Pam shrugs. "Sounds like it. But look — Dale'll have to deal with Beezer's goons, because we're gonna have our hands full down here."
"Aw, cripes," Danny says. Maybe thirty cars and pickups are converging on the end of the little lane, and both he and Pam can see that these people are angrier and more determined than the first bunch. At the far end of the crowd, some men and women are leaving their vehicles on the shoulder and walking toward the two officers. The drivers at the front of the pack are waving their fists and shouting even before they try to turn in. Incredibly, a woman and two teenage kids are holding up a long banner that reads WE WANT THE FISHERMAN! A man in a dusty old Caddy thrusts his arm through the window and displays a handmade placard: GILBERTSON MUST GO.
Danny looks over his shoulder and sees that the Thunder Five must have found a back road, because four of them are standing out in front of Ed's, looking oddly like Secret Service agents, while Beezer St. Pierre is deep in discussion with the chief. And what they look like, it occurs to Danny, is two heads of state working out a trade agreement. This makes no sense at all, and Danny turns back to the cars, the lunatics with signs, and the men and women working their way toward him and Pam.
A barrel-chested, seventy-one-year-old man with a white goatee, Hoover Dalrymple, plants himself in front of Pam and starts demanding his inalienable rights. Danny remembers his name because Dalrymple initiated a brawl in the bar of the Nelson Hotel about six months earlier, and now here he is all over again, getting his revenge. "I will not speak to your partner," he yells, "and I will not listen to anything he says, because your partner has no interest in the rights of the people of this community."
Danny sends away an orange Subaru driven by a sullen teenage boy in a Black Sabbath T-shirt, then a black Corvette with La Riviere dealer's plates and a strikingly pretty, strikingly foulmouthed young woman. Where do these people come from? He does not recognize anyone except Hoover Dalrymple. Most of the people in front of him now, Danny supposes, were hailed in from out of town.
He has set out to help Pam when a hand closes on his shoulder, and he looks behind him to see Dale Gilbertson side by side with Beezer St. Pierre. The four other bikers hover a few feet away. The one called Mouse, who is of course roughly the size of a haystack, catches Dale's eye and grins.
"What are you doing?" Danny asks.
"Calm down," Dale says. "Mr. St. Pierre's friends have volunteered to assist our crowd-control efforts, and I think we can use all the help they can give us."
Out of the side of his eye, Danny glimpses the Neary twins breaking out of the front of the crowd, and he holds up a hand to stop them. "What do they get out of this?"
"Simple information," the chief says. "Okay, boys, get to work."
Beezer's friends move apart and approach the crowd. The chief moves beside Pam, who first looks at him in amazement, then nods. Mouse snarls at Hoover Dalrymple and says, "By the power invested in me, I order you to get the f**k out of here, Hoover." The old man vanishes so quickly he seems to have dematerialized.
The rest of the bikers have the same effect on the angry sightseers. Danny hopes they can maintain their cool in the face of steady abuse: a three-hundred-pound man who looks like a Hells Angel on a knife edge between self-control and mounting fury works wonders on a rebellious crowd. The biker nearest Danny sends Floyd and Frank Neary away just by raising his fist at them. As they melt back to their car, the biker winks at Danny and introduces himself as Kaiser Bill. Beezer's friend enjoys the process of controlling a crowd, and an immense grin threatens to break through his scowl, yet molten anger bubbles underneath, just the same.
"Who are the other guys?" Danny asks.
Kaiser Bill identifies Doc and Sonny, who are dispersing the crowd to Danny's right.
"Why are you guys doing this?"
The Kaiser lowers his head so that his face hangs two inches from Danny's. It is like confronting a bull. Heat and rage pour from the broad features and hairy skin. Danny almost expects to see steam puffing from the man's wide nostrils. One of the pupils is smaller than the other; explosive red wires tangle through the whites. "Why? We're doing it for Amy. Isn't that clear to you, Officer Tcheda?"