Film noir

Topper loved watching the detectives, he liked the old black and white movies from 20th Century Earth in particular....he thought they were gems of the genre.  So one day when we were having lunch at Dairy Queen, he said he had something to show me.  So I clicked on my City Systems computer mind-link, and went to the thing he was talking about.  It was an Authority permit issued to Sir Topper and Consul the Hon. W.M. Dodge....a permit to operate a private investigation agency.  At first that sounded pretty silly to me....Authority knows everything, even your darkest secret....so what would a P.I. have to do, besides ask for the answer?  

"Aha!" says the suddenly equestrian Topper...."What if you can't get the answer from the City Source?"  "Well " says I, "Then Authority must not want you to have the answer, and it would be the better part of discretion to leave it at that."  But Sir Topper said he was pretty bored, and wanted to do something....and you could make a few extra bucks in the investigation racket....look at that Greased Weasel character who had the commercials on the very late night junk channels...he said he could get in anywhere, get the info, and get back out to you with no payments and no interest for ninety days or until he was incarcerated whichever came first.  And he had dancing girls and everything in his spots, so he had to be turning some profit.  So later in the afternoon we went ahead and punched all the right icons and entered a bunch of made-up codes and established the Baker Street Discreet Inquiry Agency, LLP.