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repeatedly robbing their corner
grocery and dry goods store in broad daylight. This was my third
day on the job. I suppose I needn't say I had not yet had any
results. As the Garofalos had been none too keen to have a woman
investigator to begin with, I hoped to come through for them
soon.
    I felt my pulse quicken, and a pleasant little tingle of
alertness that comes when I arrive on the scene. Surveillance does
not bore me as it does our more experienced investigator, Wish
Stephenson. He says that's because I'm new at it, and he may be
right; but I think this business excites me because I know I have a
talent for it. From the time when Michael first took me in hand
(professionally, that is] and began to train me, I had excelled-for
example, at being taken into a room, left there for five minutes,
and then removed and asked to name the objects I had seen. Right
away I'd been able to recite almost all. When it comes to
remembering what I have heard, as opposed or in addition to what I
have seen, I possess the curious ability of total recall. Entire
conversations implant themselves in my brain word for word-yet if I
were to read the same on a printed page, from memory I should only
be able to paraphrase it. This total recall is not something I ever
had to learn; I seem to have been born that way.
    Being able to acutely observe with one's peripheral vision is
definitely a learned skill, however, and it can give one a headache
after a while. My head had started to ache, and I had been thinking
that if I didn't spot this thief soon Mama and Papa Garofalo would
be sure to attribute my failure to my gender, when a blur of rapid
movement off to my left caught my eye.
    Aha! I thought. I am about to be vindicated. I had
proposed to the Garofalos a theory that their thief might likely be
a woman, who could more easily hide upon her person the wide
variety of objects that were disappearing; in fact, it was this
argument that had finally persuaded them to accept me as their
investigator. And now the only figure in the region where I'd seen
the blur proved to be female. On closer inspection, she was not a
woman so much as a girl who looked scarcely out of childhood,
despite the fact that she appeared to be enceinte (as one
says to be polite) herself.
    I watched this fallen angel for half an hour, and then I
followed her home. She was clever. Like the deceitful child who
shares by counting out "one for you and two for me," she shopped by
pocketing two items for each one she put in her basket, so that she
appeared to be a paying customer. She lived in the neighborhood,
and in fact, when I went back to the Garofalos' store and told them
to call the police to that address, they were shocked. They did not
want to believe their thief could be their neighbor, a daily
customer.
    "Nevertheless," I said, "I observed her in the act of stealing.
I expect the police will find that she has been doing a nice little
business in selling and trading stolen goods out of her home; and
further, that they will find this clever but bent girl is no more
expecting a child than I am."
    "Oh!" said Mama Garofalo, shocked that I would mention the
girl's condition. Her hand flew up to cover her mouth as if it had
been she, not I, who'd said the indelicate words.
    I proceeded to be more indelicate still: "People naturally avert
their eyes. Just think how many things could be hidden beneath her
clothes, in a pouch that size!"
    Papa Garofalo bit his lip, narrowed his eyes at me shrewdly, and
with one nod of his head, reached for the telephone. "Hello,
Central," he said, "get me the police."
    With a great deal of satisfaction I said, "I won't stay to see
her arrested. I know they will find the evidence on her premises.
And you will receive the bill for my services in tomorrow's
mail."
    Then I sailed out of the door in fine fettle. The hat was off
before I'd walked half a block.
    I stopped the Maxwell on Broadway in front of the McFadden
house, which I supposed someone like