“We’ll put on our thinking caps,” Sid said. “Maybe Gus knows a family who would like a companion to an only child. But I’m afraid the thinking will just have to wait until after the party. We still haven’t settled on our theme, have we?”
I left them heatedly discussing the theme for my party and made my way down to Mr. Frederick Lee’s office. He had an expectant, worried look on his face as he admitted me.
“Any luck, Miss Murphy? Did you find the missing item?”
“I don’t wish to be rude,” I said, “but I wasn’t sure your employer wished you to know the details of my assignment. You left the room while he spoke to me.”
Frederick Lee nodded solemnly. “I only understood it concerned something that was precious to him. Something that he wanted recovered as quickly as possible.”
“Then I’m afraid I have no good news for him yet, Mr. Lee. I have searched diligently in the immediate area with no success.”
He sighed. “My employer will not be pleased.” But he himself looked almost relieved. “Oh, well, we had better go and deliver the news to him.”
“I can go on looking,” I said. “I’ve only covered a fraction of the jewelers and pawnshops in New York City. But the thief could just as easily have gone across the bridge to Brooklyn or to any other outlying community. It’s like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.”
“It certainly seems hopeless, but I’m sure my employer will not want you to abandon the quest.”
He took my elbow to steer me across the Bowery. At this hour it was full of women doing their morning shopping for the day’s meals while a gaggle of children clung to their skirts or raced ahead. The moment we turned into Mott Street the contrast was absolute. Here was silence and emptiness. There were no women and no children. We passed a couple of young Chinese men wearing the dark blue baggy jackets and pants that seemed to be the uniform of the Chinese. Their hands were tucked into their sleeves. They avoided my gaze and hurried by, heads down. I felt a stab of pity for them, living amid so much hostility and knowing that they would never have the chance to truly belong here, to get married and live normal lives.
The pity was short-lived, however, as Frederick Lee grabbed my elbow again and shoved me forward at a quicker pace. “Those men,” he whispered. “They are Hip Singers.”
“What kind of singers?” I looked back with interest.
“Don’t look at them,” he hissed. “Pretend they are invisible.”
“What’s the matter with them?” I too found myself whispering.
“Hip Sing is the rival tong,” he said. “Have you not heard about the tong wars? There has been terrible bloodshed between Hip Sing and On Leong, which is our tong. At the moment there is a truce, but it’s very fragile and the least little thing can set sparks flying again.”
“I see,” I said, realizing now why the man yesterday had looked up and down the street before he hurried away. “So are tongs like gangs?”
He looked shocked. “Oh, no, not at all. They are benevolent societies. They offer us protection and loans and even a place to stay. Like your American gentlemen’s clubs.”
“Our gentlemen’s clubs don’t often condone killing each other.”
“We have to defend the honor of our tong if the Hip Sing mob kills one of our own,” he said. “They are not to be trusted. We are a merchant’s association made up of civilized men; they are a bunch of rabble who work in the laundries and the cigar factories.”
He stopped talking as a door opened and two elderly men came out, each carrying a cage with a bird in it. They held the cages up as they walked solemnly down the street.
“What was that?” I asked.
“They are walking their birds. They do it every morning so that the caged birds get fresh air,” he said. “Just as you Americans walk your babies in their buggies.”
“You say ‘we Americans,’” I said to him. “Actually I’m Irish. I’ve only been here two years and I don’t think of myself as American yet. But you were born here. Don’t you think of yourself as American?”
“I would if I felt that I belonged here,” he said. “But as the child of a Chinese man, I can never become a citizen. So I will never truly belong.”
“Never become a citizen, even if you were born here?”
“That’s right. Thanks to the Exclusion Act. But I wouldn’t belong in China either. I am neither fish nor fowl.”
“That must be hard for you.”