Jerry Oltion is the most prolific writer of short stories in the history of Analog Magazine. No one even comes close. And he still regularly publishes stories there.

But this original story is something different, something that fits Pulphouse the best. A 1940s detective story where sayings actually happen. This story just grabbed me and wouldn’t let me go until the wonderful ending.

Besides continuing his regular science fiction (and mystery/fantasy) writing, Jerry is also a major amateur astronomer and does a regular column for Sky and Telescope. Might want to check it out. www.jerryoltion.com

I knew I had a peeper when I couldn’t boil water for my evening tea. I had set the flame on high and had been studiously ignoring the kettle for over five minutes, but it still hadn’t whistled. A watched pot never boils, but it sure wasn’t me jinxing the thing, so that left only one other possibility.

From the angle between the stove and the window, I figured my spook had to be in the Hightower building, probably seven or eight stories up. I took my hat from the table where I’d dropped it on the way in and waved it in the air a time or two next to the window. The kettle gave a momentary squeal, then squealed again when I brought the hat back into position.

There. I took a good look at the spot my hat covered, then switched out the light. The kettle kept whistling even when I lowered my hat. I turned off the burner, but the water continued to boil; it had stored up a lot of energy in those few minutes. I wondered if my peeping Tom had just been careless, or if he’d been trying to kill me. Watching a pot may keep it from boiling, but the laws of physics don’t say anything about explosions.

I went into the bathroom and got my shaving mirror, then set that up against the kettle, tilting it so I could see the window in it. I could have put my head there, but my watcher might be armed and waiting for me to do just that, so I used the mirror. Sure enough, when I sighted through the spot where my hat had blocked the view, a single darkened window in the apartment building across the street stuck out like a sore thumb. I memorized which one it was, then slipped out my back door and walked around the block to come up behind the Hightower.

A work crew had torn up a section of sidewalk in front of the parking lot and were pouring a new slab. A maple tree about two feet in diameter stood right beside the gap; evidently its roots had swelled the ground and cracked the slab. Dangerous stuff. I wondered mow many mothers had hurt their backs before the sidewalk crew had identified the source of the problem.

Once inside the building, I took the elevator up to the seventh floor, then went up the stairs one flight and peered cautiously out the tiny window in the stairwell door, but there was nobody waiting to coldcock me when I came out the elevator. There was nobody in the hallway at all, so I counted doorways until I stood before the watcher’s apartment. The door didn’t have a name on it, just the number 85 centered below a peephole. I stood aside and held my hat over the hole just to be contrary, and knocked on the door.

Light suddenly sprayed out through the crack at the bottom, then footsteps approached. A moment’s silence while whoever it was decided whether or not to open the door to someone who didn’t want to be seen, but curiosity got the better of them and the door opened the inch or so the chain would allow.

“Who’s there?” a female voice asked.

“William Grayson,” I said.

I heard a click, too soft to be the cocking of a gun, then she said, “Hmm. Nine minutes, twelve seconds. Not bad.” The door closed, the chain rattled, and the door opened again all the way, revealing a tall, medium-weight, brown-haired woman with glasses. She might have been twenty-five or so. She wasn’t a knockout, but I’d seen worse. In fact, she reminded me of somebody I once knew, but I put that out of my mind.

She held a stopwatch in her hand, and she was smiling. “Come in, Mr. Grayson,” she said, stepping aside. “You’ve just proved your private investigator’s license isn’t a fraud.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” I said, staying where I was. “Now tell me something I don’t already know.”

She kept her smile. “Okay. You’re about to make a lot of money.”

I already knew that, too, from the amount of jewelry she wore and from the way she’d chosen to contact me, but she seemed to have a more definite scenario in mind than I did, so I stepped across the threshold and let her close the door behind me. The apartment was bare except for two folding chairs and a card table near the window; she’d obviously rented it just to stage our meeting. A pair of binoculars, a thermos of coffee with two cups, and a small black leather purse sat on the table.

“How about your name?” I asked. “I don’t know that yet.” My voice echoed off the empty walls.

“Jackie Barnett.” Her voice didn’t echo as much as mine.

“So what kind of job do you want me to do?” I asked her.

“I want you to keep my father from throwing away my inheritance.”

