GHOSTBUSTERS: The Return Page 9

  Even in the privacy of his own thoughts, Peter Venkman always framed things in terms of "when." "If" just wasn't his style.

  At last, he climbed the last few stairs and walked to the door of his apartment. He flipped briefly through his ring of keys and slipped the appropriate one into the deadbolt lock. As the key turned, he was startled by a voice behind him:

  "If you're doing all of this to impress me, it's working."

  Venlunan's eyebrows rose in surprise, and his lips curled into a smile. He turned to see Dana standing there with a cockeyed smirk of her own.

  "What, this?" he said. "If you think the way I open a door is impressive, you should see me with a window."

  She slowly stepped closer. "I meant the whole thing with you running for mayor."

  He took a step toward her, meeting in the middle of the hall. "Oh, that. Guess you caught me. Yeah, it's gonna be on the front page of tomorrow's paper: 'Candidate Runs to Impress Girl.' "

  " 'Girl? "

  "Okay, 'Candidate Runs to Impress Independent, Liberated Woman with Hopes, Dreams, and Aspirations of Her Own.' "

  Dana fingered the lapel of his jacket. "Nice suit."

  "Thanks. So...what brings you by?"

  "I tried calling you at the office this afternoon but Janine said you haven't been in all day."

  "Yeah, election stuff. How long have you been waiting?"

  She glanced at her watch "About. . . forty-five minutes or so. One of your neighbors let me in. I suppose I look honest."

  "Not to mention really, really hot. So where's Bu - I mean, Oscar?"

  "Babysitter. And 'Butch' is fine."

  "Well, it won't get him beaten up after school, anyway." Venkman breathed a mental sigh of relief. Dana was letting him call Oscar "Butch" again. If she hadn't completely forgiven him yet, she was on the way, at least. "Listen, do you want to come in?"

  "It's probably beats standing out here in the hall all night. I think the woman in 3-G is watching us through the peephole."

  Venkman turned toward apartment 3-G and waved. "Hi, Mrs. Tugfoigl. Be sure to tune in again tomorrow for another stirring installment of Hallways of Our Lives. Will Dana lay down her cello and take Peter back? Will Chenelle survive her fateful brain surgery? And what about Naomi?" He pursed his lips and ran toward apartment 3-G, planting a loud, smoochy kiss right on the glass of the peephole. Once he felt fairly confident that his neighbor had recoiled from the peephole in embarrassment, he walked calmly back to his own door.

  Dana was giggling. He loved it when she giggled.

  He opened the door and ushered Dana into the apartment. With a final wave to Mrs. Tugfoigl - more for effect than anything else he closed the door behind them.

  Once they were alone, he slipped his arms around Dana's waist. "So what did bring you back?"

  "Who says I'm back?"

  "It was my raw, animal magnetism, wasn't it?"

  Dana slipped out of his arms as smoothly as he'd slipped them around her. "You're right."

  "About my magnetism?"

  "No, that you're a dope."

  With a grunt, Venkman mimed being stabbed through the heart. Was it any wonder that he found her so attractive?

  Dana waited patiently until he finished staggering around in his death throes. When he was done, she asked, "Mayor, huh?"

  "Why not?"

  "I don't remember you mentioning any political aspirations before."

  "They developed kind of suddenly. Here, let me take your coat. Oh, and any other pieces of clothing you'd like to remove."

  Venkman spent the next hour filling her in on all the details over coffee. Or almost all the details, anyway; he left out the parts about scamming whatever he could out of the job.

  Dana was not only an attractive audience, but an attentive one as well. She asked the occasional question, but otherwise, she didn't interrupt very much. As he let the story unfold, he noticed a funny look in her eyes. She seemed unusually focused, studying his face.

  After awhile, he couldn't ignore it any longer. "What's up?" he asked. "Do I have something stuck in my teeth?"

  "Hmm? Oh. No, it's nothing like that."

  "So what, then?"

  "Nothing. I was just thinking.

  "Yeah?"

  "Well...you remember our conversation about responsibility?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Being the mayor is a pretty big job. It brings along a lot of responsibility. Do you think you're ready for that?"

  To be honest, the enormity of the responsibility hadn't fully hit him until just that moment. He thought about how much work it had taken just to start to understand all of the issues today. He could only imagine how much tougher it would be to have to actually deal with all of them.

