Ghostbusters (10 page)

“Ghostbusters. May I help you . . .?”

“Hello, America. This is Ronald Gwynne reporting from United Press International in New York. Throughout my entire career as a journalist I have never covered anything as exciting and incredible as the trapping of an actual supernatural entity by a team of men based in this city who call themselves the Ghostbusters. Now, most of us have never heard of the floating, slimelike substance called ectoplasm, but these gentlemen claim we will be seeing more of it than ever before . . .”

“Lydia, there’s something moving around in the storeroom. I told Joan it was rats, but she insists that she saw something else.”

“What?”

“The figure of a headless woman.”

“Oh. Okay, better not take any chances . . .”

“Ghostbusters, would you hold please . . .?”

“Car fifteen, this is Manhattan Central. Proceed to the Museum of Natural History and help twenty-one keep the crowds away from that Ectomobile. And ticket them if they park in the red zone again . . .”

SOHO CHAMBER OF COMMERCE HONORS
GHOSTBUSTERS.

“Look, Central, I tried to ticket it. It’s got some kinda detection system, radar an’ microwave an’ stuff. It zapped the ticket. Disintegrated, burned up, nothin’ but black ashes left. I ain’t goin’ near it. You want ’em ticketed, you do it.”

“Good morning. Today the Eastern Seaboard is alive with talk of hundreds of reported incidents involving multiple sightings in what can only be described as extreme events of paranormal extraphenomenological proportions. It seems that everybody is willing to bring their old ghosts and skeletons out of the closet. Roy Brady reports from New York.”

“Thank you, Roger. Everybody’s heard ghost stories around the campfire. Heck, my grandma used to spin yarns about a spectral locomotive that would rocket past the farm where she grew up. Now, as it some unseen authority had suddenly given permission, thousands of people here are talking about encounters they claim to have had with ghosts . . .”

“I thought it was a nun, Monsignor, until it walked through a wall . . .”

PHANTOM POSTULANT REMOVED FROM
ST. PATRICK’S.

“So, Dr. Venkman, what’s the most frightening thing you’ve come up against since you started Ghostbusters?”

“Well, David, I think it was running into Larry Bud Melman in the dressing room before the show.”

“C’mon, now, seriously . . .”

GHOST RUNS AMUCK ON SUBWAY
PLATFORM. SCARES 20.

“Ghostbusters. All our lines are busy right now, but if you’d like to leave your number, one of our operators will get back to you . . .”

“How’s it going, Janine?”

“Don’t ask. The cases are on the status board.”

“Hello, this is Mr. Cover at Marvel Comics . . .”

“Hello, this is Janet Gluckstem at Revell Models . . .”

“Hi, this is Andy Newbry at TSR . . .”

GHOSTBUSTERS ANNOUNCES MAJOR
MERCHANDISING EFFORT.
FIRST FRANCHISES TO OPEN SOON IN
PHILADELPHIA, D.C.

Janine grabbed Venkman by the arm as he stumbled past her desk. “You said I was going to get some help on the phones. I’ve been at this for almost three days without a break.”

“Hey,” he said, suppressing a yawn. “We’re all stretched here. I thought you were bored, with nothing to do . . .”

“Very funny.”

Spengler appeared out of the storeroom. “Tough job. Want to share my Baby Ruth?”

“Aw, thanks Egon . . .”

GHOST TERRORIZES METS GAME.

“Ray, every time I hear about your company, I can’t help thinking about that old Bob Hope movie.”

Stantz smiled and nodded. “Actually, Joe, the title of that film was
Ghostbreakers.
Olsen and Johnson did
Ghostcatchers,
and the Bowery Boys did
Ghost Chasers, Hold That Ghost, Spooks Run Wild, Spook Busters,
and
Spook Chasers

Joe Franklin laughed, pleased with his guest’s wit. The man might be certifiable, but he was also a certifiable success and terrific copy. He leaned in conspiratorially. “Well, in any case, I guess there’s one big question on everyone’s mind and you’re certainly in a position to answer it for us: Have you seen Elvis, and how is he?”

Venkman was sorting the mail into business, pleasure, and cranks. He looked over an envelope with the printed initials I.L.M. in the corner and a colophon he did not recognize. “Ray, who do we know in Marin County?”

GHOSTBUSTERS CLEAR EMPIRE SPOOK
BUILDING.

“Tonight Johnny’s guests will be Charo, Arnold Schwarzenegger, eighty-two-year-old hooker Nancy Winkie, and Ghostbuster Egon Spengler, so don’t go away . . .”

