Even for men who eat their steaks live, it was an offer they could not refuse. : Eddie Paul Delivers the Wild Ones

Eddie Paul’s only prior association with outlaw bikers came when he stepped into the middle of one of their drunken street parties and asked them to move. It was not an unreasonable request. The party was being held in front of a church during a Sunday worship service and had nothing to do with God or revival of the spirit.

Motorcycle gangs love a good party and so does Eddie, but since their parties tend to achieve a noise level equivalent to the fire bombing of Dresden during World War II, he wondered if they would just mosey on.

Eddie, however, is not very big and is inclined to mumble and stare at his feet, all of which tends to invite hostile response rather than immediate cooperation. Also, he was alone that day, which further triggered the playful spirit of the hard-drinking bikers, one of whom came at him swinging a heavy chain over his head. It’s the way they play.

Eddie somehow managed to talk his way out of being chain-whipped, stomped, sliced up and a variety of other unpleasantries mentioned by the bikers during their brief but lively conversation. He has never, however, forgotten the encounter. It stirred emotions not dissimilar from those of the butcher caught by zombies in “Night of the Living Dead.” As you might recall, they ate the butcher.

Things have changed since that incident, not for the butcher but for Eddie Paul. Although his primary business continues to be car customizing, as it was back then, and his secondary business is still stunt riding for film companies, he also has an avocation. Eddie is a biker-broker. An explanation is necessary here.

Two years ago he was hired to ride a Harley-Davidson for the movie “Streets of Fire” when it occurred to the production manager that about 40 other bikers were needed. He asked Eddie if he could help out and Eddie said sure. So he went to the motorcycle gangs again.

This time, however, they were not partying in front of a church and this time Eddie was not asking them to move. He was offering them a chance to make about $50 a day just by riding their choppers. Even for men who eat their steaks live, it was an offer they could not refuse.

Since then, Eddie has created an organization called Reel Gangs, which specializes in providing outlaw bikers to film production companies. His boys, as Eddie calls them, have been featured in two major movies, including “Mask,” and a half-dozen or so television episodes.

“They’ve been asked to do other things, like attend parties as a gag,” Eddie said the other day, mumbling and staring at his feet, “but I had to say no. Too much chance of something going wrong. I’ve been to one of their parties.”

I was visiting Eddie at his car-customizing place near Los Angeles International Airport. He was leaning against his own wheel-flared, hood-scooped red-and-yellow acrylic urethane-painted ’66 Mustang with the fade-away pearl stripes.

The two gangs he deals with most are the Heathens and the Crucifiers. Carl Joy, who is vice president of Central Casting, calls Eddie to tell him how many bikers he needs and Eddie screens them to select those most unlikely to tear the clothes off the ingenues.

“In two years,” Eddie said, “we’ve only had a couple of small problems and the Heathens took care of the troublemakers themselves.” I didn’t ask how. I don’t want to know.

The bikers are not allowed to drink or take drugs on the set. Those who break the rules are canned. Figuratively speaking.

“The first time they were hired, people in the company thought they were extras made up to look like bikers,” Eddie said. “They’d yell at them and move their Harleys without asking permission.”

Under normal circumstances, merely approaching a gang member’s chopper involves consequences roughly similar to hearing the door of the gas chamber close behind you at San Quentin. This time, however, they took their unhappiness to Eddie.

“They complained they were being verbally abused,” Eddie recalls, mulling over a phrase normally outside their lexicon. “The complaints seemed justified so I said, ‘Show a little attitude, just don’t hurt anyone.’ ”

What the bikers did was remove their jackets and their shirts, revealing real knives and real tattoos. Some of them, in fact, had their colors, which is to say their club emblems, tattooed on their backs.

“It suddenly occurred to everyone that they weren’t actors,” Eddie said, looking up long enough to offer a faint smile, possibly recalling his own feeling that day in front of the church. “Now it’s, ‘Sir, would you mind moving your bike?’ No more yelling.”

Eddie doesn’t charge anything to furnish bikers for movies. He makes his money designing cars for the studios, such as the edible auto they once commissioned, and by renting them Harley-Davidsons.

Carl Joy is high in his praise of Reel Gangs. “Of course,” he said, “we go to them only for bikers. Their look is pretty, well, unique. We wouldn’t hire them to play accountants.”

Eddie himself admits his talent company is limited to specific types. “Once,” he said, “I got a call for a young, clean-cut biker. There ain’t no such thing. So I hired a young, clean-cut scuba diver and dressed him as a biker.”

But everyone called him sir just in case.