The Tender Shore: A Matt Ransom Mystery

by Bobby Underwood

  The whole world knew what that mark meant now. The girl stood there, and I slowly saw her defenses drop. I saw it in her dark brown eyes and the way her body relaxed.

  "I'm Annette."

  "Hi, Annette," said LeAnn.

  "Does it run?" I inquired.

  "She's got no guts," she said, "but I can coax her along the backroads where she doesn't have to go fast."

  I'd seen the two cardboard boxes of twentieth century CDs in the back.

  "Start her up and follow us. We have a garage where we're staying. I want a look at those CDs."

  I smiled and took LeAnn by the hand before Annette could say no.

  Chapter Sixteen

  For grief is an inferno consuming everything in its path, leaving only a single seed to grow anew something more resilient, more beautiful, and tested by fire

  I punched in the code written on the back of the Ferrari key and the garage door lifted to reveal a red Ferrari 308 GTS. "Magnum P.I.," we all said simultaneously. Live streaming on computers had replaced television long ago. We had one, and some old accessories which allowed us to watch a few of the old shows. There were also late night broadcasts of these old chestnuts by a handful of independent stations around the country. They were small mom and pop outfits who did it out of nostalgia rather than profit, since it was a market nearly non-existent now, and no advertiser wanted to waste money on an audience of such limited numbers. I wasn't surprised that a girl who had all that retro music also knew about Thomas Magnum.

  We all just stared, unable to believe what we were seeing. Ferrari and some of the other high-end car manufacturers had survived, but they were sleek twenty-second century glider craft vehicles for the most part, with a minuscule number of ground versions manufactured more as a nod to their history than for profit. Both versions of the aerodynamically engineered beauties cost about five times the amount of those designed and sold by other companies. Of course, like the predecessor we were gawking at, they performed about five times better than anything else in the sky or on the road. And they still had that wonderful intangible of being cool.

  "Geez," Annette said, looking at her banged up and metal oxidized hatchback, "I feel bad even parking next to that." She ran her hand over the rusted fender. "Might give Janine here an inferiority complex."

  "She can rest here awhile. Probably do her good. Why don't we bring the boxes inside. I'm really stoked to see your collection."

  "I'll make us some lunch," offered LeAnn. "We can just relax and get the lay of the place. We haven't had a chance to look around yet," she explained to Annette. "We just arrived. That's why we didn't know about the car."

  "Christ, who do you know that leaves you a present like that?!"

  A look passed between LeAnn and I. She nodded, her pretty dove-gray eyes understanding immediately that I had made my decision about Annette, and was asking her if she agreed. Only couples who love deeply and have built up trust over time can do this. We could place check marks on both those boxes.

  "Edna Bascomb."

  "Thee Edna Bascomb? Aerodyne, the big conspiracy? Holy crap!" She went suddenly quiet. "It's you, isn't it? You were the Regulator, and you," she looked at LeAnn, "you're his wife." She stared at me as though seeing me for the first time. I saw respect in her eyes, but something else as well, something I couldn't pinpoint. "Is it true that you're…" Her head went down, embarrassed at what she was about to ask.

  "Am I what?"

  "Well," she said, staring at the Ferrari so she wouldn't have to look at me, "there's a rumor that you aren't human. And you aren't like the other bio-organics either." She paused. "They say you have a soul." She looked at LeAnn, pleading for forgiveness in case it was true and she hadn't known about me. She looked like she might jump in her car and bolt if only we couldn't hop in the Ferrari and easily chase her down. All reports on what happened in Paris had been sealed so it had to be word of mouth from someone who had read them. LeAnn responded for me.

  "Yeah, he's fully functional though. Efficient, if not always creative in his thinking. But then, he is a guy."

