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DANNY TCHEDA and Paate-crashers when they hear the sound oftoward them, and the arrival of the Thunder Five is all they need torid of Teddy Runkleh, but not five hway 35 filled up with people who thought they had a perfect right to gawk at all the little corpses that were supposed to be stacked up in the wreckage of Ed’s Eats For every car they finally e to send away, twoexplanation of why they, as taxpayers and concerned citizens, should not be allowed to enter a crinant, sowell, so exciting Most of them refuse to believe that the only body inside that tu is Irma Fre-neau’s; three people in a row accuse Danny of abetting a cover-up, and one of theate" Yikes In a weird way, lots of these corpse hunters al the Fisherer rosaries while they chew him out One lady waves a crucifix in his face and tells him he has a dirty soul and is bound for hell At least half of the people he turns away are carrying ca to take pictures of dead children? What gets Danny is this: they all think they’re perfectly normal Who’s the creep? He is
The husband of an elderly couple fro man, apparently you are the only person in this county who does not understand that history is happening all around us Madge and I feel we have the right to a keepsake"
A keepsake?
Sweaty, out of sorts, and coree with you right down the line," he says "If it was up to me, you and your lovely ould be able to drive aith a bloodstained T-shirt, er or two, in your trunk But what can I say? The chief is a very unreasonable guy"
Off zoouy in line starts yelling the moment Danny leans down to hisHe looks exactly like Danny’s ihtly higher in pitch "Don’t think I can’t see what you’re doing, buster!" Danny says good, because he’s trying to protect a cri an old blue Dodge Caravan ht side-viewhere twenty minutes while you and that dame do doodly-squat! I hope you won’t be surprised when you see some VIGILANTE ACTION around here!"
It is at this tender moment that Danny hears the un toward hiht since he found Tyler Marshall’s bicycle in front of the old folks’ ho with Beezer St Pierre fills his brain with dark oily s red sparks He lowers his head and stares directly into the eyes of the red-faced George Rathbun look-alike His voice ees in a low, dead monotone "Sir, if you continue on your present course, I will handcuff you, park you in the back of my car until I ae you with everything that coet the hell out of here"
The oldfishlike Splotches of brighter red appear on his jowly, already flushed face Danny keeps staring into his eyes, al for an excuse to truss him in handcuffs and roast hiuy considers his options, and caution wins He drops his eyes, moves the shift lever to R, and nearly backs into the Miata behind him
"I don’t believe this is happening," Pam says "What du Beezer and his friends roar toward the cars
"I don’t know, but I’d like to rahtstick down his throat And after hi for Wendell Green"
"You won’t have to look very far He’s about six cars back in the line" Pa sneer
"Good God," Danny says "Actually, I’lad to see that miserable blowhard Now I can tell hi, he bends down to speak to the teenaged boy at the wheel of the Miata The boy leaves, and Danny waves off the driver behind hiet closer and closer He says to Pam, "At this point, if Beezer cliet physical, I’ out my roscoe, honest to God"
"Paperwork, paperwork," Pao," she says, telling hiun, she will back hiue their way into the lane are taking time out to watch Beezer and the boys In , faces set, they look ready to coins to speed, and he feels his sphincter tighten
But the Thunder Five bikers race past without sotheir heads, one after another Beezer, Mouse, Doc, Sonny, and the Kaiser ¡ª there they go, leaving the scene
"Well, damn," Danny says, unable to decide if he feels relieved or disappointed The abrupt jolt of disisters when the bikers wheel around in a co U-turn thirty yards up ahead tells him that what he had felt was relief
"Oh, please, no," Pa autoain, returning the way they came For a couple of seconds, the only sound to be heard is the receding furor of five Harley-Davidson cycles Danny Tcheda takes off his uniform hat and wipes his forehead Pam Stevens arches her back and exhales Then souy with a graying walrusup a three-quarter-sized badge in a leather case and explaining that he is the cousin of a county-circuit judge and an honorary member of the La Riviere police force, which basically o wherever he likes The et by, and you can go back to your business, Officer"
Not letting hiet by is his business, Danny says, and he is forced to repeat this et on to the next case After sending away a fewhe must wait before he can tell off Wendell Green Surely the reporter cannot be more than two or three cars back As soon as Danny raises his head, horns blast and people start shouting at him Let us in! Hey, bud, I pay your salary, remember? I wanna talk to Dale, I wanna talk to Dale!
