I Totally Meant to Do That Read Online Free Page A

Cortland Alley was empty. I lingered on the corner of Canal before turning, aiming to diminish the amount of time we’d be alone on the block, but I had to enter: The distance to the next intersection is long enough that if I waited until he arrived at it, and he turned, he’d have had an opportunity to turn again before I arrived, and I would’ve lost him for good. So I joined.
    He never looked back. I reminded myself that criminals are dumb. After a few more blocks, he led me not to another handbag store, which was typically the case as ringleaders control several locations, nor to a warehouse-like storage facility, which is how we made the occasional major bust, but to a small innocuous food market on a side street. Everyone is in on it.
    He nodded to a guy, who nodded back and then led him through a door behind the counter. I grabbed a produce baggie. The room was redolent of fish alive, dead, dried, and dying. Every piece of text contained within was written or printed in Chinese. I was the only Caucasian inside and desperately tried to appear as if I had a reason to be, as if I’d come for something specific. That ended up being three stocky white root vegetables, the least unfamiliar items for sale. Burdock? Parsnip? I have no idea what I fried and ate that night.
    Confident that the contraband would not move again, I left the market and called in its address to my manager. When I met the team that night at the Irish pub, I heard they’d rolled into the grocery with a warrant an hour after I left. The bags were exactly where I’d said they’d be. Somebody bought me a beer.
    The next day I worked at Chumley’s, slinging burgers and returning beers when they became flies’ watery graves. But the day after that I was back in Chinatown. I should’ve waited longer, let things cool. I cased a few stalls: usual shtick, usual scores. And then, near the intersection of Canal and Centre, a man in a baseball cap caught my eye and held it for a millisecond longer than I expected him to.
    I felt it immediately. I continued in the same direction at a casual pace for a block and a half, and then looked over my shoulder. Sure enough, he was behind me—talking on his cell phone. To confirm what I already knew, I popped into another storefront or two, but, wouldn’t you know: No one was selling knockoffs anymore that day, not even when I batted my eyelashes, drew out my “i”s, and talked about Jesus.
    Returning to the office, I expected a burn notice, but when the elevator doors opened all I heard was, “Hey Jane.” It’s possible I was wrong but … there’s no way I was wrong. An agent knows. I must’veblown my cover in the grocery; Baseball Cap must have been in that market.
    On Canal Street, I drew no suspicion, because I looked like a tourist, sure, but also because the salesmen had an incentive to believe I was who I said I was: They wanted to sell bags. Just like the fool from Long Island believed the wallets were real because she
wanted
to have found a deal on a luxury item.
    It was the incentive that had made me a good spy—not my own work—and no one in the grocery store had it. They saw my syrupy Southern-tourist persona for what it was: a knockoff unraveling at its haphazardly stitched seams.
    I was too ashamed to tell my boss, so instead I removed my name from the remainder of the schedule and left.
    Not long after that, upon entering my apartment building on the corner of Hudson and Perry, I walked upstairs and stuck my key in the lock, but it wouldn’t turn. Duh, I thought, as I instantly realized my gaffe: wrong floor. I deduced the error quickly because I was familiar with the mistake; I made it about once a week that year. It was a strange and annoying affliction that has never struck me in any other of my many dwellings.
    My place was on the third floor, first door at the top of the stairs. Sometimes I stuck my key in the right lock. Other times I tried to open the corresponding door on the