Case of the Sexy Gams
by R D Larson
A hardboiled detective story with humor.
I had plenty to do. Like think about bad bets. And doodle on a pad, making those golden arches and spinning buckets. A knock at door made me jump. 
A dame walks through the door, mostly legs. Real gams, and, boy, are they ever. Her strappy, spike heels clicked as she danced through my crummy office door. 
"Can you help me?" she said, her lips curving around every sound. Her lipstick gleamed fire engine red and her big brown eyes were surrounded by thick, furry eyelashes. Her long chestnut hair hung on her shoulders. Her halter top barely covered her melon-sized breasts, but her legs made me want to beg her for some. Those legs were a good five feet long from her slim ankles to the hem of her blue denim shorts. "My name is Sherisa LeGrand. And I need your help, Mr. Riles." 
"OK, Ms. LeGrand. I'll listen to your story but you've got to know I'm really up to my behind in a messy divorce investigation." I pushed my fedora back on my head as I stood up. "Have a chair and tell me about it?" 
"My fiancé is missing and the cops won't look for him," Sherisa LeGrand folded herself into the wooden office chair. Her legs were the last to fold. Thighs tanned and strong with muscle definition lingered before crossing. She crossed them in slow motion. One high heel dropped down showing me an arched instep of a pale round half moon. "The bastards won't look for him because they say he has a history of disappearing, you know, running out on the bride-to-be. He loves me, I know he wouldn't do that, not to me, Mr. Riles." 
"Buenos, Senorita, call me Marion, everyone else does." I rubbed my head where I once had more hair. I read the look on her face. Her cute little mouth made a mew like a cat as if she said "Oh no, a bilingual cross-dressing transgender." I smiled benignly. I'm accustomed bullshit like that. 
I pulled my skirt down. I looked her straight in the eye. "I'm a Scot and fond of me kilts, lass." 
"Okay, well, I just need some help, Marion and you're the man who can help me." 
"Who sent you over here?" Yes, you sweet thing I'll help you, right onto your back, I said to myself. 
"That pumped-up dyke at Guys and Gals Fitness Spa, Freddie. We had a beer after class today. Freddie runs a great gym. No joke, best equipment and best trainers. It has a classy rainbow look. Anyway, she said you helped her beat a conviction because she didn't do it and the cops wouldn't investigate all the evidence. You know, like OJ." Sherisa pressed her chest forward. Her melons bumped each other in the middle. Speaking of bumping? 
"Where did you last see--what's his name? The guy, your guy?" I licked the end of my number 2 pencil, trying to discourage her as a client. 
"Robert Ellsworth Stunning III. My dad owns a string of second-hand car lots and one new car dealership. Rolling in dough, my old man is, I mean. Anyway, poor Robert is always broke. I've supported him for the last year and a half with my allowance from my dad. I'm really a cardiac nurse. I can give artificial respiration to a dying man and raise him right up." She laughed nervously. Jumping up, she whirled to glare at me. "I just haven't had time to work. I'm busy with Robert's acting career. Well, Marion?" 
"Sure I'll look into it. That'll be $300 a day and expenses for a week to start." I wrote down a bunch of nothing so she'd think I really wanted on the case. "Where should I start looking, Sherisa?" 
"He came to my place night before last; we had a little fight. He left." She pouted charmingly as she crossed and re-crossed her beautiful legs. Hey, they were even beautiful right where they joined her body, barely separated by a thin strip of denim shorts. "He got pissed at me and went for a run along the coast." 
"Anybody see him leave?" I pushed my glasses back. 
"Well, let me think--maybe the old fellow who lives beside me-- he is always peeking at me; he's a pervert, a damn voyeur. He gets off on watching me dress and undress. Once he told me if I didn't like being looked at, then I should get blinds," she laughed. 
"Who wouldn't?" I mumbled. She glared at me and wrote me a check. 
