Don't tell my wife.

The jazz be-bopped like this:

My name is Gary Norris. I had a job interview one Spring morning in Manhattan. It was for a project manager gig. A young brunette named Nancy had conducted it. I had done my homework and Googled her. She was a journalism major out of Northwestern University. She had done some intern work on the Chicago Tribune, and then returned east to scribble in the Big Apple.

The interview went well until she asked, "Why do you want to return to the corporate world now, at your age? Shouldn't you be teaching or something?"

I'm forty-six, but I didn't tell her that. She didn't have the right to age-discriminate against me legally until I was fifty. So, I only said that I preferred a steady corporate job to free-lance consulting. To change the subject, I asked Nancy, "I see you worked on the Chicago Tribune. Have you ever read Mike Royko?"

She wrinkled up her nose like a rabbit in an outhouse, and said, "He had a lot of problems."

Sure. Maybe. But, the late Mike Royko was - first and foremost - one of the greatest journalists of the twentieth century; a talented and compelling writer, scrupulous reporter, avenging muckraker, and razor-sharp satirist. He had won the Pulitzer Prize in 1972 for helping a blind Viet Nam vet who had trouble getting his proper benefits from Nixon's Veterans Administration. Royko had also won the National Press Club Lifetime Achievement Award in 1990, and the Damon Runyon Award in 1995.

I wasn't content to let this kid dismiss the man so casually, so I asked, "And how many Pulitzers have you won, Nancy?"

Four minutes later, my shoe leather hit pavement. I had a few hours to kill before my New Jersey Transit train left, so I decided to walk down Broadway in the sunshine, and take a subway back to Penn Station. It was a pleasant enough walk.

I love people watching: secretaries walking by; young guys in do-rags unloading trucks; people wasting time on the corners; smokers out in front of the buildings they work in, puffing away. Mugs handing out flyers advertising free cell phones, gentlemen's clubs, eyebrow threading. Chicks handing out free samples of gum, popcorn, earmuffs. Businessmen - and businesswomen - marching down the street having conversations on those little telephones you plug into your ear; they all look like they're insane and talking to themselves.

"Hey, Pal!"

I turned around. An old man with one of those poker eyeshades on his head was lounging in a doorway, smoking a filter-less cigarette. He had glasses on; one clear lens on the left eye, one dark lens on the right eye. His salt-and-pepper hair was slicked back. He wore a pin-stripe vest and a bow-tie.

"You talkin' to me?" I asked. He nodded and chuckled.

"How'dja like to make a C-note, Pal?" he asked.

"Sure."

He chuckled again as he handed me a package, six inches by four inches by two inches. It was wrapped in brown paper, and tied with string. "Here. Deliver this."

He gave me an address on Mott Street, down in Chinatown. He handed me a fifty dollar bill, and said, "You get the other fifty when this is delivered. Don't look inside."

"Anything else?" I asked.

He chuckled and saluted, and disappeared into the doorway.

I walked a few blocks. The package bugged me. I ducked into a coffee shop and slid into a booth. The place was empty, so I opened the package. Inside was a box - looked like it was ivory. I opened the lid; inside was some sort of mechanical gizmo with gears. There was a piece of paper with some sort of foreign picture writing on it. Maybe Chinese or Japanese; I can't tell the difference. It made me nervous.

Out on the street again. There was cop on the corner, so I asked him the quickest way to Chinatown.

"Right now, we're in Korea Town," he told me.

"Well, I need Chinatown."

"It's just north of Little Italy," he said, and gave me directions.

"How come there's no 'German Town'?" I asked him.

"How da hell should I know? Maybe they kept invading all de other towns." He said. Cute; a comedian cop.

I hustled my way downtown, and found my way to Mott Street. I walked through Little Italy, crossed the street, and suddenly I was in Chinatown. From "Mama Mia" to "Mahjong".

All the phone booths had Chinese writing on their sides. The sidewalks were crowded with residents and tourists, and I blended in. I felt very comfortable and anonymous, for some reason. The sky had clouded over, and there was a chill in the air. I put up the collar on my overcoat.

I walked past a fish store that smelled like smelt. Big dead fish, their scales glittering like spangles, lay on ice in a display bin. Next to this was a barrel of live bullfrogs, glaring at anybody who looked in. Wart city.

