Sid and the band make secret nighttime recordings in Paris; Hiero destroys each disc, but Sid secretly saves one.

Nazi soldiers check identity papers at a Paris café and take Hiero away into the night.

Chip visits Sid in Baltimore and reveals that Hiero survived the war and lives in Poland.

Sid and Chip travel to Berlin to attend a documentary premiere held in Hiero's honor.

Chip appears in the documentary accusing Sid of betraying Hiero out of jealousy over a woman.

Mortified by Chip's on-screen accusation, Sid walks out of the documentary premiere.

Chip tracks down Sid after the premiere and offers a tearful apology for the documentary accusation.

Singer Delilah Brown arrives at the Hound club and invites the band to record with Armstrong in Paris.

Nazi soldiers attack Hiero and Paul on a Berlin street; Chip accidentally kills one soldier while defending them.

The band flees to Hamburg, where Ernst's father agrees to provide identity papers in exchange for Ernst staying behind.

Sid, Chip, and Hiero cross into France and arrive in Paris, where Delilah meets them.

Armstrong holds a recording session with the band and takes a keen interest in Hiero's exceptional trumpet playing.

German forces parade into occupied Paris; Hiero's transit papers arrive at the apartment, and Sid hides them.

Sid and Chip arrive at Hiero's home in rural Poland and find him alive, elderly, and blind.

Sid confesses to Hiero that he hid the transit papers in Paris; Hiero responds with quiet serenity.

Sid and his bandmates make secret jazz recordings in Nazi-occupied Paris before Hiero is taken by German soldiers. Decades later, Chip and Sid reunite to attend a Berlin documentary about Hiero, where Chip publicly accuses Sid of betraying their friend out of jealousy. Flashbacks reveal how singer Delilah Brown brought the band to Paris and how a violent Berlin encounter forced their flight through Hamburg and into France. In Paris, Sid hides Hiero's transit papers to keep recording, sealing Hiero's fate as German forces occupy the city. After a long journey to Poland, Sid and Chip find Hiero alive, elderly, and blind. Sid finally confesses what he did, and Hiero receives the truth with unexpected serenity.

The war, the arrest, and the long road to confession.

A drunk Hiero insists on going out for milk in curfew-era Paris; Sid accompanies him against his better judgment.

Sid reflects on the complicated rediscovery and belated release of Half-Blood Blues, which made Hiero a legend.

Sid and Chip stop their Berlin cab at the Brandenburg Gate and remark on how much the city has changed.

Sid recalls a young Chip posing as a dead woman's son to trick a senile woman into giving them candy.

Paul and Sid ride a trolley and spot Ernst walking with an unknown woman wearing a golden headwrap.

The Hot-Time Swingers discuss Delilah's Paris invitation while bathing together at a public facility, with only Fritz hesitating.

The band hides in a hidden cellar beneath the Hound as Nazi soldiers search the building above them.

Fritz announces he is joining the Nazi-approved Golden Seven band and parts ways with his friends.

Chip and Sid board a decrepit Soviet transport bus in Stettin, heading deep into the rural Polish countryside.

Sid and Chip reminisce about their teenage first encounter with jazz life at Panther Brownstone's Baltimore club.

Armstrong politely informs Sid he has another bass player lined up for the Half-Blood Blues recording sessions.

Armstrong departs Paris on tour, leaving the Half-Blood Blues recording unfinished and Hiero to take creative charge.

The band's attempt to escape Paris at a chaotic, overcrowded train station ends in failure and injury.

Chip gently urges Hiero to reappear publicly as a musician, but Hiero quietly and firmly declines.

Sid tells Chip he hid Hiero's transit papers; Chip acknowledges the wrong but assures Sid everyone makes mistakes.

From Hiero's reckless milk run in curfew-era Paris to Sid's memories of Chip's childhood mischief, this pool tracks the quieter moments that reveal each character's personality and flaws. In Berlin, the Hot-Time Swingers debate their future together at the public baths before violence forces them into hiding, and Fritz's departure to a Nazi-approved band signals the group's slow disintegration. As Sid and Chip travel to Poland decades later, they revisit youthful memories of discovering jazz at Panther Brownstone's club. Armstrong's decision to use another bass player and his eventual departure from Paris on an unfinished record leave Hiero to take creative charge. A failed escape attempt at a chaotic train station keeps the band trapped in occupied Paris. In 1992, Hiero declines Chip's invitation to return to public life, and Sid quietly tells Chip the full truth about what he did.

The band's smaller moments and slow unraveling.

Hiding in a café corridor, Sid watches helplessly as Nazi soldiers single out Hiero and lead him away.

Sid reflects that Hiero became celebrated as an all-time great trumpeter while his own music career never took off.

Sid and Delilah become intimate after she removes her headwrap to reveal her baldness and asks if he still wants her.

Paul sneaks out of the Hound to retrieve medication and vanishes; Fritz later confirms Paul was sent to a concentration camp.

During a quiet moment at a Hamburg pier, Hiero and Sid tell each other their middle names for the first time.

Ernst meets privately with his father, who agrees to produce identity papers only on condition that Ernst remain in Hamburg.

On the bus to Poland, Sid finds and reads Hiero's letter, discovering that Hiero invited only Chip to visit.

Sid confronts Chip about being left out of Hiero's letter; Chip insists Hiero will be genuinely glad to see Sid.

While traveling to Poland, Sid processes the documentary's revelation that Hiero's father was a Senegalese soldier, not a Cameroonian royal.

Sid learns that Delilah always had return tickets from Berlin, meaning Hiero knew she was safe the whole time.

At a Paris tobacconist, Sid calls Hiero a damn fraud and immediately regrets it, leaving Hiero crushed and silent.

Armstrong finds Sid after his musical failures and tells him his true gift is the ability to make others feel like family.

Delilah confronts Sid about Hiero's missing transit papers and storms out of the apartment after Sid feigns ignorance.

Hiero shows Sid and Chip a hidden cellar of sculptures, including one that resembles Sid holding his bass.

Sid dreams vividly of the horrors Hiero endured in the concentration camp the night before he plans to confess.

Pool 3 captures the moments of discovery and choice that drive the novel's deepest tensions. Sid watches helplessly from a café corridor as Hiero is taken by soldiers, a scene whose full meaning only emerges as backstory unfolds. In Berlin, Sid and Delilah become lovers after a moment of raw vulnerability, and Paul's disappearance into a concentration camp sharpens the mortal danger facing them all. The quiet exchange of middle names between Sid and Hiero at a Hamburg pier marks the peak of their friendship, even as jealousy begins to pull them apart. In Paris, Sid's bitterness spills out in a cruel remark that crushes Hiero, but Armstrong's counsel helps Sid begin to see what truly matters. At the story's end, Sid confesses his betrayal, dreams of Hiero's suffering in the camp, and receives a hint of forgiveness when Hiero asks him to replay a Polish record.