  Annette smiled, grateful she hadn't messed up monumentally. I made my best Nick Charles face at my Myrna Loy for the wisecrack, and opened Annette's squeaky door. She moved the seat forward and each of us took a box into the house. I realized the place was actually pretty nice inside. LeAnn started sandwiches in the kitchen while we sat on a big wine colored sofa and I oohed and ahhed over Annette's centuries old music collection. There was a CMD -- compressional music device -- in the living area but they were not adaptable for these ancient beauties. Nowadays, you simply selected your choice and the music was streamed to your device from satellites. But the stream was encoded so that it could not be recorded and pirated. In addition, the pollutants in the atmosphere and stratosphere sometimes interrupted the listening pleasure. Considering the thick layer of browns and grays which blanketed most of the world now, we had been fortunate to have such good reception during our stay in Paris some years ago. The clearer skies of Miami and Mexico were far more likely to have uninterrupted streaming.

  CD prices ran from pricey to exorbitant, providing you could find one somewhere, and locating an archaic device which would play them was an even more arduous task. I had bought one on the black market in New Chicago years ago, and it had set me back some. I knew a guy who could repair it every couple of years or it would have bitten the dust long ago. I couldn't believe some of Annette's stuff. I was in awe. This was the mother lode of treasure in the twenty-second century. It was Tutankhamun and the Hope Diamond all in one. Okay, so maybe it was just a treasure of that magnitude to a few. But it felt nice to be going through them with someone else who thought that they were.

  I could hear the enthusiasm and appreciation in Annette's voice as we talked about the artists and their songs. She was proud of her stuff and I could tell she enjoyed finding someone who appreciated it just as much as she did. I liked her more and more. LeAnn brought sub sandwiches of ham and turkey with bread and butter pickles and chips. Some things had survived the centuries, thank goodness. LeAnn's eyes nearly popped out of her head when she spotted a double CD collection of all the best Sergio Mendes songs, covering Brasil 66, 77, and 88. Pretty World was a favorite of hers. I smiled internally, remembering LeAnn, Stacy and Emily sitting on a bed in Paris, playing their favorite songs. As we ate, Annette finally asked what we were doing in Miami, so I told her, leaving nothing out. It was a lot to digest. I let her ponder on it for a bit and then asked her the same question.

  "We're from Seattle originally. Pablo and I,” she explained. "He's my boyfriend. We've been in Miami about a year now. We came because…he needs a soul."

  Both LeAnn and I looked at one another. I had trusted Annette, and now she was trusting me. I had to handle this very delicately.

  "What do you mean?"

  She knew she'd just dropped a bombshell. I was a CR, after all. But trust had been earned. She said, "The trail led here. Pablo knew a guy who knew a guy." She let out a long breath with more pain behind it than just a sigh. "Miami is where you pay, then you have to go to Rio. That's where they do it. But it's twenty-five-thousand dollars, and we'll never have that kind of money. So we're stuck. I'm human and he's not."

  She looked up at me. "No offense. You can really love and stuff, but he just sort of goes through the motions. He senses somehow that it's not deep, like it should be. I don't care. I love him. And he treats me right. He's awesome with computers. Kind of like me with music, you know?"

  I was trying to concentrate while thinking about the Miami-Rio connection. That was one huge coincidence. "Do you know where in Rio?" I asked.

  "No, we never got that far. Once we found out from this Danny guy how much it cost, we had to give up. That's why Pablo's so bummed out. If he'd never figured it out, maybe he'd still be okay." She was fingering her necklace with not a little affection. It was a St. Monica pendant. She believed. And she'd been abused. She noticed me staring at her and let go of
it. "Pablo got it for me," she said softly yet proudly.

  LeAnn went into the bedroom and returned wearing her St. Christopher necklace.

  "Edna gave this to me. We were traveling in Paris and it protected us. I only took it off because I was testing the equipment earlier," she said, smiling at me.

  Annette relaxed, feeling better that she was among others who understood.

  Our food was gone and I suggested the girls get cleaned up and take the Ferrari for a spin around Miami. I asked Annette if she minded me using Janine if I needed to run an errand before they were back. She nodded, a bit awkwardly. I suspected when she'd been washing her old rust-bucket this morning she had not expected to be taken in by a bio-organic Regulator and a former Cherry 6. I checked my 11-shot Howzer 380 and slipped on my shoulder holster. The girls were showering and doing whatever it was girls did that made them so wonderful. I had picked up a Nakra 316 with an internal sound inhibitor shortly after Paris. I slipped it into my ankle holster as my backup weapon. I saw Maria every time I touched the Nakra, even though it wasn't the same gun, and felt guilty that I hadn't been able to save her.