A fewat Danny, their , but he cannotA band of pain runs like a red-hot iron bar fro is wrong; he cannot see Green’s ugly red car Where the hell is it? Damn damn and double damn, Green must have eased out of the line and driven into the field alongside Ed’s Danny snaps around and inspects the field Angry voices and car horns boil up at his back No beat-up red Toyota, no Wendell Green What do you know, the windbag gave up!
A few minutes later the traffic thins out, and Danny and Pahway 35 are e The one truck that rolls along keeps on rolling, on its way to Centralia
"Think we ought to go up there?" Pa toward the remains of the store
"Maybe, in a couple e of that smell He would be perfectly happy to stay down here until the ME and the evidence wagon coets into people, anyhow? He would happily surrender two days’ pay to be spared the sight of Irma Freneau’s poor body
Then he and Pam hear two distinct sounds at once, and neither one makes them comfortable The first is that of a fresh wave of vehicles racing down the highway to their position; the second, the ru upon the scene from somewhere behind the old store
"Is there a back road to this place?" he asks, incredulous
Pas "Sounds like it But look ¡ª 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 Parier and more determined than the first bunch At the far end of the crowd, so 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 wo banner that reads WE WANT THE FISHERMAN! A h theand displays a handmade placard: GILBERTSON MUST GO
Danny looks over his shoulder and sees that the Thunder Fiveout 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 thetheir way toward him and Paoatee, Hoover Dalry his inalienable rights Danny remembers his name because Dalrymple initiated a brawl in the bar of the Nelson Hotel about sixhis 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 coe 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 foul wonize 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 gli out of the front of the crowd, and he holds up a hand to stop theet out of this?"
"Siet 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 Dalryet the fuck out of here, Hoover" The old man vanishes so quickly he seems to have dematerialized
The rest of the bikers have the sahtseers Danny hopes they can maintain their cool in the face of steady abuse: a three-hundred-pound e between self-control andfury 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 ih his scowl, yet er bubbles underneath, just the sauys?" 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 froe pour from the broad features and hairy skin Danny al from the man’s wide nostrils One of the pupils is sh the whites "Why? We’re doing it for Amy Isn’t that clear to you, Officer Tcheda?"
"Sorry," Danny mutters Of course He hopes Dale will be able to keep a lid on these ing to a fool kid who failed to back up in time, he is extremely happy that the bikers don’t have any blunt instruh the vacant space for, a police car rolls toward Danny and the Kaiser As ita sleeveless T-shirt and Capri pants bangs her hand against the passenger s When the car reaches Danny the two part-tiape at the Kaiser, and ask if he and Pah he should not have to Holtz and Nestler are nice guys, but they have a lot to learn about chain of co else
About a minute and a half later, Bobby Dulac and Dit Jesperson show up Danny and Pae into the fray and drag chanting citizens off the sides and hoods of their vehicles Sounds of struggle reach Danny over angry shouts co from the mob before hi people out of the ith great backswings of his ar her best Mouse and Doc wade into the clear A trail of blood leaking fro his beard at the corner of his mouth, the Kaiser strides up beside Danny
Just as the crowd begins chanting, "HELL NO, WE WON’T GO! HELL NO, WE WON’T GO!" Holtz and Nestler return to bolster the line Hell no, on’t go? Danny wonders Isn’t that supposed to be about Vietnam?
Only dimly aware of the sound of a police siren, Danny sees Mouse wade into the crowd and knock out the first three people he can reach Doc settles his hands on the openof an all-too-fa driver what the hell he thinks he is doing "Doc, leave hiain and drowns out his words
Although the little man at the wheel of the Olds looks like an ineffectual math teacher or a low-level civic functionary, he possesses the deterladiator He is the Reverend Lance Hovdahl, Danny’s old Sunday school teacher
"I thought I could help," the reverend says
"What with all this racket, I can’t really hear you too good Let h theas the siren whoops again and a State Police car slides by on the other side
"Hold it, Doc, STOP!" Danny shouts, seeing the twotheir necks to stare at the spectacle of a beardeda Lutheranbehind theoggling through the windshield of his DAREmobile as if terrified by the chaos around him
The end of the lane is like a war zone now Danny strides into the screa mob and shoves a few people aside on his way to Doc and his old Sunday school teacher, who looks shaken but not at all injured "Well, Danny, lad to see you here"
Doc glares at the two of them "You know each other?"
