by Lucy Finn
About an hour later I pulled the pickup in front of the office at Happy Trails. A balding guy with a Styrofoam cup of coffee in front of him and a cigarette hanging from his lips glanced up over a newspaper when I asked where to find John Osterhaupt.
“Spot six, over by the lake. Not many RVs here this time of year. You can’t miss it. Brand-new Jay Feather.”
I wasn’t surprised by John’s possession of a brand-new Jay Feather. I figured that’s where part of Peggy Sue’s insurance settlement had gone, and it was why I brought my mother’s truck complete with trailer hitch. I intended to pull that sucker right back to Peggy Sue’s driveway—without John in it. I guessed that it contained a plasma TV and a hefty supply of Yuengling lager, but I hoped not much more of the money had gone into conspicuous consumption. With a little luck and a lot of Gene’s help, I was determined to retrieve whatever money remained unspent.
The Jay Feather sat in an isolated RV spot, surrounded by a few inches of snow amid the barren trees. Binghamton had missed the brunt of the storm that had clobbered us, and I was grateful. I would be able to tow the Jay Feather away without a lot of digging or Gene’s magic. John Osterhaupt’s blue pickup was parked on the access road, and I had to swing around it onto the snow-covered RV lot. I assumed he was home; I didn’t know if his girlfriend was too.
It was 11:10 AM when I climbed up the metal steps and banged my fist on the door. I had a clipboard with me. I wore a blue suit. I looked unmistakably official. Gene stood behind me to cover my back, or more likely, to catch me if I got shoved. His face looked hard, and I knew without asking that he didn’t like my going out in front.
A paunchy middle-aged man in a green T-shirt and jeans pulled the door open. He had broken veins on his nose and watery eyes that squinted in the daylight. An untrimmed beard covered his lower face, and his lips were chapped. “You here about the dump station? What’s it, still froze up?”
“No, I’m here about a different kind of crap.” My voice was low and nasty. Surprise and suspicion raced across John’s face. He started to slam the door, and I shoved my boot-clad foot in the way, bracing myself for the pain of using it as a wedge. I never felt anything. Gene, quicker than the eye could see, disappeared from his position behind me and reappeared between John and me, his body stopping the door. He pushed the startled man back into the RV.
“Hey! What’s going on? I don’t want no trouble!” John yelled.
Gene ordered him to sit down and shut up. There were two chintz-covered easy chairs in the sitting area of the RV. John sat.
“Your girlfriend here?” I asked.
His frightened eyes darted back and forth between Gene and me. “She’s working the breakfast shift at a restaurant downtown. You cops?”
“No. I’m a lawyer, but if we don’t get some legal issues straightened out in private, you’ll be seeing the cops before the hour is out. Do you understand what I’m talking about?”
“I don’t know nothing. I didn’t do nothing,” John replied with mulish stubbornness.
“Now, John, that’s not quite true, is it? You took Peggy Sue’s money.” I stood directly in front of him, acting like a prosecutor with a witness on the stand.
“It’s my money as much as hers.” He put his chin down like a bulldog’s. “It was in our joint account. I had a right to take it.” He tried to stand up to get in my face. He couldn’t. An invisible hand held him down. He struggled to stand, thrashing and striking out with his hands but finding nothing holding him down. “What? What are you doing to me?” he choked out.
“Nothing,” I said. “I’m doing nothing.” Gene stood silently at my shoulder, his face like stone. “Let’s get back to the money. You ran out on your wife and kids and cleaned out the bank account. That money was her insurance settlement, not yours. You know it, I know it. That’s the bottom line. I’m here to get it back.”
“I ain’t giving you nothing,” John said as he sat, flattened against the back of the chair. For all his bravado his face was ashen and filled with fear.
“I think you are, because you know it’s not yours.”
“You can’t make me give it back,” he said and struggled to get up again, getting nowhere.