"You know you ought to lose weight and quit smoking; you'd live longer." With a final wave of her cute little fanny, she strutted out the office door. 
I scratched under me kilt, thinking, wishing really, that I was home, sipping a brew in my Barka lounger. It's not a true Barka Lounger. WhenI'm not there, bloodhound sleeps in there. Doesn't bark. Wishful damn thinking on this dick's part. 
I don't usually wear kilts; but I have a bet going on with Bette, my girlfriend. Don't get me wrong, I like to get dressed up in womens' nighties as much as the next guy, but wool skirts aren't my fashion thang, you know? 
Naw, you don't want to know. It was a mistake to make a bet with my girlfriend; women are always right, even when they know they aren't. What a guy doesn't do in the name of nookie! 
I went to talk to Sherisa'seighbor, Old Man Kildee. Known that old geezer for years. He came right to the door. 
"Well, Officer, what can I do you for?" He wrinkled up his skull and glared at me. 
"Did you see the boyfriend of your neighbor woman night before last?" I asked politely, thinking he probably remembers me as a cop. I pointed to the identical bungalow next to his. 
"You mean that slut next door? Her boyfriend? Boyfriend, hell. He's a funny boy. Not interested in her. She has her own kind of kinky stuff, you know?" 
"Well, she said she was going to marry him." I told him. I was getting hot in the kilts. I am going to feed them to my girlfriend when I get over this bet thing. 
"Hah. He wouldn't marry anyone. Loves himself, that bugger does." The old man spat right past me into the geranium dying in the pot beside the door. "He got into a fist fight with her t'other night. She hit him with a bottle of sauce. I can't abide folks that waste good liquor. That's when he took off running toward the beach. Crazy fool, shoulda hit her a good one, funny or not." 
"Thanks, I'll look into it; you're a real help," I nodded to him. I swear his whole head and face wrinkled up when he grinned. 
SO my little long-legged client didn't share the complete story about her fight with loverboy. I scratched my big butt before I squeezed into my old Ford. I went back to my place and put on my ragged old shorts from Desert Storm days. The hell with the bet; nookie isn't worth having a sore ass for when you get to be my age. All bets are off, I'd tell my girlfriend, Bette, tonight as soon as she got up. Sleeps all day. Just like the dog. I shook my head. Women! Dogs! 
Then I drove to the new car lot to meet Sherisa's father. I was getting hungry. Bette said she'd make me a delicious salad with Greek cheese for dinner. OH sure, I thought, better get a Double Burger before that. I wouldn't want to faint while I grilled the father. I stopped just before the lot, ordered a burger to go and stood covertly, more or less, outside the burger joint checking out the car lot. Skimpy burger, damn, I swallowed it in two bites. Threw away the evidentiary bag and wrapper. I could see the office bulding from my spot. I'd guess my client's old man would be behind glass, behind more glass and then behind wood in the guts of the ugly squat stucco building of Best Deals. 
I wiped my hands on my butt and lit up a cigar. An old one. I miss my smokes. Crap, I coughed, my eyes started to water. These damn patch things work on cigars, too? In a total utterly foul humor, I went to the snazzy Best Deals Car Sales office. 
"I need to talk to Mike LeGrand," I told the fizzy-haired broad at the desk. My eyes took a swill of the delicious new Fords standing glass mirrors around the showroom. "He isn't expecting me." 
"Oh, shit, now what's she done?" The woman stuck her finger on some button that rang some alarm. A guy built just like the building came out of the john. Squat and ugly and pale. I watched as he tried to get his fly lined up with his big snoze. 
"Alma, what the hell was that buzzer about? This a-hole trying to hop on you?" 
"No it's Sherisa ; she's in trouble again." Alma patted her fizzy hair. I noticed about then that she kind of looked like Sherisa only more like beef jerky than choice cut. Her stringy arms twisted and relaxed as I watched her. Nervous. 
"Hi, I'm Mike LeGrand, how may I help you?" 
