by Ed Naha
Venkman warily shook Janosz's hand. It felt like grabbing a dead trout. Venkman tried to size Janosz up. Bela Lugosi material in a size petite, he concluded. Janosz avoided Venkman's gaze.
"Pleasure to meet you," he said, staring at his shoes. "I've seen you on television. Not here on business, I hope." Venkman disengaged his hand. "Naaah. I'm trying to unload all my Picassos, but Dana's not buying."
Venkman looked up and spotted the portrait of Vigo. "What's that you're working on, Johnny?"
Janosz winced at the nickname but let it go. Venk man strolled toward the towering portrait of Vigo, Dana in tow. Janosz sprinted to his post in front of the painting and stood before it, as if on guard duty.
"It's a painting I'm restoring for the new Byzantine exhibition," he blurted. "It's a self-portrait by Prince Vigo the Carpathian. He ruled most of Carpathia and Moldavia in the seventeenth century."
"Too bad for the Moldavians," Venkman concluded, sizing up the painting. Vigo looked like one of the bad guys on a Saturday night wrestling special but with better tights.
"He was a very powerful magician," Janosz said, coming to Vigo's defense. "A genius in many ways and quite askilled painter."
Venkman made an O shape with his mouth. "He was also a lunatic and a genocidal madman," Dana pointed out. "I hate this painting. I've felt very uncomfortable since they brought it up from storage."
Venkman understood. "Yeah, It's not exactly the kind of thing you'd want to hang up in the rec room. You know what it needs?"
Venkman grinned and picked up one of Janosz's brushes. "A fluffly little white kitten in the corner."
Venkman made a move for the Vigo portrait. Janosz quickly lunged and snatched the brush away from Venk man, smiling nervously. "We don't go around altering valuable paintings, Dr. Venkman."
"Well, I'd make an exception in this case if I were you." He turned to Dana for support. She frowned at him. Venkman was defeated. He patted Janosz on the back. "I'll let you get back to it. Nice meeting you."
"My pleasure," the thin artist replied.
Venkman walked Dana back to her work space. "Interesting guy," he muttered. "Must be a lot of fun to work with."
"He's very good at what he does," she said.
"I may be wrong, but I think you've got a little crush on that guy."
Dana shook her head. "You're a very sick man."
"That's a given," Venkman said, arching an eyebrow. A beeper attached to his belt started wailing. "Uh-oh," Venkman said. "Gotta go to work. I'll call you."
Venkman headed for the door, calling over his shoulder. "Catch you later, Johnny."
Paintbrush in hand, Vigo towering above him, Jan osz winced at the thought of his European name being so crassly Americanized.
Soon the world would know him and his name.
15
The garage door to the Ghostbusters' fire- house headquarters rumbled upward, and the team's newly purchased and refurbished ambulance, the EctolA, zoomed onto the street. Its ghostly siren moaned and wailed as Winston, in the front seat, went over a laundry list of the day's assignments.
He smiled to himself.
A full day's work.
And not one of the assignments involved kids cov ered with birthday cake or ice cream.
Diminutive Louis, left out of the action, stood sadly in the garage bay, watching the ambulance disappear. He allowed the garage door to close and was about to return to his office when he began sniffing the air.
There was an odor present. The type of odor he hadn't encountered since some kid passed off a bar of Ex-Lax as Hershey's chocolate to Louis in grade school.
"Oh, jeez," Louis sniffed. "Smells like somebody took a really big—"
Louis froze. Hovering before him was a spud-shaped green ghost, its pipestick arms flailing away, gleefully chomping down the bag of lunch Louis had brought with him that day. Louis recognized the creature as one of the first trapped by the Ghostbusters years earlier ... the Slimer.
Slimer, unaware of Louis's presence, glanced down ward as Louis glanced upward.
Both Slimer and Louis let out bloodcurdling yells and ran in opposite directions. Slimer was the better for it. He disappeared through a wall. Louis collided with the firehouse's brick wall and knocked himself more senseless than usual. "Help!" he screamed to no one in particular. "There's a thing!"