  The girls were ready. LeAnn looked amazing. She was wearing white shorts with a turned up purple cuff and a matching purple tank top of very soft fabric. Her white shoulders and legs were bare and lovely in contrast. Her dark hair flowed past her shoulders in the back. She wore a white headband that matched her shorts, and purple plastic glasses that matched the top. Our new friend looked pretty awesome too. The tangled mess of hair was all soft and flowing now, and she had on jean shorts and a Joe Montana 49ers jersey I'd given LeAnn for her birthday a while back. There was a faint smell of shampoo and perfume in the room. Girl smells.

  "Maybe I should go with you two, after all. You might need some protecting."

  LeAnn gave me a kiss and whispered in my ear that she loved me. Then they were out the door to see how much damage they could do. I heard the throaty Ferrari engine's echo as they pulled out of the garage. The Ferrari roared and they were off to do whatever girls did when we weren't around. I waited five minutes, then grabbed the telecom and backed out Annette's little Honda. I didn't like how things were going and needed to see how much damage I could do.

  Chapter Seventeen

  For nothing good can come from darkness, even if a truth exists within that darkness

  I punched in Ray's number and hoped for the best. On the third beep he picked up. The image was dark and murky and I was driving, so I switched to the more time-honored mode and held it to my ear. "Ray, it's Matt."

  "Hey, Matt, guess where I am?"

  "Miami."

  "Yeah, but how'd you know?"

  I was about to tell him when he said in my ear, "Oh, man! I knew this deal was too good to be true. What's going on?"

  "What story did you get?"

  "Just that I got a couple of weeks to come here and see how they do things in Miami. Only three days a week, so two weeks of fun for me and my Jennie, plus the weekend. She's already on the beach. What's the deal?"

  "I had Edna arrange it," I said, trying to shift the little four speed into its final gear with some difficulty. "I needed someone I could trust on the inside."

  "Well, I'm here. What is it you need?" He sounded like he was inside a tunnel.

  "Where are you?"

  "I'm in the morgue. This is my work day. I'm joining Jennie when I get off. She wants to dance the night away, shed a few pounds while living it up. She's all jazzed."

  "You sound like you're in a canyon."

  "That's because it's all weird here, man. I mean, it's like a morgue here--no pun intended."

  My radar was up now.

  "What do you mean, Ray?"

  "I mean…I don't know, it's just all weird. Guy I was supposed to relieve was already gone when I got here. I wasn't late or anything. Nobody in the other rooms down the hallway either. Sorta eerie."

  I did not like this at all. I gave Janine some gas but it didn't help much. I wasn't far away, though.

  "Hey," Ray suddenly said, "You know that scene in The Godfather, where it's all quiet in the hospital? That's what it's like here."

  "Lock the door, Ray. Right now!"

  "Shit!" I heard footsteps echoing then Ray came back on. "Crap, man, what did you get me into?"

  "Ray, check and see if there is a Danny Reynolds there." I heard typing. "Yeah, number twenty-three.”

  "Ray, this is important. Go look and make sure the body is there." More footsteps echoing and then the sound I knew too well of the drawer where you slept forever being pulled out. "Yeah, there's a guy here. He ain't goin' anywhere, anymore."

  "Are both eyes intact?"

  "Huh? Oh, yeah, he has both of 'em. Why?"

  "Ray, do exactly as I say. Don't worry about it being fancy, just take a scalpel and cut one eye out, put it in a bag or whatever the hell you do with one and put it in your pocket. Then take the scalpel and destroy the other one completely. I mean cut it up so bad it can't be used for any kind of ID. You understand?"

  "Yeah, gotcha." Footsteps. "This is gonna be gory." I heard some unpleasant sounds I tried not to think about. Shooting someone was way different from what Ray was doing. I could do it if I had to, but I was glad I didn't have to.

  "Alright. I got it. And the other one is toast. What now?"

