Ghostbusters (7 page)

“You play the cello! It’s my favorite instrument.”

“Really? Do you have a favorite piece?”

He picked up the instrument. Lighter than I thought, “I’d have to say Prokofiev’s Third Concerto.”

“That’s a violin concerto,” she said, carefully untangling his fingers from the strings and putting the instrument away.

“Yeah, but it’s got a great cello break.”

She turned back to find him peering at the embroidered pillow on her couch. “Souvenir of Fort Hood, Texas?”

“My uncle was in the army. Look, you really don’t act like a scientist.”

Venkman smiled broadly. “No? What do I act like?”

“Like a game show host.”

“Thanks,” he said wryly, unslinging the analyzer,. He began to circuit the room, poofting on the squeeze-bulb, and watching the dial for any hint of ectoplasmic energy. Ray had never explained the device, but it seemed simple enough.

“Are you sure you’re using that thing correctly?”

“I think so.” He peered into the nozzle, wondering whether it was turned on. “I mean, it looks right. What’s in there?”

“That’s the bedroom, but nothing ever happened in there.”

“That’s too bad,” he said, noticing for the first time that she had shed her heavy coat. He had to stop himself from staring.

“What?”

“Nothing. Is that the kitchen?”

“Yes.” Was that a touch of apprehension in her voice? He motioned her forward.

“Well, let’s check it out.”

“I’ll wait here if you don’t mind.”

“Sure.” He gripped the analyzer at high port, like a rifle, and stepped boldly through the swinging door into the kitchen. It was a mess. He detoured around a nest of mixing bowls that had fallen to the floor and peered at the cold, hard, fried eggs on the countertop. There was a spilled carton of milk on the floor, a loaf of bread, six-pack of Coke, package of Stay-Puft marshmallows on the drainboard, bunch of celery near the eggs, head of lettuce in the sink. Excepting the fact that all of the little decorator magnets had fallen on the floor, the refrigerator looked normal. He picked up a yellow metal banana and placed it on the door, but instead of sticking it slid back down on the tile. Strange. Magnets don’t work.

“You’re a hell of a housekeeper.”

“I told you,” she called.

“I know, it happened by itself.” He checked the analyzer again. Well, if this thing’s working, the ghosts aren’t. “You can come in. There’s nothing here.”

She poked her head through the door, looking chagrined at the mess. “You’re sure?” He nodded. “You checked the refrigerator?”

“No, not yet.”

“Well, aren’t you going to?”

Well, he thought, this is where I start earning my money. “Sure. Why don’t you stand over there?”

He approached the refrigerator from the side, easing up to it, then moving his body around to shield from any possible reaction. Well, here goes nothing. The things I do for a beautitul woman. He pulled slowly on the handle and the door swung back. Venkman let out a cry of terrified surprise.

“What is it?”

“Bologna,” he said, letting the door open fully. “And processed cheese food, Twinkies. You eat this stuff?”

“Blast it,” she cried in exasperation. “That wasn’t there before.”

“I know, it was a temple with flames coming out. Well, there’s nothing there now, and I get no significant readings.”

“This is terrible. Either there’s a monster in my kitchen or I’m completely crazy.”

Could be, he thought, except for those eggs on the counter. He followed her back into the living room. “If it’s any comfort to you,
I
don’t think you’re crazy.”

She laughed incredulously. “Thanks. Coming from you that really means a lot to me.”

“I’m a qualified psychologist. I’ve got a degree and everything. I believe that something happened here and I want to do something about it.”

She crossed her arms protectively and stared back at him. “All right. What do you want to do?”

He shrugged disarmingly. “I think I should spend the night here.”

“That’s it. Get out.”

“On a purely scientific basis.”

“Out!”

He looked at her sadly. Well, that’s it. I tried to help, I said the wrong thing, now she thinks I’m a geek. A crazy. And maybe she’s right. I don’t know . . . He started toward the door.

Dana was confused. “You are the strangest man . . .”

“Then I can stay?”

“No!”

“I want to help.”

“I’ll scream.”

“Don’t scream.” He hurried to the door, hesitated, then turned back.

“Leave.”

“Okay, okay. But if anything else happens, you have to promise you’ll call me.”

She held the door open for him. “All right, but I want to be alone now.”

“Okay. I’ll go.”