"Reverend Hovdahl, this is Doc," Danny says "Doc, this is Reverend Hovdahl, the pastor at Mount Hebron Lutheran"
"Holy ins to pat the littleat the hem of his jacket, as if to pull him into shape "Sorry, Reverend, I hope I didn’t hurt you none"
The state cops and the Mad Hungarian e at last to squeeze out of the crowd The sound level decreases to a mild hubbub ¡ª one way or another, Doc’s friends have silenced the loudest members of the opposition
"Fortunately, the ider than I am," the reverend says
"Say, maybe I could come over and talk to you so about first-century Christianity lately You know, G¨¦za Verm¨¨s, John Dominic Crossan, Paula Fredriksen, stuff like that I’d like to bounce some ideas off you"
Whatever Reverend Hovdahl intends to say is obliterated by the sudden explosion of noise from the other end of the lane A woman’s voice rises like a banshee’s, in an inhu that shivers the hairs on the nape of Danny’s neck It sounds to hierous than the Thunder Five are raving through the landscape What the devil could have happened up there?
" ’Hello boys’?" Unable to contain his indignation, Bobby Dulac turns to stare first at Dale, then at Jack His voice rises, hardens "Is this shit for real? ’Hello boys’?"
Dale coughs into his fist and shrugs "He wanted us to find her"
"Well, of course," Jack says "He told us to coh?" Bobby asks
"He’s proud of his work" Froly voice says, Stay out of it You uts from Racine to La Riviere Whose voice had that been? With no more evidence than his conviction, Jack understands that if he could place that voice, he would put a name to the Fisherman He cannot; all Jack Sawyer can do at this moment is remember a stink worse than the foul cloud that fills this cru ¡ª a hideous smell that came from the southwest of another world That was the Fisherman, too, or whatever the Fisher star of the LAPD’s Homicide Division awakens in his mind, and he says, "Dale, I think you should let Henry hear that 911 tape"
"I don’t get it What for?"
"Henry’s tuned in to stuff even bats can’t hear Even if he doesn’t recognize the voice, he’ll learn a hundred times ets a voice, that’s true Okay, let’s get out of here The ME and the evidence wagon should show up in a couple ofbehind the other two men, Jack thinks of Tyler Marshall’s Brewers cap and where he found it ¡ª that world he has spent , and his return to which this h his system The Fisherman left the cap for him in the Territories, the land he had first heard of when Jacky was six ¡ª when Jacky was six, and Daddy played the horn It is all co back to him, that immense adventure, not because he wishes it, but because it has to co hi him forward Forward into his own past! The Fisherman is proud of his handiwork, yes, the Fisher them ¡ª a truth so obvious none of the three men had to speak it aloud ¡ª but really the Fisher only Jack Sawyer, who alone has seen the Territories And if that’s true, as it has to be, then ¡ª
¡ª then the Territories and all they contain are involved somehow in these wretched crimes, and he has been thrust into a draht now The Tower The Bea about the Tower falling and the Beas are parts of the puzzle, whatever they ut conviction that Tyler Marshall is still alive, tucked away in sonition that he can never speak of all this to anyone else, not even Henry Leyden, hts bloay in the noisy chaos that erupts alongside and in front of the shack It sounds like an Indian attack in a cowboyfeet A woman sends up a shrill scream eerily like the blip-blips of the police siren he had half-noted a few o Dale mutters "Jeez," and breaks into a run, followed by Bobby and Jack
Outside, what appears to be a half dozen crazy people are racing around in the weedy gravel in front of Ed’s Dit Jesperson and Beezer, still too stunned to react, watch the amount of noise One man yells, "KILL THE FISHERMAN! KILL THE DIRTY BASTARD!" Another is shouting "LAW ’N’ ORDER ’N’ FREE BEER!" A scrawny character in bib overalls picks up "FREE BEER! WE WANT FREE BEER!" A harpy too old for her tank top and blue jeans skitters around waving her arrins on their faces indicate that these people are engaged in so the time of their lives
Up from the end of the lane coarian’s DARE Pontiac right behind it In the middle of the chaos, Henry Leyden tilts his head and smiles to himself
When he sees his chief take off after one of the men, fat Dit Jesperson lurches into action and spots Doodles Sanger, against whoe ever since she turned hinizes Teddy Runkle; and he knows Freddy Saknessum, but Freddy is undoubtedly too fast for hi that if he put his hands on Freddy Saknessuht hours later he would probably co really nasty Bobby Dulac is on the skinny guy’s case, so Doodles is Dit’s target, and he looks forward to pulling her down into the weeds and o in the Nelson’s filthy bar (In front of ’s most raffish characters, Doodles had corel, Tubby)
Dit looks her in the eye, and for a second she stops juive hiers of both hands He launches hiets to where she was, she is six feet off to the right, shifting on her feet like a basketball player "Tubby-Tubby," she says "Coet it, Tub-Tub" Furious, Dit reaches, misses, and nearly loses his balance Doodles prances away laughing and et it ¡ª why doesn’t Doodles just break away and take off ? It’s like she alht, but first she has to run out the clock
After another serious lunge that et by only an inch or two, Dit Jesperson wipes the sweat off his face and checks out the scene Bobby Dulac is snapping cuffs on the skinny guy, but Dale and Hollywood Sawyer are faring only a little better than he is Teddy Runklee and bob away fro like idiots and shouting their halfwit slogans Why is low-life scuile? Dit supposes that rodents like Runkleht on their feet than regular people
He charges Doodles, who slips past hi diddley-bop Over her shoulder, Dit sees Hollywood finally fake out Saknessuround
"You didn’t have to get all physical on ives a brief nod "Hey, Runks"
Teddy Runkle The chief says, "What, you run out of gas?"
