleasure. I did as well.

  Mick Jagger and Sheryl Crow were singing Old Habits Die Hard now. Someone had some real oldies in their music library. LeAnn let her legs relax outward and wrapped them loosely around me as I leaned over to kiss her, whispering in her ear, "Thank you." She enveloped my neck in her loving arms and pulled my ear to her lips and whispered, "I love you, Daddy. You're my man."

  "Oh, my god!" I said in surprise.

  "What?"

  "It's Anita Baker's Good Enough." It was lovely, and the perfect song to wind down to after beautiful sex with the girl I loved.

  LeAnn laughed. "Only you would know that, sweetie. God, I love you," she said, kissing my neck all over.

  I was already starting to love Miami. The first time I'd been here had barely been long enough to get the lay of the land, much less feel the pulse of the Miami people had been talking about for centuries. In the 1930s Miami was glamour, Hollywood stars and starlets often flocking here to gamble, or just relax on sandy white beaches by day and party in posh surrounding by evening. Gangsters and big stars had rubbed shoulders in Miami long before Las Vegas had really hit its stride and become Vegas. Vegas no longer existed, of course. Secret weapons testing underground in the desert had gone horribly wrong in 2083, the cloud breaking through the Earth's crust and into the atmosphere. There wasn't time to evacuate more than ten thousand or so lucky people who escaped the excruciating death the rest of the Las Vegas population could not. It was a ghost town now, cordoned off for a five mile radius for at least another fifty years. Glamorous casinos once filled with life and teeming with passion, stood eerily silent now.

  Sade's Clean Heart began playing and I slid off the bed to see where the music lover lived. I heard LeAnn's laughter behind me. The girl was about a block away, washing a rust-pimpled old hatchback from the late twentieth century that I finally decided was a Honda. She was parked in that no-man's land between the two Miamis. A block one way and it was Third World and a block the other way, where we were, and you were at the lower end of high class. She looked up and saw me watching her out our window as Gloria Estefan began singing It's Too Late, the old Carol King classic.

  She was young, maybe seventeen or eighteen, white and slim, but shapely. She had that ghetto femininity that was sexy. Her hair was dark and long, full but twisted in some kind of tight braid that I doubted had been washed in several weeks. She was wearing a long black overcoat and I knew she was only one step away from living in the streets. She was living out of her car,
was my guess. She sort of gave a tentative wave. I waved back and she smiled. I gave the thumb up sign. She nodded and increased the volume. Alison Moyet's Invisible, a fabulous song, began playing. I gave her two thumbs up this time and she laughed, but stopped rather abruptly. I got the feeling it had been awhile since she'd had much to laugh about. I liked her. I gave her the sign that I wanted to talk to her. She hesitated, then nodded her consent.

  I told LeAnn, "C'mon." She had been watching and was already dressed. Man, she was wonderful. It only took us about five minutes to get there. Bananarama was singing Cruel Summer when we arrived. She seemed to relax a bit once she noticed LeAnn was with me. I couldn't blame her. She might be grubby but there was something special about her. Probably a ton of guys wanted to 'help' her. We introduced ourselves. LeAnn extended a hand and she took it.

  "You've got some awesome songs," I said enviously.

  "Thanks. Not a lot of people are into the old stuff anymore." Phil Collins and Genesis began playing Hold On My Heart. I named the band.

  "Wow, you do know your stuff. Even people who think they know usually think it's just Phil Collins."

  "Well, he's a lot closer to that era than we are," LeAnn joked.

  The girl smiled and almost laughed. I noticed, however, that she hadn't given us her name yet. Knowing Genesis from Phil Collins solo made me some points, but it wasn't trust. "How long you been livin' out of your car?"

  She froze. She wasn't embarrassed, just leery now. LeAnn reached out and put one hand on her shoulder, then took her other hand and exposed her circled V. "It's okay," she told her. "We only want to help. My husband's one of the good guys. Really good guys."