"I'm Marion Riles. It's about Sherisa's fiance, he's gone missing, as they say on the six o'clock news," I grinned shaking his hand. 
"God ,I hate the media. Idiot talking heads! Ever since we won the money." He turned to Alma. "Get Missy to watch the desk. It's your turn to deal with Sherisa. We've been cursed ever since we won that fucking 13 million. Lottery. Come in to my office, please, Mr. Riles." 
I was confused by whatever he said but I followed the fireplug of a father anyway. What 13 million? The three of us ended up in a paneled office with no windows and only technical stuff and futon-type hard-on-yer-ass furniture. He had to make do with paintings of landscapes with spots on them. The office was dim after the showroom. I blinked a little. 
"Well, you want a drink or water or something? We paid everybody who had a gripe about her, after we won the money. But since she's left the rehab place, we don't.pay anyone. We never pay any more, don't pay anyone, so you get nothing, no matter what," Alma said. Her prune face bobbed at me. "And Sherisa ain't getting a dime from us anymore." 
"Nothing to drink, thanks. Sherisa asked me to look for him," I said. "She's paid me already." 
"She paid you? To look for that piece of dirt?" Alma rolled her eyes. "'Miss Alma, Miss Alma? 'He says to me every fucking time I see him. Then he says to me, 'Did you read Summer and Smoke?' Like I give a shit about some damn old book. Or the movie." She lit a smoke. I tried to inhale it as much as I could. "That guy is gay. Robert won't marry her." 
"Alma, he might if he thought we'd share the wealth. I told you that last night. Who the hell knows what he'd do? Alma, honey, I've been giving him a thousand a month NOT to marry her." 
"Mike, you promised! Whyn't you tell me? I thought we agreed not to spend another dime on our daughter?" Alma was looking like a overwrought monkey about now. The fireplug and the monkey eyed each other before they turned on me. 
"It would have cost us a hell of a lot more to get her out of another stupid marriage." Mike growled. "And you, whyn't you mind your own business, Riles?" 
"Hey, this is all very cool, but this dude's missing so that's only my interest. So where do you think he might be?" I leaned against the wall, smelling the acrid smoke from their cigarettes, not caring if I got cancer, a smoke is a smoke. 
"He's got a boyfriend in Seashell Condos; a machinist that keeps it quiet," Mike said, his face red and pissed. Alma was unraveling her sweater at the bottom. She looks up at me. 
"Guy's a body builder; works out at that fitness place, Gregg-three g's is his name." Alma says to me. "To think I've been god damn fiscally contributing through him," she points at Mike, "to get this Gregg's teeth straightened and him being at least forty years old." 
"A real sucker, huh?" I said, making note in of it on my notepad. 
Alma looks at me suspiciously before she blurts out. "Look, I've been giving Sherisa money, too, but she always gave it to him, her so-called boyfriend. She said she didn't do drugs anymore, not even speed. Robert Ellsworth Stunning III. What a stupid name-I even had him investigated. Nothing. He was just an ordinary guy, they said." 
"Well, I need to nose around, but I'll get back to you both," I told them and split. 
I had another greasy burger before I went over to Guys and Gals Fitness Spa. I tried to get my head around the idea that I was going to go look at all these buffed guys after three burgers. I could only summon up pity, but no regret. 
It was a big building with a racquet court and fancy weight room. There were a few people around. Finally, I found my pro-bono dyke, Freddie. She was sitting in the Jacuzzi with a skinny blond that reminded me of Ann Hutch or Hatch or Heck or whatever! We shook hands, me leaning over that steaming pit feeling like a pig about to be boiled. 
"Hey, do you know Robert Stunning?" I leaned back on my heels, grunting and worried I'd let a burger fart. She gazed up at me with that knowing look. 