I found the address. The sign outside the store read, "Friendly Fred's Toy Emporium". I smelled danger. I bought a pack of candy cigarettes at a corner store, and stuck one in my mouth, to look tough. Then, I went up three steps and opened the door. Bells tinkled.

Inside were shelves attached to the wall with toys made in Asia; Disney knock-offs with bad English on the packaging. Headlines in the primary colors screamed at me: "Helicopter so high goes!", "Wow! Tank! Boom!", and - this was on a box for a toy flame thrower - "Friends Run In Terror!"

The man behind the counter didn't look up. He was completely bald, and had a pencil thin moustache. He wore glasses. One clear lens on the right eye, one dark lens on the left eye. There were four ball point pens in his shirt pocket. He had on a Texas string tie, and wore an opera cape.

I dropped the package on the glass, and slid it toward him. "This is for you. I was promised fifty bucks."

He still didn't look up. He glanced at the unopened package and said, "That's too small. Where's the rest of it?"

"That's all he gave me."

"Where's the rest of it?" he asked again.

"Maybe he's sending it Pony Express, pal. I don't know. Pay me my fifty, and I'm gone."

"Lumm Bring!" he called out. From the back room came a seven-foot tall blonde-haired Scandinavian type. He wore a jump suit, and had an iPod phone in one ear, and a hearing aid in the other.

"Where's the rest of it?" counterman asked for the thrid time.

"Where's my fifty?" I asked.

The counter man turned to Lumm Bring, and said, "Get him!"

I grabbed the package as Lumm Bring lunged for me. At the same time, I pulled down the shelf, and all the toys fell on top of him. I kicked him twice, in each shin. Lumm Bring was lumbering all over the tiny store. I went out the front door and jumped to the sidewalk and tried to run through the thick crowd. I was off like a prom dress.

Lumm Bring was right behind me. He almost caught me at the fish store. I scooped up a handful of bullfrog and let him have it, right in the kisser. He fell back. One of the amphibians was stuck in his mouth. "Towed in a hole!" I said, and then I took off again.

I ran into an old woman. "Hey, Joe; you got gum?" she asked.

"No. But here's some candy cigarettes," I shoved the pack into her hand, and ducked into a one of those new-age cafes, where the coffee tastes burnt at double the price.

"Gimme the biggest cup of black coffee you got, bud."

"I'm a 'barrista'. You must address me as, 'barrista'."

"Sorry, pal," I said, "but I don't speak that Spanish jabber. Just gimme a large coffee."

"You have to ask for it by its proper size-name, sir."

"Okay. Gimme a 'Grande'."

"That's not our biggest size, sir." Looking out the window, I could see Lumm Bring making his way slowly though the crowd. He was getting close.

"What's the name? Gimme a hint."

The teenager sighed and looked at me like I was some kind of idiot. "You want a 'Venti', sir. You must ask for a 'Venti'."

"Okay. A 'Venti'." Lumm Bring was almost there.

"Decaf or regular?"

"Regular."

"Do you want room for cream?"

"No."

"Would you like a scone with that?"

"No. Just coffee."

"Do you have a coupon?"

"No."

"Would you like to buy a Paul McCartney CD?"

"Nah."

"Do you have a Coffee Club card that I can punch?"

"Do you have a nose that I can punch? Just gimme; I'm in a hurry."

He poured me a giant cup of steaming Java. The front door opened and in came Lumm Bring. He went for me, and I let him have the scalding 'Venti' in the face. He screamed, and his hands went to his eyes. I tackled him in the stomach, and we crashed into a counter. He was down for the count. I got up, and grabbed an m&ms cookie from the broken display.

The "old" woman came in, flashing a badge. She was an undercover cop. She cuffed the giant. I handed her the package.

"We've been looking for this," she told me. Then she said, "We've got the rest of it. You're free to go."

"Not so fast," I said. I reached into Lumm Bring's back pocket, pulled out his wallet, and pulled out six tens. "This guy owes me fifty," I told her.

The other ten I gave to the cashier. "Here's for the coffee," I said. "Keep the change. Lum Bring's a big tipper."

"You think you're pretty tough, don't you?" asked the undercover policewoman.

"Sweetheart, you don't ever wanna mess with a project manager. Now, I've got a train to catch." And I walked out.

And that's how the bebop, boogie, and jive went down that day in Chinatown.

But, don't tell my wife, see?