“Good-bye.”

He leaned forward for a last try. “No kiss?”

The door neatly met his nose. Peter Venkman stepped back and smiled. Wow, he thought. I think she likes me. He trotted off toward the elevators, not seeing the two suspicious eyes watching him, the furtive shape enter the hall and move toward Dana Barrett’s apartment. A door slammed, but Peter Venkman—in a world of his own—stepped into the elevator and rode down.

Oh no, thought Peter Venkman. In love again.

Oh no, thought Louis Tully, pounding futilely on his door. Locked out again.

It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.

—Emerson

Spengler was leaning across the kitchen table, an eggroll in each hand, his face a mask of intense concentration. “Imagine, if you will, that this eggroll is equivalent to the total amount of extrasensory energy available to the average man. We will call it one . . . one . . .”

“ER,” Stantz suggested.

“ER?”

“Eggroll. E-R. ER.”

Spengler lifted one eyebrow. “We can’t call it ER. An eggroll is a thing, therefore a conceptual entity, but it is not a unit of measurement. Eggroll length? Eggroll width? Eggroll what?”

“Call it ERM. Eggroll mass. One ERM.”

Spengler was satisfied with that. “Okay, one ERM is the equivalent measurement for the amount of ESP available to the average man. Now,” he said, bringing the eggrolls together, “I believe that if you double the amount, to, say, two ERMs, you’d have enough energy to blow the lid off a city the size of New York.”

“What lid?”

“The psychic lid. The inbred controls that make even one ERM unavailable to most people.” Spengler smiled smugly, popping one of the eggrolls into his mouth.

“Sort of like critical mass at a nuclear reactor, huh?” Stantz asked. Spengler nodded. “But how would you join two ERMs? What kind of psychic link would you need?”

Spengler whipped out his calculator, made a few notes on the side of an overturned carton from Hong Fat’s Noodlerama, and announced, “It could be done. A modification of the visual image tracking headset, filtered through an archetype unscrambler, locked into a psychic potentiometer on a feedback circuit would do it.”

Stantz was dubious. “Do we really want something like that?”

“Not unless you’ve got a powerful grudge against the City of New York. An unbridled psychic link between even two people would pull out the stops. It would be like unleashing all the ghosts that have ever lived in New York.” He stopped, thought about it for a moment, then shook his head. “Nah, that scares even me.”

Venkman came clattering up the stairs, hung his analyzer on the coatrack, and yawned.

“How was your date? We saved you some Chinese.”

“It wasn’t a date, it was an investigation. I think something’s possible there, but I’m going to have to draw a little petty cash, take her to dinner. Don’t want to lose this one.”

“Did you see anything?” Spengler asked.

“On the first date?”

“Ghosts. Did you see any ghosts?”

Venkman shook his head, then proceeded to rummage through the ravaged Chinese dinner, picking garlic shrimp out of the rubble. “Didn’t see anything. Didn’t get anything. Nice girl—no ghost. I don’t think she was lying though. Nobody cooks eggs on their countertop.”

Stantz and Spengler looked at each other. This wasn’t like Venkman. Something was affecting him. He picked up Spengler’s remaining ERM and popped it into his mouth.

“Anything happen here?”

They shook their heads.

“Nothing, huh? How’s the cash holding out? In English, Egon. Forget the calculator.”

Egon nodded. “Sure, in English. If you want to take Miss Barrett to dinner, I’d suggest you make it a Big Mac. This Oriental feast took the last of our money, and until we get a job, we’re flying without motors. ”

“Ray, you said that all the indications were pointing to something big happening soon. You told me that things were going to start popping.”

“They will.”

“When?”

Stantz looked to Spengler for support. Spengler considered telling Venkman about their ERM theory but he didn’t look ready for it. He glanced out the window. It was a clear, red sunset, the darkness coming fast and hard, implicit in a front of heavy clouds hanging low over North Jersey. An omen? A portent? More like an analogy to the coming demise of their bank accounts. That eggroll must be getting pretty full. Something would have to break. It was only a matter of time.

“Soon, Peter. Soon.”

Though he would have rejected the concept on scientific grounds, Egon Spengler had just made a good guess. The crack in the cosmic eggroll that had manifested itself at the New York Public Library, and in Dana Barrett’s refrigerator, was about to widen at a first-class old hotel called the Sedgewick. Built in the thirties on the edge of the garment district, the Sedgewick was home to businessmen, trade shows, conventions, and vacationers. It was also the home of something else.