I strolled toward the window and took a look down at my own apartment. Jackie had a pretty good view from here. This might have been her first night of surveillance, but I doubted it. She’d probably been watching me for a few days to learn my routine before she issued her unique invitation. I wondered if she’d been watching me shower in the mornings, but I wasn’t getting the sort of signals I’d have expected from someone who’d been doing that. Maybe I wasn’t her type.

“Who’s your father?” I asked, “and what makes you think he’s going to throw away your inheritance?”

She walked over to the window as well, her left arm brushing against my right as she stepped up beside me. It didn’t seem accidental. I reopened the casebook on her interest level, but her next words knocked it right out of my mind again. “He’s Frederick Barnett III, and I think he’s falling in love.”

Fred Barnett? The head of the Barnett retail empire? I got the whole picture in a flash: love makes fools of us all, and a fool and his money are soon parted. If he was truly falling in love, then the Barnett fortune — bigger than some countries’ gross national product — could soon be up for grabs.

“Does anyone else know about this?” I asked.

“I doubt it,” Jackie said. “He’s only been on one date with her.”

I turned to look into her eyes. The reflected city lights looked like tiny constellations in their dark centers. “What makes you think he’s falling in love after one date?”

She kept looking out the window. “I know the woman. She’s a gold digger. She’s after the fortune. She can be charming when she wants to be, and Dad’s been lonely since Mom died; he’ll fall in love with her easy enough.”

“Hmm,” I said, not convinced. Jackie sounded more like a jealous daughter unwilling to give up her father’s attention than a woman trying to protect his money.

She had more to her argument, though. “She’s a third his age. She’s got nothing in common with him. She barely even acknowledged his existence until she realized who he was, but then she was all over him. And the day after they met, somebody stole ten thousand dollars from Dad’s safe.”

That was the first piece of real evidence I’d heard. “Did he report it missing?”

“Yes, but the police couldn’t find any clues.”

“You think it was her?”

She shook her head. “Not directly. But I know she’s responsible for it.”

“Hmm,” I said again. “What’s her name?”

“Miriam Martin. She’s a cocktail waitress at the country club where Dad plays golf.”

That at least sounded plausible. If I were looking to play with a fortune, I’d go where the fortunate went to play.

“All right,” I said. “I’m not convinced yet, but just for the sake of argument we’ll say she really is trying for your dad’s money. What do you want me to do about it?”

She’d been talking to my reflection; now she turned directly to me. “Stop her from getting it, of course.”

I laughed. “Sorry, Miss Barnett. I don’t have any more control over the laws of nature than you do. If he falls for her, he’s going to do something foolish, and if he does something foolish, his money is going to change hands. It’s inevitable. She may not be the one who winds up with it, but the odds are pretty good that she will.”

“Not if you prevent him from falling in love in the first place.”

“And how do I go about doing that?”

“By digging up some dirt on Miriam.”

That actually made a certain amount of sense. It had a pretty high sleaze rating, but then most schemes that had much to do with money did. You expect that sort of thing from the root of all evil.

As long as we were on the subject… “I get two hundred a day, plus expenses,” I said. “Three-day minimum, paid in advance.”

She didn’t even flinch. She just picked up her purse off the table, opened it, peeled six one-hundred dollar bills off a roll of maybe ten times that many, and handed them to me.

As I tucked them into my wallet, I said, “You understand, if there’s no dirt to be found, then I’m not going to interfere.” I’d tried manufacturing reasons to prevent someone from falling in love once before, and I’d lived to regret it.

“Trust me, you’ll find dirt.” She sounded certain about that.

I pulled out one of the folding chairs and sat down at the card table, took my notebook out of my hip pocket, and uncapped my pen. Then I poured myself a cup of coffee from the thermos and leaned back to listen. “All right, tell me what you know about her.”

Miriam was twenty-three years old, blond, and a great deal shapelier than Jackie. She’d been working at the country club for about three months, and in that time she’d made passes at nearly every eligible bachelor there. She’d also come on to most of the married men as well, at least to hear Jackie tell it. I would try to check up on that, but I didn’t expect much luck. Married men don’t like to talk much about their affairs, especially to private investigators.

Fortunately her former lovers weren’t my only lead, nor even my best one. There was the missing ten grand as well. If Miriam really was behind its disappearance, and if I could prove it, then Barnett would dump her like a hot potato.