“Guess what?” Ray said, poking his head down from the attic. Spengler and Venkman looked up from their meal of take-out chicken and light beer as Stantz lowered a small valence trap by its cord. “I just caught a ghost, a little one, right in our own attic.”

“Aw, Ray. Not while we’re eating.”

“Mr. Director, those files you requested.”

“Hmmm, yes . . . Really . . .? Well, they don’t look dangerous, but perhaps we’d best keep an eye on them. Never know what they might turn up. Do you suppose there are Communist ghosts?”

PRESIDENT COMMENDS GHOSTBUSTERS.
ACLU CALLS FOR RIGHTS FOR THE DEAD.

“Peter, Isaac Asimov on two . . .”

“Our phone-in topic today: Ghosts and ghostbusting. The controversy builds as more sightings are reported and some maintain that these professional paranormal eliminators in New York are the cause of it all. Why did everything start just when these guys went into business? Should they be allowed to carry around unlicensed proton mass drivers? And what’s wrong with ghosts anyway? Call us . . . all our lines are open. Hello, Larry King.”

“Hello, Larry? I think what Dr. Spengler said in his interview last night was true. The world
is
in for a psychic shock, ’cause my aunt reads coffee grounds and she says . . .”

Lucille Zeddemore threw the newspaper in her son’s face. “Okay, boy. You been back from the service a month now. Time you got a job. Get to it.”

“Aw, Mom. There’s never anything in the want-ads that’s any good.” Heck, I’ve got good qualifications. Hey, I’ve got a degree. Maybe I should move out of this city, go to Atlanta, or Silicon Valley, or Pittsburgh. He riffled through the listings for fry cooks and maintenance men, telephone sales and insurance trainees. Garbage, nothing but . . . A small, bordered box caught his eye.

Are you trained in computers, heavy weapons, electronic surveillance or radar maintenance, hand-to-hand combat or related activities? Are you fit and athletic, able to work odd hours for good pay, with no questions asked? This might be the job for you.

Right. Looks like somebody’s getting ready to invade Cuba again. Just what I need, get my butt shot off, no questions asked. He glanced at his mother, preparing dinner in the kitchen. Hand-to-hand combat or related activities? Hoo-boy. Sounds crazy. But It might be a good deal and it sure beats being a janitor. Winston Zeddemore copied down the address.

Dana Barrett had that pleasantly weary lightness that comes with having put in a good rehearsal, and was only half-listening as Andre Wallance walked her out to the plaza. Wallance, a world-renowned violinist, was doing a series of guest performances with the orchestra and had taken an interest in her career, though Dana suspected that his interest was not entirely musical. She did not entirely object. Though thin and ascetic, Wallance was a brilliant musician, and if he wished to take her to dinner and to try in his shy, otherworldly way to get her into bed, she had every intention of letting him make the attempt. She might even let him succeed. He was not precisely her type, but then no one was, and the experience might be refreshing. Woman cannot live by cello alone.

“Your city is so dirty,” Wallance sniffed, his nose buried deep in a handkerchief. “Nothing like Paris.” Dana had been to Paris and knew that it could be every bit as dirty as New York, but she smiled and let the matter pass. Wallance changed his tack and began angling for a shot at a late supper.

“I’d love to, Andre, but I promised my mother I would call her tonight,” she lied, keeping him off balance to make the game interesting.

“Ah, the mother, yes.”

“How about tomorrow?”

“Unfortunately I am occupied. A dinner with the French consul and his family. Terribly boring. I would get out of it if I could, but alas. Perhaps Thursday . . .”

“Thursday. Let me check my book.”

He opened the door and they stepped out onto the plaza before the Metropolitan Opera House. It was a blustery late October day, cold and sunny, with a hint of coming winter, and the concourse held only a fragment of its usual collection of peddlers, break-dancers, and itinerant hustlers. And there, in front of the fountain, hopping along in a strange little Curly Howard dance step, was a familiar figure in gray coveralls and an orange jacket. She turned to Wallance. who had paused to put in drops against the smog “Andre, excuse me for a minute. I’ve just seen someone I know.”

“
Certainment,
” Wallance mumbled to his eyedropper. Dana strode across the plaza to where Venkman stood smiling at her.

“This is a surprise.”

“Great rehearsal.”

“You heard it?”

Venkman nodded enthusiastically. “You’re the best one in your row.”

Dana favored him with a skeptical smile. “You’re good. Most people can’t hear me with the whole orchestra playing.”

