“Barrett. Dana Barrett.”
“You just sit down and we’ll talk about it.” He leaned back out of the office. “Janine, hold all my calls.”
“What calls?”
The office was not what she had expected, but then neither had she expected to find a cult living in her refrigerator. It was a cross between a doctor’s office and a TV repair shop. Diplomas hung on the walls, but the books on the shelves competed for spaces with oscilloscopes, dials, gauges, meters, nests of colored wire, and a series of strange instruments. She recognized a video camera and recorder, what appeared to be a polygraph, several tuning forks, a computer terminal, a crystal ball, a mine detector, and some old television sets. The tall one, Stantz, appeared in the doorway, wiping his hands on a rag, and smiled.
“Customer, Peter?”
“Yes. This is Dana Barrett. Dana, Ray Stantz. Ray, you want to get Egon in here?”
She told her story, then allowed the one with glasses, Spengler, to hook her up to the polygraph and fit a headset device that he called a visual imaging tracker. She told the story again, Peter nodding pleasantly, and the other two monitoring their instruments and making little guttural sounds to each other as they compared results.
“And you slammed the door and ran? You didn’t open it again for a second look?”
Dana laughed nervously. “After seeing what I saw? Would you have opened that thing again, Doctor?”
Venkman’s smile was engaging. “Yes, I would have. But then, I’m a scientist. So, what do you think it was?”
She paused, listening to the tick-tick of the polygraph. The colored map of her head on the imaging scope flickered and shimmered, Stantz watching it intently. She turned back to Venkman, who cocked his head to one side.
“Well.”
“I think something in my refrigerator is trying to get me.”
Venkman’s expression seemed to flatten uncertainly, then he gave a little bob of his chin, as if he were trying to swallow this new theory. He didn’t look entirely convinced.
“Generally, you don’t see that sort of behavior in a major appliance. What do you think, Egon?”
Spengler looked up from the graph. “She’s telling the truth—or at least she thinks she is.”
“Of course I am. Why would anyone make up a story like that?”
“Some people want attention,” Venkman said. “Some are just crazy.”
Stantz tapped the video screen. “You know, Peter, this could be a past-life experience intruding upon the present.”
“Or a race memory stored in the collective unconscious,” Spengler said excitedly. “And I wouldn’t rule out clairvoyance or telepathic contact either.”
It was too much for Dana. “I’m sorry I’m laughing. It’s just that I don’t believe in any of those things. I don’t even know my sign.”
Spengler tapped on his calculator, then looked up. “You’re a Scorpio with your moon in Leo and Aquarius rising.”
“Is that good?”
Venkman winked. “It means you’re bright, ambitious, outgoing, and very, very sexy.”
“Is that your professional opinion?”
“It’s in the stars.”
She smiled at him, then thought, no, Dana. Not another nut. First a science fiction writer, then that filmmaker last year. You’ve got enough trouble with a monster in the cold cuts without a dingbat in the bedroom. Carefully she asked, “What would you suggest I do?”
“Why don’t I check out the building?” Stantz said. “It may have a history of psychic turbulence.”
“Good idea, Ray.” Venkman looked at Dana, his eyes merry but unreadable. “Were any other words spoken, any that you remember?”
“No, just the one word, ‘Zuul,’ but I have no idea what it means.”
“Spengler, why don’t you check out the literature, see if you can find Zuul in any of the standard reference works. I’ll take Miss Barrett home and check her out.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“Your apartment,” Venkman corrected himself smoothly, slipping on his sport coat, and hefting a device that looked like an electronic watering can with a squeeze-bulb arrangement. He held it out like a golf club, took a few practice swings, then slung the thing over his shoulder. “Got to find out what’s really bothering you.”
Oh fine.
On the taxi ride over, Venkman tried to put her at ease with small talk, noncontroversial chitchat, but she was having none of it. Still too upset from her earlier experience, he decided. Not the best thing for a chick to find a temple of devil worshipers in among the meat loaf. I know it’d put me off my feed.
Deep down, Peter Venkman was still skeptical that what they were doing would work. Even after the incident at the library he wasn’t convinced that there was a way to capitalize on this thing. Oh sure, Egon said they could catch and hold ghosts, and he and Ray were certain that the equipment they had built would do the job, but it was a job that no one had ever done before. And staking your life’s work and your life savings—or at least Ray’s life savings—on Egon’s word could reasonably be considered self-destructive behavior. Egon was unconventional, even by Venkman’s standards.
Egon was the one who had attempted to nullify gravity by wrapping a high tension power cable around a playground jungle gym, certain that reversing the polarity of that much steel would propel the object into space. He had succeeded merely in browning out the northern third of Ohio for six hours until someone had discovered his immense electromagnet and cut the line. Granted, Spengler had accomplished a few firsts. He had been the first scientist to hypnotize a hamster by subjecting to it low-frequency radio waves. Peter tried it later and found that it also worked on coeds. Egon, in an attempt to build a death ray, had come up with a sonic gun that had little effect on people but set off soft-drink cans at a hundred yards. After the night that Peter had gotten drunk and taken it down to the local Coca-Cola warehouse, Egon had insisted on dismantling it.
On the plus side, the detectors that had registered the presence of the ghost in the library had been Spengler-designed and Stantz-built, and Ray vouched for the soundness of Egon’s theories regarding the traps and containments they had designed for the firehouse basement. “They’ll catch ’em and hold ’em,” Ray had assured him. “I’ll stake my life on that.” “We all will, Ray,” Venkman had replied, wondering how dangerous a ghost could be. Well, if it can throw books around, I don’t think we’re talking about Sesame Street here.
Peter Venkman sometimes wondered how he’d ever gotten mixed up with Stantz and Spengler. He had never believed in most of the things those two took for granted—ghosts, Bigfoot, UFOs, the Bermuda triangle—what Venkman referred to as “the implied sciences”; and Venkman had only entered the study of parapsychology because grant money had been readily available and because the study of ESP was in its infant stages and therefore formless, malleable. There was no map, no structure, and if a thing has no structure, who’s to say that the one you put up is wrong? In fact, until Dean Yaeger had thrown in the monkey wrench, Venkman had had a pretty successful career studying just about whatever he wanted. I’m not a dilettante, he decided. I’m just surveying new ground. And as long as a surveyor keeps moving, keeps out there ahead of the builders, he’s got a job.
Dana Barrett’s building was a 1920s high rise on Seventy-eighth and Central Park West, a towering ziggurat of red stone. From the street he couldn’t see the top but sensed that there was some sort of ornate cap. Well, if it was built in the twenties, maybe someone had planned to moor dirigibles to it. The doorman gave him a funny look as he carried the analyzer into the lobby but spoke pleasantly enough to Dana. Good-looking woman, he decided. Intelligent, attractive, sensible, the kind that never falls for me. He stood behind her in the elevator, gazing at the soft wisps of hair curling down over her neck, wondering what she’d be like. Probably thinks I’m not good enough for her. Still in all . . .
The apartment was dark, but he noticed that she had no
fear of walking in, switching on the lights, and hanging up her coat. The disturbance had been in the kitchen and she was satisfied that it had stayed in the kitchen. Maybe, but after that fiasco at the library I’m not so sure.
“Have you thought of moving out—at least until this disturbance blows over.”
“No,” she said firmly. “If I moved out now, I’d be acknowledging that what happened was real. I’m not ready to do that.”
“Gutsy, that’s good,” Venkman muttered, looking around the living room for dark corners, hidden secrets, spotting her cello instead.
“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.
7
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.
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