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    “Look who’s here,” he said to Betty. I moved so that I could catch sight of him as he came into the parlor. “Everything all right?”
    “Yes.” Her eyes flickered toward me before returning to him. “I hope you don’t mind, Arthur, but Ma invited me to dinner. I think she’s worried I’ll starve to death if left to my own devices.”
    “You and me both,” he said. He removed his fedora and hung it on the hall tree. Pop was a handsome man, with the kind of good looks that used to make my friends insist they’d seen him in a movie before, only they couldn’t remember which one. He’d aged a lot in the past year, but even though he looked older than his years, he still managed to turn heads wherever he went.
    “Would you like to sit?” asked Betty.
    “Thanks,” said Pop. Of course he wanted to sit. He’d been walking around on an ill-fitting prosthetic all day. And who was she to offer him a place in the parlor? It wasn’t her house. We should be the ones inviting her to sit down.
    Why was I getting so upset about this?
    “I’m glad you’re here. I tried telephoning you this afternoon,” said Pop.
    “Oh, really?” said Betty. She tossed another look my way.
    Pop followed her gaze and suddenly increased the distance between the two of them. “Iris! Why are you hiding in there?”
    I left the desk and came to the doorway. “I’m not hiding. I’m working.”
    He raised an eyebrow. “No need to get defensive. It was a joke. Why don’t you come out here? We have company.”
    I left the office reluctantly and offered a forced smile to Betty.
    “It’s fine,” she told Pop. “Iris had work to do.”
    Why had Pop tried calling her? “What did you do this afternoon?” I asked him.
    “Errands. Got the mail.” Ah, of course he wasn’t going to tell me what he had really been doing. Not in front of Betty. I raised an eyebrow to let him know I knew he was lying. In response, he tapped a stack of envelopes sitting on his lap. He had a P.O. box for client mail, and for those occasions when he needed an anonymous address to help track down a lead without tipping his hand that it was a detective behind the inquiry.
    “I could file it if you like,” I said.
    “No need. Actually, there are a few checks in here. I should probably stick them in the safe before I forget. If you’ll excuse me, ladies.”
    Pop went into the office and opened the closet at the rear of the room. There was a safe stored on the floor there, recently purchased after a break-in convinced him that more sensitive documents—and money—should be a little bit more difficult to get access to. I could hear the tumblers click as he spun the dial. He’d never shown me what he kept in there and I’d never asked, though I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious.
    “Finish your work?” asked Betty.
    “Just about,” I said.
    “I guess you’re helping your pop out now, huh?”
    “Here and there.”
    “It’s exciting stuff, working for a detective.”
    “Sort of,” I said.
    “Just don’t let it get in the way of your studies.”
    “I won’t.”
    She looked around the room like she was hoping to find the next topic of conversation hidden among the throw pillows. “Have you seen You Were Never Lovelier ?”
    I’d been dying to see the flick starring Fred Astaire and Rita Hayworth but there wasn’t money for movies. “Nope.”
    “You should. It’s great. Fred Astaire is just dreamy in it.”
    Part of my discomfort with Betty had to do with how close we were in age. She was only a few years out of high school. Sometimes, like when she was talking about which movies she’d seen, her youth showed, and yet other times, like when she told me to mind my studies, she acted like she was the same age as Pop. I found it very confusing—was I supposed to treat her like an adult or a friend?
    “Is ready.” Mrs. Mrozenski came into the parlor, wiping her hands clean on her apron. A cacophony of scents wafted in from the