Lair of Dreams

“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?”

“Mulberry Bend.”

Mulberry Bend. Wai-Mae had been correct about that after all.

“O’Bannion and Lee,” Mr. Lee continued. “Not matchmakers. Procurers. They promise girls passage to America from China to marry wealthy husbands. And once the girls are here in America…” Mr. Lee shook his head sorrowfully. “The girls are sold. Prostitutes forced to work to pay back the debt of their passage here. The girls are poor, alone in a new country, with no laws to protect them. What can they do? They are trapped.”

“Why hasn’t anyone stopped them?”

“Someone did,” Mr. Lee said. “They were murdered. Right down the street.”

“I-I never heard about a murder.”

“I imagine not. O’Bannion and Lee were murdered in 1875.”

“In 1875?” Ling repeated.

“Yes. Murdered by one of the poor girls they’d ruined. She plunged her dagger into each man’s heart.” He shook his head. “They were bad men. I remember seeing her sometimes. An opium addict. She played a little music box.”

A buzzing began in Ling’s belly. “Did she wear a veil?”

“Yes. She did. How did you know that?”

The buzzing raced up Ling’s neck to her scalp. She felt dizzy. “Where is Mulberry Bend, Uncle? I’d like to see it.”

“You see it every day.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

“It’s called Columbus Park.” Mr. Lee spread his hands wide. “Mulberry Bend was razed in 1897, and the park was built in its place. Mulberry Bend has been gone for decades. And so have your O’Bannion and Lee.” He blew on his fingers, as if scattering dandelion fluff to the wind. “Ghosts.”





Henry paced the platform of track ten on the lower level of Grand Central, watching down the tracks as if it were his future arriving in billowing clouds of steam. A fresh red carnation poked up from his lapel. At last, a mournful whistle-moan announced the approach of the train. Henry’s pulse beat in rhythm to the wheels, chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga. The metal beast slid past. Henry craned his neck to check each window, but the faces at the glass were blurs. The train stopped in a long, sighing hiss. A uniformed man shouted, “Now arriving—the three-ten New York and New Or-leeeans Limited!”

Doors opened. Happy passengers trundled off and into the arms of waiting family and friends. Henry trotted up and down the platform, his heart leaping each time a handsome dark-haired young man came down the steps, but none was Louis. Porters loaded suitcases and trunks onto trolleys and wheeled them away. The teeming platform emptied of people until only Henry and the porters remained. Had he somehow missed Louis in the crowd?

“Excuse me,” Henry called up to a porter stepping back onto the train. “I’m looking for a friend who was on the three-ten. Are there still passengers on board?”

The porter shook his head. “No, sir. Nobody left on the train. They’re all off now.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, sir. Not a soul left.”

He must’ve missed him. Louis was probably upstairs now in the wide lobby, suitcase in hand, his head tilted back, his mouth hanging open as he took in the grandeur of the big-city station. Henry raced up the stairs and into the main waiting room, walking briskly between the long wooden pews, where people sat reading newspapers or fussing with children. He thought he saw Louis walking toward a telephone booth, so he hurried after him, calling Louis’s name.

“Can I help you?” the man said, turning around. He was easily ten years older than Louis.

“Beg your pardon. I thought you were someone else,” Henry said and went back to walking the length and breadth of Grand Central. Henry’s excitement had now turned to fear. He remembered how hurt Louis had been when he asked him about the bribe. For all his good nature, Louis could be thin-skinned about a slight. What if he was so hurt by Henry’s careless remark that he’d decided not to come after all?

Then again, what if Louis had simply missed the train?

Hope restored, Henry hurried to the ticket window. “Pardon me, when is the next train in from New Orleans?”

“Half past six this evening,” the clerk answered.