“If you think that, you’ve got a second think coming,” I said with a cold smile. It was time to put my plan into action. I hoped Gene would carry out his end of it. “And John, you know you did a bad thing. Your kids are hungry. Your wife is working two jobs. You’re no good, you know that? Have you had any bad dreams yet?” I leaned my face down close to his ear, my voice dropping to a whisper.
“I don’t dream. Why should I? My kids will be okay. They’ll get welfare.” His voice was a whine.
“No, John,” I hissed into his ear. “Your wife is a good woman. Too good for you. She doesn’t need welfare. You owe her eighty-eight thousand two hundred dollars and twenty-nine cents.”
“No,” he insisted. “The money’s mine.” He tried to lift his hand off the chair arm. It seemed glued down. He pulled, making the chair move beneath him, but his hand wouldn’t come free.
“John, it’s a sin to tell a lie. You’re going to get a guilty conscience. You know that? And do you know what happens when your conscience starts working at you, John?”
“You’re crazy. Get out of here!” he yelled, panic creeping into his voice.
“Nope. We can’t go until we get what we came for. By the way, John, why can’t you get up?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know.” He struggled to get to his feet again. The veins on his neck bulged from the effort. The more he tried to get up, the more his back rounded with the invisible weight pressing him down.
My voice was quiet and almost cruel. “I’ll tell you why you can’t get up. It’s guilt, John. Guilt is weighing you down. And do you notice something else? The room’s getting dim. Do you see that, John?”
As we stood there, the light inside the trailer seemed to coalesce into a silver stream and pour out the window of the RV like water going down the drain. Pretty soon it was pitch-black inside. “Are you blind yet, John?” I asked.
“My eyes! What happened to my eyes? What did you do? I’m blind!” he shrieked. “I’m blind!”
Suddenly the lights went back on in a blinding flash. “No, you’re not. Not yet. But guilt can make you blind, John. Shut your optic nerve right down. Didn’t you know that?”
“Who are you? What are you? Let me out of here!” he screamed, still unable to get up and becoming hysterical. The leg of his pants became wet as he lost control of his bladder.
“Well, John,” I said in the terrible calm voice I had been using, “I can see you’re getting scared. You should be. It’s not us that’s doing anything. It’s your mind, John. Guilt is working on your mind. It’s going to keep working on you. It’s going to crawl down your throat like a giant worm and twist around in your belly. Can you feel it doing that?”
John’s hands went to his throat and his eyes starting bugging out of his head. The only sound he could make was a choked “aaaaggghhh.”
“Choking on guilt, John?” I asked sweetly. “It’s only going to get worse. Unless you do the right thing. Are you ready to do the right thing, John? If you are, you can show it by signing over the owner’s papers for the RV to Peggy Sue.” He was gagging, but he didn’t seem to be asking for a pen. I looked at Gene. He nodded.
“And if the guilt in your gut doesn’t kill you, then the night shadows will,” I said and gestured toward the area at the front of the RV that held the queen-sized bed. The gray shapes of two muscular monsters who resembled the Incredible Hulk drifted toward us. Gene and I moved aside, and they began encircling John’s chair. The shadows made a low groaning noise and had a loathsome smell—exactly like Brady’s sulfur poop. I tried not to gag and snuck a desperate look at Gene, who winked at me.
Our captive began coughing and retching and crying for help.
Then Gene took over, talking to John Osterhaupt in a hard, deep voice. He put his f
ace close enough to John’s to spray him with spit with almost every word. John closed his eyes tight and grimaced. Gene told John that the smell was the least of his problems. He described how the night shadows would return every evening. They would stop him from sleeping. Every time his eyes closed, their hideous moans would jar him awake. At that point the sound of moaning filled the trailer, surrounding us with a horrible wailing. Then the clinking metal sound of rattling chains added to the noise.
John began to scream. Gene ordered him to shut up. John fell silent, and as soon as he did, all the noise ceased.
“Those were the night shadows,” I said. “You’ll hear them and you’ll smell them. You’ll know they’re there. And one night, John, when you are so tired you can’t bear it, your heart will stop—and explode. Just like that, John. Boom! Unless you get rid of the guilt. Are you ready?”
