Read "Knock Three-One-Two" by Fredric Brown online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Mack Irby stopped his two-finger typing and leaned back in the creaky swivel chair to light himself a cigarette. This was the only part of his job that he really hated, making reports. He'd rather tail a wife for her husband or a husband twelve hours straight than spend the half hour writing up a report on the activities of the suspected spouse. Whenever possible he talked a client into settling for verbal reports, but it wasn't always possible to get a client to agree to that. Some of them insisted on having words on paper for their money.
His dream was to have enough men under him so he could afford a stenographer-bookkeeper to take down the reports as dictation -- he wouldn't mind talking them -- and to take care of sending out and paying bills and the rest of the paper work. He wouldn't even insist that his office help be young and pretty -- God, he had all the sex he wanted or needed with Dolly. He'd settle for anybody who could type.