The next morning I went to the police station and looked up the report. The detective on the case was a new guy named Michelson, and he was reluctant to share his file with me at first, but I wore him down with my innate charm and a promise to share anything more I learned.

“Fat lot of good that’ll do,” he said, but he took the file out of a metal cabinet behind his desk and handed it over. It was light as a feather. When I opened it, there were only two pages of report. I scanned through them while he sat behind his desk and smirked, and down toward the bottom of the first page I saw the reason why. Under “Evidence Recovered,” there was only one item: a six-inch whisk broom.

“Price tag still on it?” I asked.

“Nine ninety-five.”

“For a whisk broom? The guy got robbed.”

Michelson spread his hands. “He didn’t make out too bad. Think of it as an investment.”

“But it says here he didn’t take anything besides the ten grand. He must know he’s not going to be able to hang onto the money.”

Michelson shrugged. “Sure, crime don’t pay. You and I know that, but if this guy was smart, he wouldn’t be a thief.”

“He couldn’t have been very dumb to get in and out without getting caught,” I pointed out.

“So maybe he’s an optimist. Hope springs eternal. There’s always a first time. You know how it goes: everybody thinks the rules don’t apply to them.”

“Yeah.” I looked at the meager evidence. “I assume you’ve already tracked down whoever sold the broom.”

“Yep. Hardware store down on Fifth. Doesn’t remember a thing. Sells a dozen of ’em a day, he says.”

“He got a security camera?”

“Nope.”

Of course he wouldn’t. The sort of place that sold stuff like that never did. I thumbed through the rest of the folder, but other than the description of Frederick Barnett’s study, it was a waste of time. Cases like this were every detective’s nightmare. No matter how hard you looked, there were no fingerprints, no hair samples, no lint, no tracks—nothing.

“A new broom sweeps clean,” I said, laying the useless folder back on his desk. “I really wish they’d start registering those things. I mean, I know there’s legitimate uses for ’em, but still.”

He nodded. “You and me both, bud. But we try it, and every housekeeper in the country’ll come unglued.”

“Yeah. Well, thanks anyway.” I let myself out of his office and went down to my car.

I sat there in the parking garage for a few minutes, thinking it over. Something didn’t add up here. Who breaks into a safe and steals only money? They must have been after something else, and snatched the money as a diversion. Either Barnett hadn’t missed the real theft yet, or he hadn’t wanted to report it. Maybe it was something he didn’t want anyone to know he owned.

Or maybe the money had vanished into the ozone the moment he’d started having less-than-fatherly thoughts about Miriam, and the maid had left the broom behind by accident. I didn’t think it had happened that way, but I couldn’t rule it out.

This wasn’t helping me do the job I’d been hired for. Jackie had given me Miriam’s home address, so I decided to go see what the place was like, pick up my own impression of who I was dealing with. I didn’t want to tip my hand yet, but I could at least drive by and have a look. You can learn a lot about a person from their environment.

She lived in an old Victorian mansion that had been turned into apartments a long time ago. The place still held a little charm, but under its pink and yellow paint I could see that it could use new siding, and the roof was missing some shingles. There were a couple of oak trees out front, and a black cat prowling among the leaves between them.

I glanced down the street at the other houses. They looked in decent repair, with neatly trimmed yards, the lawns nice and green. The ones on the other side of the street looked like they got a little more water, but I knew it would seem different from over there.

When I looked back I didn’t see the cat, then a moment later there was a flash of black in front of the car.

I laid on the brakes. “Damned malevolent little bastard,” I muttered as I shifted into reverse. It had crossed my path on purpose. Now it stood in the grass on the opposite side of the street, licking a forepaw and ignoring me completely. I waited for disaster to strike, but I had apparently stopped in time. In fact, the cat had given me a perfect excuse to take a better look at Miriam’s house, because nobody would expect me to continue on down the street after that.

I backed into the driveway and glanced in the mirror, taking note of the flowers in windowboxes on the ground floor, the lacy curtains in the upper windows, and the heart-shaped wicker basket hanging on the front door. There were six mailboxes on the wall beside the door, but I bet none of them belonged to men. I could have been wrong, but it looked like the last time a guy had set foot in that house had been by invitation.

