Chapter Ten #3
“This one is on the house,” the barman said. “You seem thirsty.” His lips curled a bit at the corners, his eyes crinkling. “And it’s nearing closing time. It’d be a shame to waste the rest of the bottle, particularly when there’s someone like you at the bar.”
“You devil,” she replied, thinking this wasn’t his first time flirting with a customer, and she smiled mischievously in response.
“Thank you kindly.” She took a sip. The champagne was good.
“I was meaning to ask if you knew anything about some boys who came round last weekend, trying to get in. Adin Brown, five foot nine, curly hair? Did you hear anything about that?”
The barman leaned toward her, perhaps closer than was professional. “Like I told your boyfriend, I don’t know anything about him. He sounds too young to be coming to this place.” It was an honest enough answer, she decided.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” Billie corrected him, sipping the champagne. It went down beautifully. “And regardless of what you might have to say to anyone else, I was wondering what you thought about it, on the QT. Did those boys cause a bit of a scene? An embarrassment of some sort?”
The barman flicked his eyes to something or someone behind Billie, and he stiffened, his demeanor switching in an instant. “Look, lovely lady, I wish I could talk to you,” he said, “but I have my job to consider. Sorry.” He moved away to polish the far end of the bar.
Blast, Billie thought. She turned and scanned the room. She’d thought she had him. Who was it who’d caught his eye?
Sam arrived a beat later, looking cut up about something.
“You didn’t give the bartender a cross look, did you?” Billie asked, a touch accusingly.
“No. But guess who I saw in the corridor,” he seethed, clearly focused on something else entirely. “That bloody eye-tie.”
Billie sighed. This was just what she needed. Sam had what might delicately be called “impatience” with Italians since Tobruk and that AR-4. “You aren’t still holding a grudge against the entire population of Italians, are you, Sam?” she responded darkly, and sipped her bubbles.
“Pardon? You don’t hold anything against them?” Sam snapped angrily. “Against the Japs? The Germans?”
“Look, let’s not argue about this. It’s late.” Of course she had some raw feelings about the Axis powers. Of course she did.
“It takes a nation to support a leader like—”
Billie closed her eyes. “Nazis are a different matter, Sam. Or Mussolini himself. But millions of civilians can’t be blamed for wars waged by their leaders.
What about those German students, the White Rose resistance, who were hanged, even though they were kids?
There were civilians who protested against what their governments were doing, and plenty more who wanted to protest but feared for their lives.
Hell, I heard a story today about a Jewish German family .
. .” She trailed off, deciding it wasn’t important for Sam to know the Browns were a German-born family, not while he was in this state.
“How’s that for a betrayal by your own leaders—you aren’t worthy of living in your own country because you were born a Jew.
” After the lead with Con, and some dancing that had unexpectedly made her feel more herself again, the evening was turning to hell, and fast.
“There were plenty of civilians who egged the war on,” her assistant said, his body tense as a fist.
“Sam, you’re right about that, but it’s not that simple.
” She thought about the pleasurable hours spent with her mother and father in Ciro’s Café on Elizabeth Street, Luigi Rosina regaling them with stories between mouthfuls of pasta.
She thought of all the Italians she knew in Sydney and how they’d become “enemy aliens,” some of them after having fought in the Great War for Australia.
Old men, kind men, and their families put into camps.
“Thousands of Italians were put in internment camps here after fleeing fascism,” she reminded Sam.
“Regardless of their age or their health or what they thought of the war, they were put behind barbed wire.” She shook her head.
“Forget it, Sam. I’ll be back,” she said, disappointment in her voice.
This was a losing argument. She couldn’t blame Sam for the hatred he felt after watching his mates blown to pieces, after what he’d suffered himself.
It was far too soon. Or perhaps it would always be too soon.
He likely wouldn’t be working for her if that Italian thermos bomb hadn’t mangled his hand, but still, this wasn’t what she wanted in an assistant.
Maybe a black dress is bad luck, she thought. Or a “midnight” dress.
Not managing to suppress her frown, Billie made for the powder room, where she fixed her Fighting Red and powdered her nose, staring in the large gilt mirror.
The person she saw in the reflection was alive with determination: She had a puzzle to solve.
There was frustration, yes, but she was alive.
It was a bit of the old Billie. The Billie who’d swung into action in Europe.
She pulled herself together and found that she knew that face, knew that look.
She appeared fresh, despite the hour, and she hoped that by the time she returned to Sam he would have calmed down.
She liked her assistant—he was a solid worker and she had no regrets about hiring him—but she didn’t want to deal with his Italian issue right now when they ought to be focusing on finding Adin Brown and figuring out his connection with The Dancers.
When Billie returned from the powder room, Sam was not at the bar.
She slid back onto her stool and sipped at her champagne, thinking it had perhaps started to go flat.
The taste wasn’t what it was, and neither was The Dancers.
The crowd had almost thinned out entirely; perhaps only a dozen couples were still dancing.
Billie took another sip of her drink, swallowed, decided it didn’t taste any good, and pushed it away, leaving the last few sips.
She and Sam should leave, before they made themselves too obvious, if that ship hadn’t already sailed.
Had all of the staff been instructed not to speak with her?
She thanked the barman from afar, tipped him an extra shilling, leaving it by her near-empty glass, and headed for the door, hoping to pick Sam up along the way.
“We should head out,” she said to him when she spotted him loitering near the main doors. She leaned against his arm, her head dipping onto his shoulder. “I got the drinks . . .” She’d slurred her words, she noticed. “I paid up,” she tried again, more successfully.
Sam frowned and looked down at her. “Look, I think you might have misunderstood me about the Italian thing . . .” He trailed off. “Billie, I have to say, you look tired.”
“Thank you,” she replied somewhat sharply, and stood to attention. If he normally had a way with words, it wasn’t the case tonight.
“I didn’t mean it like that. You just don’t seem . . . yourself,” he continued, searching her face. “Maybe we should put it off until another night. Or you should let me go instead,” he said.
“What are you talking about? Sam, I’m this close to finding out why Adin was here before he disappeared.” She held her fingers up, an inch apart, to illustrate. “It’s the only real lead we have apart from a slip of newspaper. It’s something to do with Boooer, I’ll bet.”
Boooer?
She did feel a bit tired, and a bit unclear, and rather suddenly, too.
It was late and it was time to go, but she’d never let a little tiredness dictate when to turn in, or to turn down an opportunity to forward a case.
Fresh air would help. That doorman did know something.
He was nervous and people that nervous often had something to be nervous about.
She’d see him. She’d know something then. And if not, this dress was proving very poor luck indeed.