John was perspiring heavily now. His eyes were rolling with fear. He managed to say yes. I asked him where I could find the title for the RV, and he directed me to the kitchen utility drawer, where I found a brown envelope and a number of Bic pens. I removed the RV’s title, put it on my clipboard, and showed John where to sign. He did it with a trembling hand.
“Now I want the money, John. Where is it?” I demanded.
John fell silent. I had pushed him as far as he was willing to go. He balked. I had to up the ante. “Won’t answer, John?” I asked. “Then your guilt is going to get you,” I promised.
The shadows reappeared in the room. They grew larger and denser. Their hideous laughter echoed around the RV. John went dead white.
“Is your heart okay, John?” Gene asked. “Can you hear it beating? Remember, it’s going to stop—and boom! Exploded by guilt. You know I think it’s beating awful loud. I can hear it all the way over here.”
The sound of John’s heart became amplified, sounding like a fast-beating drum. The guilt shadows laughed louder.
“Before it’s too late,” I coaxed, “give Peggy Sue back her money. With all that guilt hanging over you, you’d go straight to hell, you know?” The sulfur smell grew stronger and the RV started to get warm. The reflection of red flames seemed to dance around the walls. Sweat beaded up on John’s forehead and then ran in rivulets down his temples.
“You want the guilt to go away?” I asked. “Do the right thing. Give back the money. Now, quick, tell me where it is.”
Gene winked and the flames grew more intense. If I didn’t know they were an illusion I’d think we were about to burn to death, but Gene and I stood cool and comfortable in the middle of a ring of fire. John, on the other hand, was perspiring heavily, and I was beginning to worry he might really have a heart attack. I could see the whites of his terror-stricken eyes.
“John! The money!” I insisted. “You still have time to save yourself. Where is it?”
“Under the mattress!” he shrieked. “Get it! I can’t take any more. Let me out of here!”
I ran over and found an envelope under the mattress. I pulled out a wad of hundreds and a cashier’s check for fifty thousand dollars. I figured the Jay Feather cost around twenty-five thousand, so give or take a couple of thousand, Peggy Sue would get most of her money back. I nodded at Gene.
“On the count of three you’ll be able to get up,” Gene said. He threw a denim jacket in John’s lap. “Your truck key is in the pocket. Run to your truck and drive out of the park. Don’t look back, and don’t come back. If you stop the truck within the park or try to return, the truck will explode. Nod your head if you understand.”
John nodded vigorously.
“Okay. One—” John bolted from the chair, yanked the door open, and ran.
“Two—” Gene went to the open door and yelled after him. I heard the truck motor start and tires spinning in the wet snow, then the sound of the truck racing down the access road.
Gene and I grinned at each other. I went to give him a high five. He didn’t know what to do. “Smack your hand against mine,” I instructed. He did. “High five! Justice has been served,” I said, crumpling into the second easy chair and laughing with relief.
We were both in good spirits, for a while. But after trying to back the truck up exactly right to get the truck hitch above the ball of the RV’s, I was frustrated almost to the point of tears. Gene finally ordered me out of the driver’s seat and said he’d do it.
Vehicles had changed since 1942. Both the mirrors and seat controls were motorized. I walked him through using them. He asked about the clutch. I told him about automatic transmissions. He mumbled something about vehicles being idiot-proof. He told me he was going to drive out onto the access road to get used to the accelerator. He didn’t have any problems. Then he stuck his head out of the window as he put the truck in reverse. I waved him on back. He lined up the hitch and the ball on the first try. He obviously had a healthy dose of the male truck gene.
Despite that, it still took us the good part of an hour to figure out how to get the RV unhooked from the camp’s electric and water lines and ready to roll. It was after noon before I got behind the steering wheel. We were about to pull out when I put the truck in neutral instead. My head sank down and in a small voice I confessed that under no circumstances could I back up with the trailer on the truck. I wasn’t trying to make Gene feel indispensable. I knew my limitations, and I didn’t want to deliver the brand-new Jay Feather to Peggy Sue with a big dent in it where I hit a tree. It wasn’t a helpless female act. Even a lot of guys can’t back up trailers.