A curtain slid aside a couple inches in the house across the street. Time to go. I watched the cat warily as I pulled out of the driveway and drove off the way I’d come, but neither it nor the person at the window moved.

There were only two excuses for a black cat: a soft heart or a hard one. Most people drowned them as kittens, but some folks couldn’t bring themselves to do that, even knowing they were saving the world a lot of grief. And some took perverse delight in spreading misfortune around. I didn’t know what kind of person owned that cat, but this didn’t look like the sort of neighborhood where people kept them out of spite.

It didn’t look like the sort of place a private eye needed to hang around much, either. I might try coming back and asking the Neighborhood Watch behind the curtain what they knew, but I wouldn’t do that until after I’d learned the sort of questions to ask. I still knew precious little about Miriam Martin.

I went back home and spent a few hours digging through old phone books and calling people I knew in the motor vehicle bureau. That got me enough information to run a credit check, but I was beginning to think I was tailing the wrong person. Miriam had lived in the same place for three years, had only one minor accident on her driving record, and paid her bills on time. The worst thing you could say about her was that she worked as a cocktail waitress, but she’d only been doing that for three months, after four years as a sales clerk in a department store. In my book, anybody who’s worked sales for four years deserves a chance to try something more exciting.

It was time to watch her in action, maybe even meet her face to face, but that was going to be more difficult than casing her neighborhood. I couldn’t just waltz into a private country club. The kind of places that catered to people like Frederick Barnett III weren’t likely to let me through the door. Jackie could have taken me as a guest, but that could tip Miriam off. Or her dad. According to Jackie, chances were good that he’d be there tonight.

No, I had to get in on my own. Fortunately, I have a few alternate personas to fall back on. Most private eyes do. Mine isn’t the most extensive collection, but I’ve got enough for most situations.

While I waited for evening to set in, I thumbed through my disguise closet. I had a tweed jacket that had once belonged to a professor of English, a dark blue sport coat that Senator McNair had given to Goodwill before he decided to go into politics, a T-shirt from a software developer, and various other shirts, pants, socks, and so forth. I even had a pair of running shoes from a basketball star. Not one of those “limited edition” pairs that maybe contain one ten-thousandth of the original man’s shoes; this was the genuine item, bought from a sports dealer before the NBA cracked down on resale. I’d figured they might come in handy if I ever needed to outrun someone, but that was before I discovered how tough it is to fill another man’s shoes. Now I wear my own loafers and try not to get myself into the sort of jam that would require running away.

Tonight I decided on the gray suit jacket I’d liberated from my doctor’s waiting room. It belonged to a seventy-year-old guy with emphysema and a heart condition, but he was a respected judge who liked his privacy. Nobody would give me any trouble while I was him.

I wore my own pants and shirt. I didn’t want to become him, just impersonate him well enough to get past the maitre d’. And I wanted to be able to breathe without oxygen, too. As it was, when I slipped on the jacket I felt my chest tighten and I started gasping like a fish. I could have waited until I got to the clubhouse, but I wanted some time to adapt. Nothing screams “disguise” like a guy who doesn’t seem comfortable in his own skin.

Jackie called just as I was getting ready to leave. “What did you learn today?” she asked.

“Nothing much,” I told her. “I’m going to the club tonight. Maybe I’ll pick up more there.”

“Good. Are you all right? Your voice sounds different.”

“Clothes make the man,” I said.

“Huh?”

“I’m about thirty years older than when you last saw me.”

“You what? Oh. Who…?”

“You don’t need to know.”

“Okay, be that way. Call me when you get back.”

“If I’ve got anything to report, I will.”

“Call me anyway.”

“We’ll see.”

She didn’t like that, but it was my investigation, and my decision what I’d share and what I wouldn’t. I didn’t like giving progress reports; I liked delivering the whole picture at once after I pieced it all together.

It was only eight o’clock when I left, but the streets were practically empty. The vast majority of the city’s population were already in pajamas, quietly saying their prayers to St. Franklin before setting their alarms for dawn and tucking themselves in for the night. That left the city for those who were already healthy, wealthy, and wise—or those who just didn’t care.

The meek may inherit the Earth, but the irresponsible have inherited the night. I felt right at home as I drove across town to the country club. I even felt okay turning my car over to the parking valet. He gave it a dubious look—he’d probably never seen a compact in his lot before—until I slipped him a buck and wheezed, “Don’t park it next to those damned gas-hogs.” He grinned at that and said, “Of course not, sir.”