Venkman shook his head. “I don’t have to take abuse from you. I have other people dying to give it to me.”

“I know. You’re quite a celebrity these days. Are you here because you have info about my case?”

“You certainly know the technical terms.” He indicated Wallance, who was looking impatiently in their direction. “Who’s the stiff?”

“That stiff happens to be one of the finest musicians in the world and a wonderful man.” Wallance looked uncomfortable; with New York, the weather, and certainly with the presence of Peter Venkman. He resorted to a bottle of nasal spray.

“Is he dying or something?”

Dana ignored the remark, preferring to study Peter Venkman’s cockeyed smile. I don’t know what it is about you. They never had anyone like you back home.

“He’s a very close friend,” she said at last. “Now, do you have some explanation of what happened in my apartment?”

“Yes, but I have to tell you in private at a fine restaurant . . .”

“Do you? Can’t you tell me now?”

Venkman shrugged. “I’ll cancel the reservation. I found the name Zuul in . . .” He paused to pull a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket and pat it flat. “. . . the
Roylance Guide to Sacred Sects”

“Sacred sex?”

“That too. I don’t suppose you’ve read it.”

Dana shook her head. “You must have gotten the last copy.”

“Well, the name Zuul refers to a demigod worshiped around six thousand B.C. by the . . . what’s that say?”

She huddled in close to his shoulder. “Hittites, ‘By the Hittites, Mesopotamians, and the Sumerians. Zuul was the minion of Gozer.’ Who’s Gozer?”

Venkman tucked the paper back into his pocket. “Gozer was very big in the Sumerian religion. One of their gods. A real big guy.”

“What’s he doing in my refrigerator?”

“I’m checking on that. I think we should meet Thursday night at nine to talk about it.”

She looked Venkman up and down. He was almost the exact opposite of Andre Wallance, of the classy, self-assured men who usually went after her, and her first reaction was to laugh at him, but somehow she couldn’t. He was right. She had thought him a geek and a charlatan, but now he was one of the most famous men in the city. Not that that was important, but he and his colleagues had proven their case. There were ghosts, and Peter Venkman was out there every day, dealing with them, catching them. And that made him every bit as successful on his own terms as any man she knew. Still, he was so strange . . .

“I don’t think so. I’m busy Thursday night.”

Venkman looked reprovingly and leaned in close to her. “You think I enjoy giving up my evenings to spend time with my clients? I’m making an exception because I respect you as an artist and a dresser.”

“You’re too much.” Dana laughed. “All right, since you put it that way.”

“I’ll pick you up at your place. I’ll bring the
Roylance Guide
, and we can read after we eat.”

“I’ve got to go now,” she said, not adding what she was thinking: my “stiff’ is waiting. There was something refreshing about dealing in Peter Venkman’s terminology.

“Remember,” Venkman called. “I’m the only one standing between you and a heavy Hittite.” Then he turned and hopped away.

Beware of the man of one book

—Thomas Aquinas

Janine was keeping ahead of the stream of phone calls only by dint of sheer perseverance. The lines were all lit, and each time she would clear one—case, crank, or curiosity—it would light again. She was, however, gaining an instinctive sense of what was profitable and what was not, what was dangerous and what was not, what could be contracted for and what not to touch with a ten-foot induction rifle. You would think that this would make me indispensable, she thought. You would think that this would make me a valuable asset. You would think I could at least get some help, but no . . .

“Ghostbusters—please hold . . . Good afternoon, Ghostbusters—please hold . . . Yes, may I help you?”

Winston Zeddemore looked up from the chair where he was filling out the Ghostbusters’ job application, wondering just what kind of lunacy these people were tapped into. The little red-haired chick hadn’t stopped answering calls since he’d walked in. The place was nothing but an old firehouse, but Zeddemore, with his electronics countermeasures training, could see that their equipment meant business. If it was a front, it was an awfully complex one. Surely these people couldn’t really be after ghosts.

“Yes,” Janine was saying. “Is it a mist, or does it have arms and legs . . .?” She checked the multicolored wall chart that Stantz had drawn up. “That sounds like a class-two anchored-proximity phantasm, serious, but not necessarily harmful . . . Would I kid you? . . . Well, the soonest we could possibly get back to you would be a week from Friday . . . I’m sorry, but we’re completely booked until then . . . Uh-huh . . . All I can suggest is that you stay out of your house until we can get to you . . . Well, in that case, I’d be careful not to provoke it . . . You’re welcome.”