  But then again, he figured he could give all the work to his staff.

  "Sure," he said. "I can handle it. No problem."

  She eyed him curiously. "What are you up to?"

  " 'Up to?' Y'know, I'm deeply hurt that you just immediately assume that I'm up to something. Can't I just act out of civic mindedness? Can't I just try to help my fellow man? Can't I just want to give some thing back to this crazy, cockamamie city that I love?"

  Dana didn't say anything, but the look on her face said she still wasn't convinced.

  So Venkman kept going: "Can't I try to mend my ways and win back the woman who means more to me than any election - nay, more than life itself?"

  Dana looked bemused. "You are so full of it."

  "But charming."

  Dana leaned back in her chair and let out a deep breath. "I don't know."

  "Don't worry about it. There are lots of things I don't know about. Material dialecticism. Calculus..."

  "Why am I finding this new attitude of yours hard to believe?"

  "Because you're overly skeptical? It's okay, everyone has their little character flaws." He laid his hand on hers. "But admitting it is the first step. I'm here for you. We'll get through this together."

  Dana barely acknowledged that he said anything. "I've known you long enough to know that you always have an angle. However, I've also known you long enough to know that you usually do the right thing in the end. Who knows - maybe this whole thing will be good for you."

  "So we're back together?"

  Dana looked into his eyes and smiled. "I'll think about it."

  CHAPTER 7

  Ray and Egon stared at the flames all around them.

  "Fascinating phenomenon," said Egon.

  Ray extended his hand, palm outward, toward the nearest sheet of bluish fire. Then he slowly pushed his hand further, until it was enveloped by the flames. His face registered no pain. "No heat," he said. "It kind of reminds me of..."

  "The spirit inferno of Avingon?"

  "Exactly. France, 1862."

  Egon shook his head. "1863."

  'Oh, right. Of course." Ray started thrusting his hand in and out of the fire, as scientific curiosity began to yield to playfulness. "Wow. I've read about it, but this is the first time I've actually seen a level-B pyrokinetic manifestation."

  "It's the first time anyone's seen one in nearly one hundred and fifty years," Egon said.

  "Then it seems like a funny coincidence to have one show up now." Instinctively, for what must have been the six hundredth time, Ray slapped at the last remaining ghost spider. It had been scrabbling around his body since the day before and was likely to continue doing so, since his hand passed through the spider without any noticeable effect. "You think it's connected?"

  Egon pointed his PKE meter at the flames and moved it from side to side in a slow arc. "The readings are consistent with the incidents we've seen over the last few days."

  "So does that mean you guys can put it out?" The question came from a burly fireman in full gear. He was the only one willing to join the two Ghostbusters in the middle of a city block that was engulfed in a supernatural blaze. Half a dozen of his colleagues were huddled near a pair of fire engines that idled a block away. They weren't nic
knamed "New York's Bravest" for nothing - these were men who would charge into a raging inferno without thinking twice. But this was something completely outside their realm of experience. "My boys tried everything, but nothing worked. Foam, water everything just passed through without doin' nothing."

  "That's because it wasn't holy water," said Ray.

  "Huh?"

  "The thing that puzzles me," said Egon, "is that this one breaks the pattern."

  "Into a million pieces," said Ray. "It's different than the incidents we've been dealing with recently. For one thing, it's the first time there hasn't been any damage. We've got plenty of fire all over the place, but it isn't actually burning anything."

  Egon nodded. "Moreover, it's just a fire, albeit a spectral one. There's nothing about it that would cause it to qualify as an urban legend."

  Ray leaned back, so that the ethereal flames engulfed the top of his head, along with the ghost spider. With a sizzle and a tiny scream, the spider was gone. "Yep, it's a puzzle, all right," he said with a yawn. "If I had time to get more than three hours of sleep one of these nights, I might have enough brain cells left to solve it."

  "Yeah, yeah," said the fireman. "But can you put it out?" His questions were getting more insistent - and, all things considered, Ray couldn't blame him.

  He looked up as a chup chup chup sound grew louder above them. "Actually, it looks like your people want to give it one more try."

  A trio of pale, white helicopters approached overhead.

  "Those aren't our birds," said the fireman.

  "Then whose are they?"

  "You got me. News choppers?"