I tottered inside and told the maître d’ to find me a quiet table where I could gawk at the pretty girls. That earned me an out-of-the-way spot to the side of the bar, and a few minutes later the cocktail waitress came over to take my order. She was tall and friendly and round in all the right places, but she was a redhead.

I watched the crowd awhile. The place was mostly a dinner club, not a party club. It was packed, and service was slow, but all the good restaurants are that way. Word gets out and people come to enjoy the food while it lasts. It almost never does, because management can hardly ever resist the urge to expand, and they run afoul of natural law in a hurry.

The country club had resisted. By the aromas coming off the plates at the tables around me, I figured there was only one overworked chef in back. I was tempted to order something myself, but I was here to observe, so I nursed my gin and tonic and kept an eye out for Miriam.

She was working the other side of the room. Jackie had described her perfectly: five-six, 130 pounds, and built well enough to make a person wonder if a couple of those pounds weren’t artificial. Round face, wide lips, wide-set eyes to go with them, and a smile for everyone. For the first time, I began to think maybe Jackie was onto something. Miriam would make a good home-wrecker. Even in the judge’s clothes, I found myself wishing I had home enough to tempt her.

So did every other man in the place, but she was having none of it. Oh, she flirted the way any waitress will when she’s having fun, but she wasn’t coming on to anyone. In fact, she was giving the women more attention than the men. She must have been saving it all for Barnett.

He wasn’t here yet. I ordered another gin and tonic while I waited. To amuse myself, I thought about his daughter. I’d known a girl like her once. I’d fallen for her like a ton of bricks, but I hadn’t lost any great fortune over it. Of course I never had one to begin with, but I’d thought I was doing pretty well at the time. Well enough to be careful, anyway. But he who hesitates is lost. I’d learned that the hard way.

I ordered another gin and tonic and thought about something else.

Barnett finally came in around ten o’clock, but Miriam gave him no more attention than she had anyone else. She smiled at him and took his order and brought him a drink, but the only personal thing she said to him was, “Why doesn’t Jackie come around anymore?”

I couldn’t hear his response, but it didn’t matter. The question alone spoke volumes. Miriam Martin didn’t care about Fred, except as a way to get to his daughter. His daughter who used to come to the club, but who had suddenly stopped with no explanation. His daughter who was afraid of losing her inheritance.

I thought about ten thousand dollars missing from a safe. The only good reason to steal money was to send a warning. But who was warning whom?

I thought I knew, and I was getting tired of the country club. I left a generous tip for the redhead and went outside, glad for the fresh air and the coolness of the night. The valet brought my car around and I drove out onto the street and down half a block before I parked and pulled off the judge’s jacket. There was no sense gasping for air all the way home.

I might as well have conked myself over the head with a bottle. Three shots of gin hit me all at once, turning my limbs to rubber and my vision to swirls of melted taffy. For one nauseating moment I thought I was going to be sick, but I held my stomach in check and contorted my way back into the jacket.

It took me a full minute to get my vision under control. I was sober as a judge again, but the guy had a heart problem, and I’d just dilated every blood vessel in my body.

When I figured it was safe to drive again, I pulled back onto the street and drove on home. I glanced up at Jackie’s peeper apartment on my way into my own. Her lights were out, but I thought I could see a shadowy figure in the window. Was she waiting up for me?

When I got inside I undressed slowly. I did it in the kitchen, right in front of the stove, with just the light under the range hood to provide a silhouette. I waited half an hour for a phone call that never came, then crawled into bed to sleep it off.

“You didn’t call last night,” Jackie said.

“You didn’t either.”

We were having a late breakfast at the Hope Springs, a twenty-four-hour pancake and omelet house. I was killing a hangover by eating a sticky-sweet “Dutch baby” waffle, full of sugar and cinnamon and smothered with sliced apples. Considering my recent health problems, apples probably weren’t the smartest choice I could have made, but I felt like living dangerously.

She was toying with an omelet and trying not to look at me. “What did you find out about Miriam?” she asked.

“Not what you wanted.”

“Let me be the judge of that.”

I looked across the table at her. “She misses you. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, you know.”

