The Green Lama: Unbound (The Green Lama Legacy Book 3) by Adam Lance Garcia

at the center of the inexplicable gathering, acting as both host and jester. To Alexei’s right was the man with the pencil thin mustache Vasili had learned was Obergruppenführer Albrecht Gottschalk. Seated besides Gottschalk were his subordinates, none of whose names Vasili had been able to learn: one had hollow cheeks, dented with horrible acne scarring; the second had black balls for eyes and picked at his Van Dyke incessantly as though he was unaccustomed to its presence; the third was a balding man with a terrible scar that stretched from his scalp to his right cheek. The Twins sat silently to Alexei’s left, enjoying the spectacle.
    “What can I do?” Vasili grimaced as he took another swig. “Shut my mouth. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
    Petros took a long drag from his cigarette. “Nazis… eh. What’s the big deal? All they want is elbow room,” he said, flapping his arms like stunted wings. “More room to breathe. Nothing wrong with that.”
    Vasili shot Petros a withering look. “You remember what happened the last time the Germans got all hot and bothered.”
    “Please,” Petros said, pressing a hand to his chest, wounded. “I’m not that old.”
    “You’re not that young either.”
    Petros raised his glass in concession. “And you’re too young to worry yourself, Vasili. Do you see Sotiria over there, all alone? She’s waiting for you, my friend. Life is too short to let hurt hearts stop you from getting a good fu—”
    “Thank you, Petros,” Vasili interrupted, fighting the urge to glance over at the fisherwoman. “But I will keep my own council on the matters of my heart and bed.”
    “Suit yourself,” he said, taking another swig of his beer. “Me, I would’ve let her take a ride a long time ago.”
    The front door slammed open.
    “Bartender! Bartender!” Andonis Needa shouted as he flew in, one arm wrapped around his employee, Dimitri. Both men wore wild grins. Vasili hadn’t seen them at the meeting earlier, but that didn’t explain their uncharacteristic high spirits.
    “We would like a bottle—no!” Dimitri exclaimed as they stumbled up to the bar. “ Two bottles of your finest, eh… finest…”
    “Ouzo!” Andonis interjected. “We would like two bottles of your finest ouzo!”
    Dmitri’s smile broadened. “Two bottles of your finest ouzo.”
    Andonis tossed twenty drachmas onto the counter. “And make it fast, sir. We are men on a schedule.”
    The bartender, a bearded brute of a man, huffed as he swiped the coins into his hands, waddling toward the bottles on the other side of the bar before either man had the chance to change his mind.
    “Andonis, aren’t you supposed be home with Anthe, your tail between your legs?” Petros shouted to the shopkeeper.
    “There’s only one thing between my legs,” Andonis called back, “and I’ll tell you what my wife can do with it!”
    “Since when did you grow a pair?” Petros said, letting out a sound that was half chuckle and half phlegm-riddled cough.
    “Since Jethro Dumont himself came into my store!” Andonis announced, slamming his palm proudly against the counter.
    Vasili noticed that everyone in the bar, even Alexei, perked up their ears at the mention of one of the world’s most scandalous men.
    “Jethro Dumont? The Jethro Dumont,” Petros asked, eyebrow raised in disbelief.
    “Yup!” Dmitri interjected. “Not just any Jethro Dumont, but the man himself! Though I doubt there are many men in this world with a name that ridiculous.”
    “I heard he was seein’ that American actress,” Petros said to Andonis and Vasili alike, hoping one would give him the name.
    Vasili shrugged. While almost fluent in English, thanks in part to the frequent British travelers that passed through the port, he knew little to nothing of American culture. There was the theater that played old American films—usually two-year-old serials like Undersea Kingdom —but Vasili never had any interest in anything from