Not every day an orphaned brawler from the alleys of Glasgow ran a joint like this.
In the back corner on a low stage flocked by heavy, dark-green curtains, Sam led the six-piece band in his newest arrangement of “There’ll Always Be an England.” Thankfully, the Germans were too tone deaf to recognize the popular song. Berlin had decreed only German music to be played in occupied lands. Anyone caught playing or listening to anything else would immediately be arrested and sent to one of the work factories along the Polish border manufacturing shells and tanks for the German war machine. But the people of Paris had found a way to artistically revolt through cleverly arranged music that fooled their captors. And Sam was the master artist. There was nothing that talented man couldn’t bend a trumpet note around, but no one in Paris had wanted to hire him after the Nazis invaded. No one could risk hiring a Jew. Barrett had given him a full ten-second audition before hiring him on the spot. In the passing months Sam had proven himself an expert chess player, a lover of Shakespeare quotes, and a great proponent of optimism. He was also the closest Barrett had come to having a friend.
A nervous young boy popped up in front of him. “Sir, I would like to apologize again for falling on top of you. I know the objective was to tackle, but I can do better. I will do better next time.”
Barrett took half a step back before his newest waiter and recruit bumped his nose. “Of course you will. That’s why we practice over and over, so it becomes as natural as breathing.”
“Oui, sir.”
“You did good today. Be proud.” The boy beamed and turned to go before Barrett signaled him back. “And Anton, from now on let’s keep the days’ duties out of earshot of our patrons.”
Red splashed across Anton’s pointed face. “Oui, sir.”
His patrons. Barrett gritted his teeth. They spread across his bar like a disease of gray filth with gleaming buttons, starched collars, and scrawling swastikas. Here they dared to sit, laughing, drinking, and tapping their polished jackboots to unauthorized non-German swing music. If he didn’t have an operation to run in the basement, he’d lock the doors and set a match. Or fifty.
He turned to the bar. “How’s it going tonight, Henri?”
The bartender sidestepped around his staff to the end of the bar and handed Barrett the clean glass of water he had at the ready. “Fair enough. Sam’s keeping them in high spirits, so the beer is flowing. I told him to try a slower one soon so they’ll order the wine.”
Barrett fingered the rim of the sweating glass. “That horrible batch that fell off the back of a lorry last week?”
Henri nodded. “But the Germans will be so drunk by then that they’ll never notice.”
“No wonder you’re the best barkeep in town.”
Running a cloth over his impeccably kept bar, Henri leaned his elbow on the wood and smiled wickedly. “I could be the best in all of France if you’d let me add a few drops of poison to their mugs.”
“The Gestapo would be on us faster than a tick on a deerhound, and I don’t fancy myself locked in an interrogation room with a boy who only put on brass because his da paid for the commission. Always got a chip on their shoulder with something to prove.”
“Not much for military rank, are you, Patron?”
Taking a long swallow of water, Barrett shook his head. “That’s why they’ve got me here with you lot.”
“And I thought it was because you loved the Parisian nightlife and its people so much that you left your beloved highland hills of Scotland to come here and open a bar.”
Barrett winced at his cover story. It wasn’t the worst he’d ever heard, and it had kept the Germans from sniffing around too much. For now.
Shifting to put the bandstand in view, he caught Sam’s eye and gave him the wind-down signal. They needed to move that bad wine off the block before his new stock arrived in the morning. The backdoor dealers got itchy when there wasn’t room enough for their provisions and hiked the prices on the next turn around.
Sam nodded and eased the boys into a slow tune. The crowd’s voices hummed lower between the gentle clanking of glasses and the swanky trumpet notes. Cigarette smoke blossomed over the tables like mushrooms. The acridity smothered the rich smell of wood paneling,