  "Push the drawer back in and hide, Ray. Somewhere you can't be found."

  "Shit! This is The Godfather!" I heard quick footsteps and then something opening and closing. Maybe metal.

  "Ray, where are you at?"

  "Where you think!? In an empty drawer."

  "What number?"

  “Sixty-two.”

  "Okay, Ray. Turn off your telecom and wait. I'm only a few minutes away now. I'll let you out when I know it's safe. No matter what you hear, you stay put. Understand?"

  "You bet. I'd rather be stuck in here than really dead."

  "Okay. Shut it off now."

  I terminated the call. I was within a block and pulled up to park, deciding to go on foot the rest of the way. I came up from the opposite side of the street, unhurriedly, keeping an eye out for anyone who looked out of place. Everyone I saw looked legit. I was almost parallel to the morgue when a silver glider craft hovered a moment and then landed. Two guys in suits got out and looked around before heading inside. The car was official but unmarked. Government? They had the look of what used to be called Feds. I waited for them go inside then walked over to their vehicle and used the quiet Nakra to shoot out the computer module. No one heard or noticed.

  I followed them in. I had the Howzer out now, having holstered the Nakra. Inside, it was as quiet. I remembered the layout from my previous visit and as I drew near I heard the unmistakable sound of a drawer being opened. They either already had the code or knew how to access it from the computer module. I stood outside and waited. When I heard an angry exclamation I kicked open the door. I caught them by surprise. They wheeled and went for their weapons, but too late. I shot the first one in the head, nearly separating it from his shoulders. His partner was a shade quicker and a bullet slammed into the wood behind me. My Howzer reverberated throughout the silent sanctuary for the dead and blew a hole the size of a baseball in his chest.

  The shootings had been loud but brief. The morgue was eerily silent now. Dead silent. I checked for ID and couldn't find any. No prints either. Their eyes had the same milky look of retinal alteration as the shooter on the beach. It was a Government glider but these guys weren't from any government I knew about.

  I found drawer sixty-two and pulled it open. "Boo," I said.

  "Haha, very funny." Ray was looking at the bodies while I was dialing Edna.

  "Man, what have you gotten me into, this time?"

  It was a good question.

  Chapter Eighteen

  For when our heart shuts the window to the world outside, the fragrance of the flowers and the sound of the tide rushing ashore remain, waiting until we open the window once again

&n
bsp; Stacy marveled at the beauty and seclusion of the Miami Beach mansion as Jennie followed the sweeping curve of the stonework drive leading to the front entrance. Perhaps mansion wasn't the right word, thought Stacy. It certainly wasn't gaudy, but it was clearly too large and elegant to call a home, and the word house would be almost insulting if spoken out loud. It was lovely yet inviting. Despite the grandeur of fine living any mere cursory view might elicit, up close a warmth permeated the place, beckoning visitors inside. Jennie brought the long white limo to a stop facing the arched front entrance.

  The main color of the stately residence was a very light brown that hinted at orange. The painted facial trim was white that leaned towards cream. The roof and doors, including the four garage doors framed by white-trimmed archways, were a cocoa color that accented the more abundant pale brown-orange. Green sago palms and evergreen shrubs blended restfully against the browns while red flowers drew attention to both. A massive willow tree hung gently over the final curve of the smooth stone driveway, glistening bright in the Miami sunshine. Stacy had not yet been inside but already she was in love. Doc and Edna came out to meet them. Edna hugged her and led her inside. Jennie disappeared to a different section of the sprawling grounds. "It's always silly to ask people how they're holding up so I won't," Edna said.

  Stacy followed her into a huge living area with windows for walls, the elongated clear glass panes allowing light to stream in from all sides. It faced part of the beach and made for a spectacular view of the ocean and sky. The inside seemed to be very spartan, hardly decorated at all. Edna went to make tea leaving Doc and she alone. They made innocuous chit-chat while they waited. She sat facing the ocean while Doc sat facing her across a big coffee table. Edna returned and sat in the chair next to Doc after pouring tea for everyone. Stacy commented that Jennie seemed very sweet.