"Party’s over," Runkleman says "Hey, ere just funnin’, you know?"
"Aw, Runksie, I wanna play soles into the diddley-bop In a flash, Beezer St Pierre thrusts his mountainous self between her and Dit He steps forward, rurade Doodles tries to dance backward, but Beezer envelops her and carries her toward the chief
"Beezie, don’cha love ust and deposits her in front of the chief The two state cops, Perry Brown and Jeff Black, are hanging back, looking even usted than the biker If Dit’s mental processes were to be transcribed frolish, the result would be, He’s gotta have sosland Ale, because that is some fine, fine beer And look at the chief! He’s so ready to bust a gut, he can’t even see that we’re about to lose this case
"You were FUNNIN’?" the chief roars "What’s the MATTER with you idiots? Don’t you have any respect for that poor girl in there?"
As the state cops step forward to take charge, Dit sees Beezer go rigid with shock for a moroup No one but Dit Jesperson pays any attention to him ¡ª the enormous biker has done his bit, and now his part is over Arnold Hrabowski, who had been more or less concealed behind Brown and Black, shoves his hands in his pockets, hunches his shoulders, and gives Dit a glance of shaet it: What does the Mad Hungarian have to feel so guilty about? Hell, he just got here Dit looks back at Beezer, who is advancing ponderously toward the side of the shack and ¡ª surprise, surprise! ¡ª everybody’s best pal and favorite reporter, Mr Wendell Green, now appearing a little alarmed Guess more than one kind of scum just rose to the surface, Dit thinks
Beezer likes women who are smart and levelheaded, like Bear Girl; brainless skanks like Doodles drive hirabs two handfuls of pasty, rayon-covered flesh, and scoops wriggling Doodles under his arm
Doodles says, "Beezie, don’cha love round in front of Dale Gilbertson When Dale finally explodes at these four grown-up juvenile delinquents, Beezer reiven Runksie, and looks over the chief’s shoulder at the front of the old store To the left of the rotting gray entrance, Wendell Green is ai fancy, bending and leaning, stepping to one side and another as he snaps pictures When he sees Beezer looking at hihtens up and lowers his camera He has an aard little sh the back way, Beezer iines, because there’s no way the cops down front would give him a pass Come to think of it, Doodles and the Dodos must have come the same way He hopes all of the him, but that’s a possibility
The reporter lets his ca his eyes on Beezer, sidles away frohtened way he moves reminds Beezer of a hyena’s slink toward its carrion Wendell Green does fear Beezer, and Beezer cannot blame him Green is lucky that Beezer did not actually rip off his head, instead ofabout it YetGreen’s hyenalike crawl strikes Beezer as pretty strange, under the circu beaten up in front of all these cops, can he?
Green’s uneasiness forms a link in Beezer’s mind to the communication he had seen pass between Runkleman and Freddy When their eyes shifted, when they looked away, they were looking at the reporter! He had set the whole thing up in advance Green was using the Dodos as a distraction fro with his caliness, infuriates Beezer Galvanized by loathing, he moves quietly away from Dale and the other police his eyes locked on the reporter’s
He sees Wendell considera break for it, then reject the idea, etting away
When Beezer comes to within ten feet of him, Green says, "We don’t need any trouble here, Mr St Pierre I’ my job Surely you can understand that"
"I understand a lot of things," Beezer says "How much did you pay those clowns?"
"Who? What clowns?" Wendell pretends to notice Doodles and the others for the first ti all that ruckus?"