I’m sitting in my parked car with my camera lens pointed at the second floor window on the east side. From where I sit, there’s a pretty good visual whenever he walks near the window.

I’m waiting for the money shot, one of him in the place he shouldn’t be, doing the thing he shouldn’t be doing, on the day he said he was someplace else. It’s like the triple lutz of detecting. If you’re the kind of schmuck that mixes metaphors. I’m not.

The target, one Sidney Goldfarb, has a wife who believes he’s cheating. All indications say she’s probably right. But at $250 a day plus expenses, I don’t have a horse in this race. I get paid either way.

Penny Jill Goldfarb picked me specifically for this gig. I remember her visit to my office.

“So you’re the big detective? The one who helped out Selma last year?” I put down my chopsticks. I always eat my Chinese with chopsticks. Otherwise you may as well eat a pastrami with mayo. They’re both a crime against nature...and God’s law on being kosher.

“So what can I do for you Ms...”

“Mrs. Mrs Penny Goldfarb.”

“I think he’s cheating on me,” she explained and went into details. I pretended to listen while I mentally calculated whether my account would be overdrawn after the office rent check cleared.

“New suits,” she said as I focused back on her words. “Nice ones. Like he doesn’t have a closet full already.” I looked at her Louis Vuitton designer purse on my desk, then down at her Jimmy Choo flats. Then up again at her Dr. Ira Finestein double D chest. First class work.

“He’s a big man at the synagogue. President of the Brotherhood. We have seats up front with our name on the plaques. But we don’t use them much. Any more. Together.” She had money and position. I was thinking about a very specific position when she spoke up again.

“I need someone I can trust to follow him and find the truth. I’ll pay you well. If I can trust you.”

And that’s why I’m here in a car, two hours before sundown, exactly one week after Rosh Hashana when Sidney prayed to atone for his past year’s sins. Now, I guess, he’s planning new ones for the new year.

Finally, he approaches the window and the picture I’ve been waiting for presents itself. I take it. And another. And another.

He’s cheating but the details are a surprise. He’s got something on the side, all right. It looks like three sides from here. I’m not a guy easily surprised. I think about the implications and realize that if I were another man, these photos would be my retirement fund. An annuity of cash.

But no. I was hired for a job, I do the job. Folks are more likely to seek a Jew lawyer or Yid doctor than a sha-bbat shamus, but here I am. There’s no doctor’s payday but it’s an all cash business. Kind seeks kind, even if I am a more sinning than Synagogue kind of a Jew.

I carefully stow my gear and drive back to the office. It’s just past sundown but my Shiksa assistant, Sharon, is still there. I drop the photo card on her desk and ask her to print out 8 x 10s to show the detail. “Don’t forget the date and time stamp,” I tell her.

“Another old guy trying desperately to stay young by burrowing between some girl’s legs?” she questioned in her southern drawl, which makes it sound all the dirtier.

“He’s more cheesy than cheater,” I tell her and leave it at that. I call the Mrs. and leave a message on her voice mail. No doubt that today, by now, she’s at a friend’s home feasting.

Two days later, she walks into my office. I’m working on my between-job dart throwing skills. Different handbag, different shoes, same chest. I should have gone to med school. I pull an envelope from my desk drawer and hand it to her.

“He’s not cheating on you,” I say as she opens the envelope. “He’s cheating on his diet. Sneaking away for knishes and bagel schmears and corned beef sandwiches. I think you’ll find that if you check the suits, they are a size or two larger than what he was wearing before.”

“Oh,” she smiles as though the weight of the world has been lifted from her. So I know the next part will rock her world.

“There’s one more thing. It’s bad.”

 “There’s no other woman. How bad could it be?”

“Take a look at the time and date stamp on the photos.”

So she does. First puzzlement, then she connects with the date. She goes from anger to tears almost instantly. “No. We’ll be ruined. How could he?”

I have no answers. After seeing all of the horrific sides of humanity, I still cannot explain why people do what they do.

She pulled open her designer purse and fumbled in it until she withdrew a lighter.

“Are these the originals?”

“Yes,” I replied.

She burnt the photos and melted the flash card, then turned to me with pleading eyes. She didn’t need to say anything.

“Privacy between a PI and his client is sacred. I never break that trust. Especially when I’m paid promptly.” She reached into her handbag and pulled out a handful of crisp new bills. She counted them out and kept counting beyond our agreement. Then she turned and walked out the door.

I watched her rear as she walked away. The tennis had been a good investment. Maybe…and that’s when my secretary interrupted my thoughts.

 “I don’t get it, boss,” my blonde, blue-eyed receptionist said. “What is the big deal about cheating on his diet?

“It wasn’t the diet,” I explained. “It was the timing.”

She was still puzzled. I pointed to a date on the calendar hanging on the wall. She read the bold words printed under the day. “Yum kipper...”

“Yom Kippur. The Jewish New Year.” I explained. “The big one. The holiest of holiest. Christmas without Christ for the Jews. You’re supposed to fast.”

She nodded but I think that Christ comment confused her. I took the cash and placed it into the bank deposit envelope.

Looks like it was going to be a happy new year. For me at least. L’shana Tova.