"Yep, I know him and his soul mate too. Gregg was here an hour ago. He said he was going with Pammy to the doubles weight room. But, Pammy he didn't, did he?" She turned to the woman next to her. Pammy shook her head, "No." 
"So where'd he go" I squeeze my eyes together hoping it would work on my butt cheeks. 
"Some babe came in to talk to him. Big boozums and long legs." Pammy said. She rolled her eyes at Freddie. I laughed and so did Freddie. Hell, at least we were all on the same page. Sherisa knew I'd be here, so what was she trying to do? 
"Where's this double weight room?" I groaned, standing. Freddie pointed toward a hall. I notice her wet, shiny arm and shivered at the loss to mankind. 
"Third door. Let me know what it was like," she cracked. Pammy laughed out loud. 
I went down the hall and opened the third door. Gregg was there all right. He was tied up on a weight bench with a huge barbell in the brackets above his head. Funny thing was, he was tied with gauze and duct tape. I almost lost it. 
"Hey, you're Gregg, huh?" I looked at his blood-shot eyes scared stupid in a movie star face. I bent over to let him loose when something hit me. It kind of glanced off my square head. 
I swung around and grabbed the beautiful chick by the arm. She dropped the iron bar which fell on Gregg's groin. All hell broke loose then. Mike and Alma LeGrand burst through the door. There was a street cop behind them. 
"What the hell you hitting me for?" I yelled at Sherisa LeGrand. She started to cry. 
Her mother went to comfort her and her father went to let poor old Gregg up so he could suffer his pain in private. I could see it hurt three-g's Gregg a lot when Mike ripped off the duct tape. Me and the cop stared at one another. 
"We found a body behind the car lot; it was her boyfriend. Her folks ID-ed him as Robert Ellsworth Stunning III." The cop told me. 
"And they called her?" I asked him. He nodded. 
"And the station sent you?" He nodded again. 
"Mike helped Gregg into the bathroom," Alma told me as she patted Sherisa's back. I scratched a minute on my belly before I asked Sherisa the question. 
"Why'd you tie up Gregg? Were you going to get rid of him so he wouldn't talk?" I asked her when she raised her head. 
"No, no. That's not it. I read a note from him that I found in Robert's underwear drawer. Gregg told Robert that if he married me, that it was over for the two of them. Gregg had written that he would rather kill Robert than share him with me. He was afraid because we'd have children and be closer than the two of them. That's just not true. I would have done anything to make Robert happy, even if I had to marry the two of them." She started sobbing. 
Like a dumbbell it hit me. OH shit, I turned and ran into the bathroom. Mike was flat on his back, a gash in his forehead. 
I ran into the lobby, worrying that the killer had gotten away. 
There was a great racket going on with shouting swearwords. A bunch of people were crowded together. As I got closer, I was filled with admiration. Gregg Three-G's was caught. He wasn't running anymore. Hell no, there was Freddie and Pammy holding Gregg while he struggled to get away. The cop ran up behind me. 
"You give us a bad name, you swarmy slut," shouted Pammy, pinching Gregg's nipple. Freddie pulled his hair with her free hand. Gregg was splotchy, read to cry. 
I laughed as the cop flipped the cuffs on Gregg as he was twisting trying to get away from Freddie and Pammy. The cop was reciting the Miranda and the gals were joining in high falsettos. Gregg looked like he'd swallowed a litter of hornets. 
Aw, you know the rest. I broke up with Bette, because I never could stay on a diet or stop smoking. Sherisa went to Arizona with her parents and never would go out with me. I asked Freddie and Pammy to join the firm and help me investigate heinous crimes. 
They declined, so I went fishing to kill the time until my next case walked in on a great pair of gams. 
The End


R D Larson is a writer living in both California and Washington, R D Larson has been ePublished in lovewords-ezine, the copperfieldreview.com (current issue) and will have a story in deeplyshallow.com in the spring issue. As an eAuthor of Mama Stories, R D Larson believes eReading is a future that will come to be.