The driver sang a tune about a girl named Mamie who loved her way to hell, loved the Devil and loved him well. The passenger read the day’s newspaper, licking his finger to turn the pages. The story was about another teacher fined and jailed for teaching evolution. A lawyer had mounted a defense. Some people protested at the courthouse with Bible scripture painted on signs.
“Do you think it’s true?” Mr. Jefferson said, breaking the silence.
“What’s that?”
“That we came down from the trees? Just a bunch of apes in suits.”
“Makes as much sense as the other theory,” Mr. Adams said.
Mr. Jefferson chuckled quietly and took up his song again. Far off, a dark mass of clouds roiled on the horizon. The road purred beneath the sedan’s wheels as they turned their unceasing revolutions.
All morning, Ling had been able to think of nothing but last night’s unsettling dream walk and what she and Henry had discovered inside the tunnel. The burn still hurt. As soon as she had a moment at the restaurant, she’d telephoned Henry, catching him on his way out the door.
“I’m just on my way to Grand Central to meet Louis’s train now,” he said. “I promise to bring him straight to the Tea House. We can talk about it then,” he promised and hung up.
At lunch, Charlie Lee stopped by the Tea House to let Ling know that his grandfather had returned from Boston, and as soon as she’d finished cleaning the tables, Ling took advantage of the afternoon lull to visit Chang Lee at the Golden Pearl, bringing him an offering of oranges for the coming New Year. Chang Lee was nearly eighty, but his mind was as sharp as ever, and Ling held out hope that he might know something helpful to put her own mind at ease about Wai-Mae.
“I understand from my grandson that you had a question about the neighborhood—some matchmakers, was it?”
“Yes, Uncle. A firm called O’Bannion and Lee,” Ling said eagerly. “Do you know it?”
“Yes,” Mr. Lee answered and said nothing more. But she could read the judgment in his silence, and her earlier hope that they might turn out to be reputable matchmakers after all waned. “They had an office here once,” Mr. Lee said at last. “It was in the Bend.”
“The Bend?”