We went on a walking tour, sort of, of the lower east side of Manhattan on Sunday, and we also took part in a street show, sort of. I’m not sure what to call it. The people who organize the show call it Accomplice: New York and they describe it as a street performance that the audience participates in. Whatever it is, we had a great time at it, or doing it, or whatever.

After signing up, My Darling B received a message on her cell phone directing us to be at the South Point Seaport on the lower east side at one o’clock, when we would meet our first contact who would give us more information. “You don’t find him,” the message said, “he will find you. Write down this information and destroy this phone.” Well, she didn’t destroy her phone, so I suppose we’ll be in big trouble if they ever read this drivel.

We were waiting at the dock beside the Ambrose light ship, just as we were told to do, watching the various people who very suspiciously stopped to gaze over the rail at the ship. “Oh, that’s definitely our guy,” My Darling B said, pointing very discreetly at the guy in the Batman t-shirt. “Or that could be him,” she added, nodding toward the old man in the button-down cotton shirt. “Or it could even be her,” she said, watching the two ladies whisper to each other a few yards away as they watched the crowd, sort of like B was.

It wasn’t any of those people. A little after one o’clock, our contact showed: A guy in a black jacket, black shirt and black pants wearing dark sunglasses. “Did any of you get a message?” he asked. We nodded. “Come with me,” he said, and took off at a trot across the pier toward a three-masted clipper ship with the name Peking painted on the prow, “named after the duck, not the city,” our contact said, pointing. “As far as anybody else is concerned, I’m your tour guide,” he added, pointing toward other sights. “I’m a tour guide. You’re supposed to be looking at the sights, dummies,” he helpfully explained, pointing again. This time we all looked, ooohing and ahhhing. “Very good, dummies. Now, listen up.”

If I gave away too many details, you wouldn’t enjoy the game as much when you came to New York City to play along, so I’ll just say that our contact gave us a number of clues that we had to follow to meet the next contact near City Hall. I’ll also say that we were lucky enough to be in a big group: lucky, because we needed the brainpower. There were several clues that left me scratching my head, but somebody else in the group came up with the solution and we always kept moving along. We were also lucky enough to be in a group with six people from Brooklyn who knew the city pretty well, although we were flat-out amazed none of them had ever been to the Brooklyn Bridge, one of the places we had to meet a contact at.

We ended up at a basement bar in Little Italy where we met Bunny, our last contact and a girlfriend of, shall we say, The Big Guy. We were there to deliver a special package to Bunny, only things didn’t turn out quite the way we thought they would, and there again is a turn of events I wouldn’t want to spoil by giving away too much. When the show ended they encouraged us to hang around to watch the next group come in, because “it’s almost as much fun watching from the outside when you know what’s going to happen,” and it really was.

After the show, as we were enjoying a beer and waiting for the next group, My Darling B let me in on a little secret she’d been keeping from me: She thought the group from Brooklyn was part of the show. “They’d been acting like they knew a little too much about it,” she explained. “They seemed to be solving the clues a little too easily, and a couple of the times that we were stumped by the clues, they got phone calls or text messages to help out.” So her biggest surprise was when we got to the end of the show and the others were just as surprised by the twist as we were. The phone calls were the way the tour worked, of course. The organizers had all our phone numbers and they’d call if you got stuck. B got a phone call, too, but she didn’t answer because her cell phone has a funny habit of not ringing when she gets a call.

We drifted out into the street when the show was over and tried to find The Pickle Guy. Remind me to tell you about that.