Gene and I switched seats. His muscular hands took a firm grip on the steering wheel. He had no trouble whatsoever with moving the trailer in reverse, and he didn’t resort to magic. In fact, his face lit up, and he appeared to be thoroughly enjoying himself as he deftly maneuvered the RV between two huge oaks. “Reminds me of being back on the farm.” He grinned. I was relieved to see he didn’t look forlorn when he mentioned the past. I guess he was having too good a time.
With Gene looking as if he had driven a pickup for years—and maybe he had—we headed on down the access road. Gene gave a blast of the horn as we passed the office. I could see the guy inside through the window. He was now watching television. He never even looked in our direction, just raised his Styrofoam cup in response.
“You want to stop and let me take over?” I asked after we had left the RV park and were on the main road.
“Why don’t you be the navigator this trip? You don’t seem comfortable pulling a twenty-seven-foot trailer.”
“I’m not, and I’d rather not attempt it. But you don’t have a current driver’s license.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m a genie,” he said and winked. A wallet and a Pennsylvania driver’s license appeared on the center console. “Put it away for me, will you?”
I picked the license up. It looked authentic. The year of Gene’s birth appeared as 1978 and the address listed was mine. “Nice,” I said and tucked the ersatz license back into the wallet.
“Thank you,” I added.
“For what?” he said as we passed a sign for the interstate.
“Take the next right, south on eighty-one,” I directed. “For doing such a great job back there. I couldn’t have gotten Peggy Sue’s money without you.”
“Damn right you couldn’t have,” he said.
“I agree, and I appreciate it. I’m also grateful you can drive this rig back to Noxen. I don’t know what I’d do without you,” I said offhandedly.
Gene grunted and drove on.
Chapter 13
Gene backed into Peggy Sue’s driveway around two p.m., expertly putting the RV next to her little Ford Escort. Before the truck had even come to a full stop, she was running out the front door without a coat on. Right away I could see that Freddi had made good on her promise: Peggy Sue’s hair was now a warm honey color. Despite her missing teeth, she looked years younger. Getting some sleep over the weekend may have helped her too, and right now her face was alight with hope.
I climbed out of the cab
and waved the envelope over my head. She realized right away what it was. “You got it, Ravine! You really did!” she screamed. She reached me, grabbed me in a bear hug, and started to cry.
Gene got out of the truck and unhitched the trailer while I awkwardly patted Peggy Sue on the back. She sobbed for a minute, then regained her composure and let go of me. I thrust the envelope into one of her hands while she fished a tissue out of her jeans pocket with the other. She dabbed at her eyes and blew her nose.
“The money’s not all there,” I warned and her face got a worried look. I explained that John had bought the RV and spent some more on a television, but I showed her the cashier’s check for fifty thousand dollars and told her there was another forty-three hundred in cash.
“Oh dear God, thank you,” she said, as tears began running down her cheeks again, clutching the envelope to her chest with all her might. “It’s more than I expected. Much more. I thought the money was gone for good.”
I put my hand on her skinny shoulder. I could feel her shivering under her sweater. I told her to go over to the bank at Bowman’s Creek immediately. She was to open a new account in her own name and put all but a few hundred dollars of the money in it. “Keep what you need to spend for the week, but no more. Understand?” I said. “I don’t think John is going to bother you, but I want that money safe. Get a safe-deposit box for the title for the RV and leave it there until you sell it, if that’s what you decide to do.”
Peggy Sue listened intently and promised to leave immediately for the bank. “I don’t know how you made John give up the money, but I am so thankful,” she said.
“Thank Gene O’Neill, then. He’s the one who convinced John to do the right thing.”
Peggy Sue took a long look at the stranger named Gene. “Mister,” she said, “I owe you more than I have words to tell. I don’t know who you are, but you have got to be a miracle worker. Nobody else could have gotten the money back from that skunk, I know that. I thank you from my heart.”