Louis ran out of the room, knowing full well that Slimer would be back for more food and that Louis had just lost at least three perfectly good Twinkies to an apparition.
New Yorkers have a habit of running. They run for subways. They run for cabs. They run from muggers. At the Reservoir in Central Park, however, they run to stay ' in shape ... even if it kills them.
On this bright winter's day a gaggle of joggers, of both sexes and all ages, trotted dutifully around the track encircling the Reservoir. They huffed and they puffed, determined to take off the poundage put on during the recent Thanksgiving holiday and to prepare themselves for the edible tonnage they'd consume during the impending Christmas season.
Eventually, it seemed, they all got into step, so that their feet pounded the track in a synchronized manner.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
From behind them, however, came a new sound. Someone was running twice as fast as any jogger present. Someone was going to pass them, and soon.
The last jogger in the pack glanced over her shoul der and let out a bloodcurdling scream.
Gaining on the pack was a strange, skeletal runner, obviously long dead.
The determined spirit sprinted onward, his body encased by a strange, shimmering aura of ethereal light.
Hearing the commotion, the other joggers in the pack turned their heads as the ghostly runner jogged into their midst. The joggers screamed and panicked. Some stumbled and fell onto the track as the spirited spirit strode ever onward.
Other joggers leapt off the track and ran deep into the park at a speed rivaling that of the Concorde, screeching their heads off.
The ghostly jogger didn't seem to notice.
Still running at a steady speed, he raised two bony fingers to his skeletal neck and glanced at his cobweb- encased watch, cautiously checking his long-gone pulse.
A half mile in front of the striding spirit, Venkman and Stantz sat calmly on two benches situated across from one another. The jogging track was sprawled di rectly in front of them both. Venkman read a particularly scintillating edition of the New York Post while dunking a greasy doughnut into a Styrofoam cup filled with coffee.
Across the track, Stantz affected the attitude of Mr. Casual, calmly surveying the jogging track.
Within seconds he saw a lone jogger approaching.
Just your typical, dead-as-a-doornail New York run ner surrounded by an unearthly glow.
Stantz cleared his throat.
Across the track, Venkman nodded and continued analyzing the latest installment of Hagar, the Horrible.
The ghostly jogger picked up speed.
He barreled down the stretch of track that ran directly between Stantz and Venkman.
As the spirit sprinter passed their benches, Stantz and Venkman simultaneously smashed their feet down on concealed foot switches.
A ghost trap they had previously buried a quarter inch below the dirt jogging track sprang open. The ghost jogger emitted a tiny whimper as the trap caught him full blast, catching him in a shimmering, inverted triangle of light and energy.
The ghostly jogger froze in mid-step, glancing around him. He felt the power of the ghost trap slowly draw him farther and farther down toward the earth.
Within seconds the ghostly jogger was gone.
Trapped.
Stantz slowly got to his feet. Venkman, still ponder ing the joke in today's Hagar, swallowed his doughnut and joined Stantz in closing the rectangular ghost trap.
Stantz held up the glowing trap. Venkman checked his watch. "Do you know that he ran that last lap in under six minutes?" he said.
"Yeah,"
Stantz agreed. "If he wasn't dead, he'd be an Olympic prospect."
Stantz guided the screaming EctolA up in front of the towering World Trade Center, near Manhattan's Wall Street. Venkman, riding shotgun, gazed up at the build ings looming above him and smiled. Big money, he thought.
Winston and Spengler climbed out of the back of the ambulance, carrying their basic monitoring devices.
Stantz made a move for one of the proton packs. Venkman waved him off. He didn't think they'd need any heavy combat equipment.
The four jumpsuited men entered the building.
Moments later they were ushered into the ornate office of Ed Petrosius, a short, sweating, super-successful and very tightly wound bond salesman.
Petrosius gaped at the Ghostbusters as they marched into his office. He was in the middle of a phone conversation but he clearly wasn't pleased at seeing the quartet in full ghostbusting regalia. He placed a hand over the mouthpiece of the phone.
"What is this?" he hissed. "I'm trying to keep this quiet. Couldn't you put on a coat and tie? You look like janitors."
