justice, a fascination with Chinese culture, a lurid role- playing fetish. "It sounded cool" is a lame provocation, but there it is nonetheless. I've grown accustomed to the disappointment engendered by that response. People prefer a good story. My actor coworkers wrote new narratives every morning. After exchanging flyer postcards for various low- budget blackbox- theater one- acts, they'd transform themselves. I remember this brunette who earned the moniker "chameleon." She left the office once as a Canadian- accented tourist and returned that afternoon a Goth teenager, replete with pale makeup and ripped skull- and- crossbones tights. I didn't even recognize her. She was one of only a few who switched from one identity to another beyond the office. Our manager discouraged the practice because there was nowhere safe to do it. She also warned us not to take notes anywhere, not even in a bank or pizza shop, and not to leave information on voice mails within earshot of anyone. She'd lost two spotters that way, one who'd blown his cover in front of an employee at Pearl Paint, and another who'd done so next to an elderly man playing mah- jongg in Columbus Park. Our manager said everyone in Chinatown was involved, "Everyone is in on it." Obviously, that's egregious hyperbole, but I think what she meant to say was that there was no establishment at which we could be certain no one was involved. Indeed, I once happened across a multi- thousand- dollar phony- Rolex deal while