In the summer of 1851, Jacob pursues Joaquín Murieta for four months, hoping to interview the bandit. Jacob constructs the legend that Murieta is “the avenger of oppressed Spanish peoples” (343), naming him “the Robin Hood of California.” Jacob’s newspaper articles create a sensation among the public. When Jacob fails to locate Murieta, he invents midnight meetings with the bandit, lapsing into the same eloquent falsification that got Jacob into trouble as a fraudulent missionary in Chile.

Arriving in Chinatown one year earlier, Tao learns that every Chinese immigrant has to join one of five tongs, organizations with criminal ties that guarantee protection and work. When he joins the Cantonese-affiliated tong, Tao acquires many patients. One day, Tao receives an urgent message to come to the address of a brothel. The “singsong” girls, young Chinese prostitutes who chant in indecipherable English, remind Tao of his sister who was sold as a child. Tao is paid to sign the death certificate of a 13-year-old whore who was poisoned because she was too sick to continue working. In China, Tao viewed the slavery of such young girls as their karma, but he now believes the horrible fates of these “singsong” girls can be altered.