Venkman glanced at Stantz. They both nodded. Pinhead, they concluded. Rich, spoiled pinhead.
Petrosius barked into the phone, "I'll call you back, Ned. Watch Southern Gulf. If it goes past eight, start buying. Later."
He slammed down the phone and swiveled his chair to face the four Ghostbusters.
"All right," he said impatiently. "How long is this going to take, and what's it going to cost me?"
Venkman offered him a sincere insincere smile. "Well, it depends. Generally we charge an arm and a leg."
Petrosius punched a button on his desktop with a closed fist. His office door automatically slammed shut.
"Look, I got a lot to do and I can't afford to waste a lot of time on this, so don't jerk me around."
Stantz tried the reassuring tack. "Why don't you just tell us what the problem is."
Petrosius stared at his hands.
"Puh-leeeze?" Venkman said, wheedling.
"All right," Petrosius muttered. "Sometimes, every once in a while, things just sort of—well, they just ... they just kind of burst into flames."
He looked up at the Ghostbusters. "You know what I mean?"
Venkman nodded scientifically. "Sure. Things just kind of burst into flames."
"Yeah, you know," Petrosius continued. "Like, I'll be working or talking on the phone and the top of my desk will just catch on fire. You've heard of that, haven't you?"
Venkman rubbed his chin. "Oh, yeah, happens all the time."
"You have a lot of paper around," Stantz offered. "It could be simple spontaneous combustion."
Spengler furrowed his thick brows. "Or it may be pyrogenesis."
Petrosius was baffled. "Pyrowhatsis?"
Spengler adjusted his glasses. "Pyrogenesis is the ability some people have to generate great amounts of heat."
Before Petrosius could take that in, the phone on his desk buzzed. "Damn," he muttered, yanking the phone up to his ear. "Yeah? What?"
His eyes grew large. "What are you talking about? I worked the whole thing out with Bill! Forget that crap! Tell Donald to talk to Mike. He okayed the whole thing. And now, one word from Donald and he wants out? No way. We have a deal! Oh, really? My lawyer is an ex-Green Beret!"
He picked up a contract from his desk and began waving it in the air.
Spengler slowly lifted the small, ebony Giga meter and scanned Petrosius while he screamed into the phone.
"No, Bob," Petrosius said, boiling. "You eat it! You want to come over here and make me? Anytime, you lying sack of—"
To the right of Petrosius's desk, a wastepaper basket suddenly exploded into flame.
The Ghostbusters exchanged startled looks.
Petrosius glanced at the smoking wastebasket. "Damn it!"
The contract in his hand began to smolder and smoke. He dropped it onto the desktop. It, too, burst into spirals of orange and yellow. Tongues of flame shot forth from the in and out boxes on his desk. And the desk calendar. And the blotter.
Venkman watched more and more of Petrosius's world explode. "Whew! Somebody get the burgers and weenies. This guy is incredible."
Venkman reached over the desk and grabbed a pitcher of water. He tossed it into Petrosius's steaming face. Winston ran to the corner and yanked the inverted plastic bottle from the watercooler. He rushed back to the desk and doused the fire in the wastebasket.
Petrosius watched the water drip from his face and cascade down onto his clothing. He glared at Venkman. "This is a twelve-hundred-dollar suit!" he bellowed.
At that point the curtains behind him caught fire.
Stantz marched bravely up to Petrosius. "I hate to do this, sir," he announced, "but you are a public fire hazard."
Ray Stantz cocked his left arm back and threw a haymaker that caught Petrosius squarely on the jaw. The yammering businessman pitched back into his swivel chair. His chin dropped to his chest.
"Out cold," Winston noted.
"Good policy, Ray," Venkman said, staring at the unconscious man. "From now on let's beat up all our customers."
The curtains behind the desk continued to burn, the tongues of flame licking upward. High above the
room, the automatic sprinkler system suddenly kicked into action.
The entire office was caught in a machine-made downpour.
Undeterred, a cogitating Spengler walked over to the watercooler. He stuck his hand into the open top and found that the interior sides of the cooler were coated with psycho-reactive slime.
