‘It is,’ Bass said. Lancte threw him a warning look, but Bass either didn’t see it or ignored it. ‘Cues, baseball bats, golf clubs. No law against any of them.’
‘I heard someone say those guys used to be iron riders. Bike gang members.’
‘Some of them used to be with a New Jersey club, some used to be with a New York club, that’s…’
‘Chief Bass,’ Lancte interrupted, ‘I hardly think this is the time…
‘I can’t see the harm of telling him,’ Bass said. ‘They’re bums, rotten apples, hairbags.
Some of them ganged together in the Hamptons back four or five years ago, when they had the bad riots. A few of them were affiliated with a bike club called the Devil’s Dozen that disbanded in 1972. Stillson’s ramrod is a guy named Sonny Elliman. He used to be the president of the Devil’s Dozen. He’s been busted half a dozen times but never convicted of anything.’
‘You’re wrong about that, Chief,’ Lancte said, lighting a fresh cigarette. ‘He was cited in Washington State in 1973 for making an illegal left turn against traffic. He signed the waiver and paid a twenty-five dollar fine.’
Johnny got up and went slowly across the room to the water cooler, where he drew himself a fresh cup of water. Lancte watched him go with interest.
‘So you just fainted, right?’ Lancte said.
‘No,’ Johnny said, not turning around. ‘I was going to shoot him with a bazooka. Then, at the critical moment, all my bionic circuits blew.’
Lancte sighed.
Bass said, ‘You’re free to go any time.’
‘Thank you.
‘But I’ll tell you just the same way Mr. Lancte here would tell you. In the future, I’d stay away from Stillson rallies, if I were you. If you want to keep a whole skin, that is. Things have a way of happening to people Greg Stillson doesn’t like…
‘Is that so?’ Johnny asked. He drank his water.
‘Those are matters outside your bailiwick, Chief Bass,’ Lancte said. His eyes were like hazy steel and he was looking at Bass very hard.
‘All right,’ Bass said mildly.
‘I don’t see any harm in telling you that there have been other rally incidents,’ Lancte said.
‘In Ridgeway a young pregnant woman was beaten so badly she miscarried. This was just after the Stillson rally there that CBS filmed. She said she couldn’t ID her assailant, but we feel it may have been one of Stillson’s bikies. A month ago a kid, he was fourteen, got himself a fractured skull. He had a little plastic squirtgun. He couldn’t ID his assailant, either. But the squirtgun makes us believe it may have been a security overreaction.’
How nicely put, Johnny thought.
‘You couldn’t find anyone who saw it happen?’
‘Nobody who would talk.’ Lancte smiled humorlessly and tapped the ash off his cigarette.
‘He’s the people’s choice.’
Johnny thought of the young guy holding his son up so that the boy could see Greg Stillson. Who the hell cares? They’re just for show, anyway.
‘So he’s got his own pet FBI agent.’
Lancte shrugged and smiled disarmingly. ‘Well, what can I say? Except, FYI, it’s no tit assignment, Johnny. Sometimes I get scared. The guy generates one hell of a lot of magnetism. If he pointed me out from the podium and told the crowd at one of those rallies who I was, I think they’d run me up the nearest lamppost.
Johnny thought of the crowd that afternoon, and of the pretty girl hysterically waving her chunk of watermelon. ‘I think you might be right,’ he said.
‘So if there’s something you know that might help me…’ Lancte leaned forward. The disarming smile had become slightly predatory. ‘Maybe you even had a psychic flash about him. Maybe that’s what messed you up.’
‘Maybe I did,’ Johnny said, unsmiling.
‘Well?’
For one wild moment Johnny considered telling them everything. Then he rejected it. ‘I saw him on TV. I had nothing in particular to do today, so I thought I’d come over here and check him out in person. I bet I wasn’t the only out-of-towner who did that.’
‘You sure wasn’t,’ Bass said vehemently.
‘And that’s all?’ Lancte asked.