“What are you talking about?”

“What do you think I’m talking about?”

Her cheeks turned red. “I think you’re jumping to conclusions.”

I took another bite of Dutch baby. “Why didn’t you call me last night after I got home? I know you were watching.”

She blushed even harder. “I hired you to investigate someone, not put on a peep show.”

“We both know you’re not attracted to me. I let you know I was home; why didn’t you call?”

“I thought you might get the wrong idea.”

“And what’s the wrong idea? That I might think you were straight, or that I might think you were gay?”

She didn’t reply to that.

“Why didn’t you just set up your little surveillance operation outside her apartment? It would have saved you the trouble of going through an intermediary. Familiarity breeds contempt, after all.”

“I tried that,” she said softly. “Not just watching her, but actually going out with her. I spent all my time with her for a couple of weeks. It didn’t help.”

“So you hired me to dig up some dirt on her.”

“At which you failed miserably.”

“I’ve only been on the job for a day. If you really want me to start digging into her private life, I’m sure I could come up with plenty of information. But there’s really not much point in it.”

“Why not?”

I took another bite of my waffle. Around the mouthful, I said, “Because love conquers all.”

She dropped her fork to her plate with a clatter. “I am not in love with her!”

“Then there’s no problem. Neither is your father.”

She picked up her fork again, but she didn’t reply. We ate in silence for a couple of long minutes. Just to get the conversation going again, I said, “You should have taken something else besides cash out of the safe, you know. Professionals don’t steal money. They steal art or jewelry or cars, but not money.”

“Oh, so now I broke into Dad’s safe, too?”

I shrugged. “None of my business whether you did or not. It would be a good way to scare him away from your girlfriend, or it might have been the universe’s first shot across his bow. But just for future reference, planting a new broom to explain the lack of evidence is one of the oldest tricks in the book when it comes to an inside job.”

“Oh,” she said. She pushed her omelet around on her plate a little more, then she took a deep breath and said, “All right, so maybe I’m growing fond of her. Should I lose everything I own because of that?”

“You can’t just decide not to love somebody,” I told her. “It’s not something you can control.”

“I was getting over her just fine until she showed up at the house on Dad’s arm.”

“Yeah, right.” I ate another slice of baked apple, thinking of how futile her effort was. People had been falling in love for millennia, and people had been losing their fortunes over it for just as long. If there was a way to stop it from happening, the race would have died out long ago.

But it hadn’t. Nor had people quit accumulating wealth. Instead, we had learned ways to protect our estates from foolish losses when we became stricken with amour. And every now and then, some fool managed to hold out long enough to lose the object of his affection to someone else.

“What’s wrong with a trust fund?” I asked. “Part with your money on purpose, then let your hair down and don’t worry about it.” That was the question I should have asked when she first lured me into her employ. The nouveau riche and the merely well-off are deathly afraid of losing their fortunes, but anybody with real money knows how to safeguard it. Why was this such a big deal to her?

She dithered, but I waited, knowing she wanted to speak. Whatever was coming, she’d been holding it back for a long time. At last she worked up her courage.

“My father is the product of an earlier age. Old-fashioned values. How do you think he’s going to react to the news that his daughter is a lesbian?”

“I have no idea. But you’re going to find out eventually. Why not now?”

She shook her head. “He doesn’t ever need to know.”

“He doesn’t need to, but he will. For one thing, you can’t live a lie.”

The waiter hadn’t brought our bill yet, but I took out my wallet and laid out six crisp one-hundred dollar bills on the table.

“What’s that for?” Jackie asked.

“Maybe I’m sweet on you,” I said. “As long as I’m parting with it anyway, you might as well get it back.”

She smiled, but it wasn’t exactly an invitation. And she pushed the money back at me. “You’re a terrible liar.”

I picked up one bill and left the others. “I’ll take that much,” I said. “For expenses. And to make up the balance, I’ll give you one last piece of advice.”

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Just this: remember that the truth will out. Eventually it’s going to out you. You can’t fight it. The best you can do is pick the time and the place.”

Then I stood up from the table, tipped my hat to her, and walked out of the restaurant. Whatever she decided, it was her own business. I wished her well.

Hell, I wished…

But it wasn’t going to happen. Opportunity only knocks once, after all, and I’d missed mine years ago.