In the bridal suite on the twelfth floor, a time-honored ritual had just taken place and two people were whispering in the dark.

“Oh, Roy, aren’t you glad we waited?”

“I don’t know. It probably would have been the same.”

“Well, thanks a lot!”

High in one corner of the room, a light film of dust on the air vent was dislodged by something floating through it; a nebulous, persistent yellow vapor.

“What are you doing? Are you just going to roll over now and go to sleep?”

“Uh-huh ”

“I don’t believe this.”

“C’mon, honey. It was a long day, with the wedding, and the drive from New Jersey, and . . . you know.”

“Yeah, I know.”

The vapor spread to the four corners of the room, hovering just below the ceiling, then began to intensify. A few curious tendrils reached out in the dark, looking for something interesting to examine. One of them discovered a small travel alarm on the bedside table and curled around it. This was fun. This thing had energy. Perhaps it could be induced to play. With a sharp snap the plastic clock face split, turning a sickly, fire-scorched brown. Confused, the tendril withdrew.

“Roy, your clock broke.”

“Nice going, honey. It was brand new.”

“I didn’t break your precious clock, Roy! Now where are you going?”

“To the bathroom, where do you think?”

My God, she thought. Have I made a serious mistake?

The light went on in the bathroom and the door closed. This was noticed by the vapor, which immediately flowed down and through the cracks of the door. Here, perhaps, would be something to play with.

“Brauuuuugh.”

“Roy, are you all right?”

“Brauuugh! Brauuugh! Brauuuuugh!”

“Sweetheart, that’s disgusting. Cut it out.” She slipped out of bed, wrapping the sheet around her, and started for the door.

“BRAUUUUUGH!”

Roy came charging out of the bathroom, both hands clamped over his mouth, stumbling for the other side of the room. That does it, she thought. If that’s the effect I have on him, he can just sleep alone. She stalked into the bathroom and slammed the door. My God, that smell . . .

“What did you do in here? It’s like something died . . .”

The room itself was discolored, the sickly yellow-brown of old damp newspapers, and smoke seemed to hang in the air, smelling of vomit and rot and old meat. As she watched, gagging, it coalesced and flowed into the mirror. That’s impossible, she thought. Smoke can’t go into a mirror. But it did, swirling in a whirlpool, forming, becoming solid, with features and movement . . .

It was a face.

The thing smiled, wagged a foot-long tongue at her, and belched. The mirror cracked.

Roy caught his wife as she ran by, screaming, and clamped a hand over her mouth so he could shout into the phone.

“Right . . . it’s smelling up the whole suite . . . I don’t know, it’s in the bathroom . . . I’ve never seen anything like it . . . twelve ten, the bridal suite, for godsake . . . Hurry!”

Janine Melnitz was fed up. She’d never been so bored in her life. When she’d first taken the job with Ghostbusters she’d assumed that it would be exciting. She’d been in a TV commercial with three men who were supposedly going to be catching real live ghosts. She’d seen the money pour into their building, their equipment, the bizarre ambulance that Ray Stantz insisted on calling an Ectomobile. And then they’d waited. And nothing had happened. She wasn’t even getting anywhere with that cute Dr. Spengler, Face it, kiddo, she thought. You’ve waltzed into another dead end. Best to cut your losses and move on, pick up some takeout, go home, watch
Dynasty,
read the want-ads.

She snapped off the light and grabbed her purse. The phone rang. Probably the man from Telectronics wanting his money again. She hesitated, then picked it up. After all, I am a receptionist. It’s not my money they want.

“Ghostbusters . . .”

The voice at the other end sounded nervous. “Is this really Ghostbusters?”

“Yes it is.”

“And they’re . . . they’re serious about this?”

“Of course they’re serious,” Janine said impatiently. Crazy, but serious.

“Oh, good. My name is J. M. Shupp. I’m the manager of the Sedgewick Hotel, and I wish to contract for their services . . .”

“You do?”

“I . . . we . . . have this ghost . . .”

“You have?”

She took down the information with a trembling hand. It’s real, she thought. It’s not a con; they’re really going to catch ghosts. Oh, Egon, you’re not crazy.