Dirty Deeds

Lena Lamont was a dame to die for.

She came into my office like a dream walking and draped herself over my desk. The low cut neckline of her tight red polka dotted dress gave me a view that made me choke on my donut.

“Mr Scanlon, I’m a desperate woman, I need your help,” she breathed. The smell of her Chanel No. Five blotted out the aroma of my freshly brewed coffee.

I didn’t stop to ask why such a knockout dame would need the help of a down at heel gumshoe like me – Griff Scanlon, PI, with a mug only a mother could love and too many donuts padding out my shirt.

“Sure,” I said. “What can I do for you?”

“It’s my husband, Mr Scanlon, I think he’s seeing another woman.”

I let my mind boggle at what this other woman must be like – the man had already shown superior taste in wives.

“You want me to keep tabs on him? Get proof?”

“You must be very discreet,” she murmured. Her eyelashes fanned my heated face. “He must never know that I’ve hired you – neither must anyone else.”

So I started tailing Henry Lamont, from his elegant Manhattan home to his Wall Street office, and all the places in between. It was those places in between that revealed the man to me.

He spent all his spare time at shelters for the homeless, soup kitchens, refuges, old folks’ homes – I watched him doling out checks, soup and sometimes just a shoulder for someone to cry on. Hell, this man was a saint.

I didn’t have anything to offer Lena a week later, nothing that proved he was cheating on her anyway.

“Henry’s a good man, Mrs Lamont,” I tried to explain. “All he does is find people he can help.”

Her jaw hardened like crystal. “Don’t fall for it, Mr Scanlon,” she said. “He’s got everybody believing he’s purer than the Pope, but I know he’s cheating on me. Just one more week, Mr Scanlon, keep following him. He’ll give himself away. And call me the minute you think you’ve got something.”

Two days later I followed Henry to a drab address in Queens. I got close enough to take shots of him talking to a fine looking young woman on the stoop. Then I paid a kid who had been playing nearby to tell me what he said to her.

“He said he’s comin’ back tonight at eight,” the kid said.

“have you seen him here before?” I asked.

“Yeah, he comes round all the time,” the kid said. I watched him run off to spend the money he’d just earned. I’d have given anything for that kid to be lying.

I called Lena and told her about the woman in Queens. “Looks like you’ll be getting the proof you need,” I said. “I’m going back there tonight, and I’ll have pictures for you tomorrow.”

But I felt bad about it. Henry Lamont had seemed like a genuinely good man, yet here he was, cheating on his wife. Just shows you can’t trust nobody.

That night I went back to Queens and watched Henry Lamont park his car and go into the house. He was carrying something in his arms. I followed him up the stairs, keeping in the shadows and watched him knock at one of the doors. I had my camera ready.

The fine looking woman came to the door.

“I guessed you and the boy would want to listen to the comedy shows tonight,” Lamont said. He handed over the box. “It’s only a portable, but it will do until your new radiogram is delivered.”

“Oh, thank you, Mr Lamont,” the woman said. Her voice was choked with tears. “You’re so good to us!”

“I was talking to the surgeon today – little Joe’s operation was a complete success. All he needs is a few weeks of rest, and he’ll be his old self again. If there’s anything else you need, just call me.”

The woman sobbed her thanks and took the radio inside. Henry started walking back down the corridor toward me. I knew I had to step out and tell him what was going on with his wife. Lena had got it all wrong, and Henry needed to straighten things out with her. But then I smelled Chanel Number Five.

A gloved hand snaked under my arm, holding a gun. The gun fired and Henry Lamont fell to the floor. I heard Lena Lamont whisper, “That’ll teach the creep to give our money away to these deadbeats,” then something hit me – hard – and I blacked out.

When I came to, I had a lump on my head, but the gun was in my hand with my prints all over it and Henry Lamont was dead. Lena Lamont and little Joe’s mother were sobbing in each other’s arms.

“If only I’d been a few minutes earlier, I could have stopped him from shooting my husband,” I heard Lena wail as the cops led me away.

Lena looked so different in the witness box. There was no sign of the voluptuous dame that hired me.

The jury bought everything she said – how she was waiting in the car while her good, kind husband delivered the radio set, how she saw me sneaking into the building after him, and found me in the hall, holding the gun and demanding money. She hit me on the head with her purse, she told them, but too late to stop me shooting her husband.

Hell, when she broke down and cried she even almost had me convinced. And when the fine looking woman with the sick boy, and the kid playing in the street, both fingered me as the guy they’d seen lurking about and asking questions, I was a goner.

Of course, Lena inherited all her husband’s dough, and here I am on Death Row, pretty sure that Henry Lamont would agree with me on one thing.

Lena Lamont is a dame to die for.

End

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