"Interesting," he said.
He glanced at his three companions. They were lifting Petrosius out of his chair.
They carried the unconscious man out of his office and into the reception area like a sack of wet laundry.
Venkman paused momentarily before Petrosius's shocked secretary. "I think Ed's going to be taking some time off."
The EctolA pulled up in front of the high-priced store on New York's Fifth Avenue.
A crowd of people was gathered in front of the store's window gazing inside, dumbfounded.
The Ghostbusters jogged up to the locked front door. "Ghostbusters," Winston announced.
The small, frightened manager of the store let them in immediately.
The four Ghostbusters gazed at the strange sight before them.
The high-priced shop sold mostly precious glass. At this moment all the expensive pieces of crystal were floating in the air, several feet above the glass shelves and display tables that had once supported their weight. Stantz and Venkman walked up to the worried, mousy manager while Winston and Spengler set up their small battery of electronic devices in each corner of the room.
Stantz, after studying the phenomenon, turned to the manager. "It's just a straight polarity reversal."
"It is?" The manager blinked.
"Some kind of major PKE storm must have blown through here and affected the silicon molecules in the glass," Stantz continued. He offered the manager a smile and a friendly nod of his groundhog hairdoed head. "We'll have it fixed in a jiff."
"Ready, boys?" he called.
"Ready," Spengler and Winston replied.
"Okay," Stantz commanded. "Activate!"
Spengler and Winston simultaneously threw the switches that operated the electronic reversal machines located around the store. A myriad of laserlike beams emerged from the gizmos and engulfed the perimeters of the room, crackling, snapping, and buzzing.
The floating crystal began to shimmy and shake.
The manager of the store watched, horrified, as all the glassware suddenly dropped out of the air. The valuable crystal pieces smashed through the glass shelves and splintered all the display tables. In a moment there was nothing to be seen in the store but tiny shards of sparkling glass.
Spengler and Winston switched off their machines.
Stantz faced the manager with a smile. "See?"
The manager emitted a low moan.
Stantz
put a bearlike arm around the tiny man. "So, will that be cash or check?"
The four Ghostbusters emerged from the store to the sound of cheering from the assembled crowd.
From inside the store came an anguished howl.
The crowd froze and turned.
Was it a spirit? A strange and dangerous apparition?
They peered through the window.
No, it was just the weeping manager armed with a straw broom and a dustpan.
Back at Ghostbusting headquarters, would-be spook-chaser Louis lurked surreptitiously behind a pillar leading to the office area, a ghost-trapping pedal near his feet.
Hanging suspended from a string above his desk were several pieces of Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Louis would rid the Ghostbusters of the apparition. He knew he could do it. He had the stamina, the gusto, the intellect. Well, at least the stamina and the gusto.
Louis held his breath as the green Slimer emerged from behind a wall, furtively sniffing the air. Slimer spotted the chicken, cackled, and flew directly toward it.
"Gotcha!" Louis squeaked, slamming his foot down on the foot pedal.
The ghost-trapper popped open and shot a power ful cone of light up toward the ceiling. Slimer munched the chicken calmly as the ghost-trapping rays shot harmlessly by him. What the rays did ensnare was a big chunk of the ceiling, which promptly came crashing down at Louis's feet.
"Uh-oh," Louis moaned.
"Burp," Slimer commented.
Louis slunk out of the room, dejected. On his salary he could never afford the repairs.
He'd do the right thing when the Ghostbusters returned. He'd explain how the ceiling caved in.
He'd lie.
16
Peter Venkman and Winston Zeddemore entered the firehouse's living quarters, exhausted after a tough job. They'd had to trap the spirit of a long-dead game-show host who was inhabiting the set of a TV soap opera. It was a fairly frightening experience for the actors involved. Every time they opened a door on any of their sets, a new prize materialized. The young male lead had nearly ruptured himself when he'd darted out a living-room door and crashed into a brand-new Amana freezer—"with an automatic ice maker," a ghostly voice had intoned as paramedics arrived on the scene.