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And that meant Wolf’s old bar, the Den, needed to be renovated, restocked, and reopened.
Wolf grunted again as he squeezed the bolt cutters. With one final, satisfying clunk, he cut all the way through the padlock, which felt to the floor with a thump.
‘Oh, ye of little faith.’ Rainer, the club mechanicandnew Sergeant-at-arms, was here too. He’d provided Wolf with the bolt-cutters.
‘They didn’t look the sharpest is all,’ Wolf grumbled.
‘Youdon’t look the sharpest either, but you get the job done,’ Rainer joked.
‘Come on,’ Wolf said. ‘We got work to do.’
Wolf didn’t know exactly what he was expecting from the place. But this wasn’t it.
The stink of the city was gone inside the bar, replaced by something very different. ‘It smells… like lavender?’ he said, trying to put his finger on exactly what the aroma was.
‘Yeah, I was expecting it to be damp and shit,’ Rainer said. ‘Dank. I mean, it’s not like it’s the Hilton in here, but, it could be a lot worse.’
Baron had a flashlight which he flicked around the interior. ‘Well, well,’ he said with a whistle. ‘Back in the Wolf’s Den.’
Memories flooded back to Wolf. ‘Fuck,’ he said, ‘remember that night with Sandra?’
Rainer whistled. ‘I remember a lot more than just one night.’
‘And what was her friend called?’ asked Baron. Wolf couldn’t see his face, but he couldhearthe smile playing on his lips.
‘The bendy one?’ asked Wolf.
‘I think supple’s the word to use,’ Rainer offered.
‘The bendy one,’ Baron confirmed.
‘Charlene,’ Rainer said, his voice dark and full of melancholy. ‘I could never forget Charlene.’
‘Alright, Mister Lover-boy,’ Wolf snorted.
As the light played across each of the benches and chairs in the Den, so many images came back to Wolf. So many nights with the boys he remembered clearly and — of course — a hell of a lot more nights that were nothing more than a bleary, drunken slosh.
‘We’ve got a lot of work to do,’ Baron said, whistling.
‘Well, I brought a little something,’ Wolf said. ‘Help us along.’
He pulled open the leather satchel he was carrying and grabbed the bottle of Buffalo Trace Bourbon he’d been keeping secret from the other two, as well as three tin cups. ‘What say we have a little toast to the reopening of this place?’
‘That’s a little premature, ain’t it?’ Rainer said, holding out his hand for a cup.
Baron’s grin was only just visible in the murk. ‘Wolf’s got plenty of experience with premature, right?’
The three of them laughed as Wolf poured the drinks out.
‘This ain’t bad,’ Rainer said, sipping the sweet, golden-brown liquid.
‘Kentucky’s finest,’ Wolf said, tasting his own drink. ‘You can keep your fancy Scotches and Irish Whiskeys. Far as I’m concerned, nothing beats a Bourbon. It’s complex but easy drinking.’
‘Just like Charlene,’ Rainer joked.
Damn, it felt good to have them here. The three of them had been close for years, and he couldn’t think of anyone else he’d rather be reclaiming this place with. He threw back another swig of the drink, feeling the burn in the back of his throat. Not for the first time recently, he felt a long night of drinking up ahead.
‘Hey,’ Wolf said, ‘thanks for being here. I couldn’t do this without you guys.’
