The Bride Wore Black Leather

Tell me you got a pre-nup!”
    I had to smile. “We did have some good times together in this place, didn’t we, Alex?”
    He glared at me. “If you start getting maudlin this early in the party, I will slap you a good one, and it will hurt.”
    “You’re quite right,” I said. “Don’t know what came over me.”
    I put my back against the wooden bar and looked out over the crowded room. Up on the small elevated stage, the band was really getting into it. Leo Morn and his band were providing live music (or at least something very like it). I’d agreed to let them play for sentimental reasons, and was already regretting it. Leo prowled back and forth across the stage, striking a series of rock poses as he belted out the lyrics. A skinny wild-eyed presence in purple jeans, with a very hairy torso, he was currently singing Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London.” Down in front of the stage, Betty and Lucy Coltrane, Alex’s body-building lady bouncers, were tangoing wildly, giving it lots of erotic action and passing the rose stem back and forth between their teeth. An Ann-Margret channeller from
Divas! Las Vegas
, looking very glamorous, was dancing up a storm on a table-top, along with Ms. Fate, the Nightside’s very own transvestite costumed adventurer. They danced well together, arms waving and legs slamming in unison, while their stiletto heels made a real mess of the wooden table-top.
    Leo Morn crashed to the end of his song, his musicians stopped playing at pretty much the same time, and there was actually some perfunctory applause. Or perhaps they were showing how pleased they were that it had stopped. Leo showed his teeth in a few defiant snarls, jumped down from the stage, and slouched over to join me at the bar. He’d been sweating up a cloud on stage, and carried with him the smell of a large dog that has recently been exercised. Alex had a vodka and mistletoe waiting for him, and Leo drank it thirstily.
    “All right,” I said. “I’ll bite. What are you calling the band this week?”
    “Odin’s Other Eye,” he said proudly. “We’ve gone prog rock. Sort of.”
    “Only because all the other genres wouldn’t have you,” said Alex.
    “We’re doing a lot better!” said Leo. “I don’t have to change the band’s name nearly as often now to make sure they’ll book us again. We opened for the ClanDestined just the other week, and they said they’d almost certainly want us back. Sometime.” He rapped his empty glass on the bar, to indicate he was ready for a refill, and grinned easily at me. “So! The knight in a tarnished trench coat is now the Man! Didn’t see that one coming. Am I going to have to change my wicked ways, or at the very least be very careful about what I admit to in front of you?”
    “I’ve always been more concerned with justice than the law,” I said.
    “That’s what they all say,” said Leo. “All I know is, if I ever see you heading my way while wearing a suit and a bowler hat and carrying an umbrella, I will leg it for the nearest horizon at a speed that will amaze you.”
    “Never happen,” I said. “I might be Walker now, but I’ll never be that Walker.”
    “That’s what they all say,” said Leo, heading back to his band. One of them had made the mistake of asking for requests, and the packed room was obliging him with some very basic answers. The crowd at Strangefellows has never been strong on witty repartee.
    “I did try to get Rossignol for the music,” I said to Alex. “She’s the leading torch singer in France these days, and I was hoping she might say yes, for old times’ sake. But it seem she has a regular spot at the Crazy Horse Salon in Paris, and she couldn’t get away. Probably for the best. She was never actually an ex of mine, technically speaking, but . . .”
    “Yes, but,” said Alex. “Suzie’s never been one for letting technicalities get in the way of venting her emotions. Preferably with a large gun.”
    “Rossignol did send me a card, with a view of Paris,” I said. “Which was nice of her. Would have been nicer if she’d remembered to sign it, but . . .”
    “Change the subject,” Alex said wisely.
    “All right. How is it you’re tending the bar on your own, on what promises to be a very busy night? I thought you’d be hiring extra staff, to help you cope with the madness and mayhem to come?”
    “Mostly, I’m letting people help themselves,” said Alex. “I’ve hired a tame poltergeist