  Egon raised a hand to his forehead, to shield his eyes against the sun as he watched. "What's that beneath them?"

  Ray squinted at the aircraft. "Oh, it's an old fire fighter technique for fighting forest fires. They hang a giant tarp under the helicopter, dip it in a lake or body of water to pick up several hundred gallons of water, and then they release it over the fire."

  "Not in a populated area!" The fireman was getting agitated and nervous. "The weight of that much water falling from that height could kill somebody! We've gotta get out of here!"

  "It's worse than that," Ray said, as he pulled out his nutrona wand and hit the power. "It is an urban legend! Get ready, Egon."

  Egon followed Ray's lead. "For what? What is it?"

  "A skeet shoot," said Ray.

  That's when the spectral helicopters released their loads of water.

  And that's when scuba divers started falling from the sky.

  The music flared as Venkman strolled quickly across the stage. The band launched into a few bars of a familiar, bass-heavy melody. When the band leader called out, "Who ya gonna call?" the cheering audience screamed, "Ghostbusters!" The applause went on until Venkman and the host greeted each other with a warm handshake, and Peter took a seat in a comfortably padded chair beside the host's desk. He flashed the band leader a little thumbs-up and silently mouthed the words "Hi, Paul."

  "Welcome back," said the host. "Now, you've been here before, right? What is it, about four years ago?"

  "More like five, I think," said Venhnan.

  "Is it really? Well, I'm sorry it's taken so long to have you back. Now, Doctor Venkman... It is 'Doctor,' right?"

  "Right, Dave." Ordinarily, Venkman's gut impulse would have been to tell the host to call him by his first name. But the media trainer had taught him to use the title. It established a subliminal air of authority in the eyes of the audience, especially if he kept using the host's first name.

  "And what are you a doctor of, again?"

  "A couple of things. I've got Ph.D.'s in both psychology and parapsychology."

  "Really That's very impressive. Two degrees?"

  "The very best that the Offshore University of Manila has to offer," Venkman said with a smile The trainer had warned him that Mayor Lapinski's people would probably try to downplay Venkman's credentials by questioning the validity of an advanced degree in parapsychology, but he could preempt the strategy by making light of it himself. By lacing his discussions with just a touch of self-deprecating humor (although not too much - he didn't want to raise any doubts about his qualifications in the audience's mind), he could use his advanced education as a point in his favor while still sounding like an average joe.

  After pausing for a laugh from the audience, he added, "No, actually, I went to Columbia University."

  "Not too shabby," said the host. "Well, I know everyone's anxious to hear about the mayoral race, and we'll get to that in a minute. But first, there's something I've got to ask you."

  "What's that?"

  "Do you think you could exorcise the spirits of last night's audience from the studio? Now, those folks were scary..."

  While Venkman handled the entertainment circuit with his characteristic smooth charm, the media planners at party headquarters booked Winston into the more serious outlets that drew smaller audiences but focused more deeply on the issues. And so it was that Winston found himself sitting in a darkened studio, across the table from a talk show host who was far more somber and sincere than the one who was interviewing Venkman across town.

  "Mister Zeddemore," said the host, leaning forward in his chair.

  "Yes," Winston replied, leaning comfortably back with a look of concentration on his face. The media trainer had taught him to look relaxed and confident, but to be careful not to seem bored or disinterested.

  "Transit fares."

  "Yes."

  "As you know, the Metropolitan Transit Authority raised them this year."

  "Yes." Winston wished the host would get to the question already. He was beginning to become acutely aware of the quiet that came with the lack of a studio audience. In the midst of the darkened set, the host's slow, contemplative style was starting to make him sleepy. He bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself awake.

  The host made a tent with his fingers and touched them to his lips. He studied Winston for a long moment, and then finally asked, "Are the fares too high?"

  He sat up and leaned forward, toward the host. "I'm glad you asked me that." Or that you asked me any question, he thought.

  Winston launched into his pre-scripted response. It was made easier by the fact that this was one of the replies that weren't all that different from his own opinions. "Personally, I've never met a New Yorker who didn't think transit fares are too high. In this case, though, I think the issue is less about the fare hike itself than about the way in which it happened. The MA petitioned the government to raise the fares by arguing that they were facing a massive deficit, and that's what swayed the government in their favor.