Ghostbusters The Return (16 page)

Ray remembered. Janine had predicted that he would take a long ocean voyage with a purple muskrat. So far, it hadn't happened yet. But it sounded so wonderfully bizarre that Ray was still hoping It would.

"A hundred and fifty years, huh?" he said.

"Give or take," said Janine. "I'd have to plot out the charts to be completely sure, but it's something in that ballpark."

He flashed an inquisitive glance at Egon, who shrugged slightly in reply.

"We should probably double-check your figure with someone at NASA or one of the observatories," Egon told Janine. "But if that's correct, it takes some of the heat off. It means the full-blown attack is more than a century away."

Janine got up and crossed the room to answer a ringing phone.

As she moved out of immediate earshot, Egon whispered to Ray, "Do you think she's right?"

"I dunno. Could be."

"We should double check."

"Sure," said Ray. But it could be good news."

"Very good news."

"Of course, if this is what it's like when the heat's off," said Ray, "I'd hate to see what it looks like when things get hot."

"True," Egon replied. "But at least there's a good chance that it won't get any worse anytime soon."

Ray stretched his arm and winced. "That's something, I suppose."

"Let's take another look at what Bar Ulla has to say..."

Before they could do more than smooth out the parchment, though, Janine hung up the phone. "We've got another one," she called over to them.

"What is it this time?" asked Egon.

"A multiple sighting in Riverside Park."

"We're on it," said Egon, getting to his feet.

Ray picked up the parchment as he rose. "I'll bring this with us. Let's see if we can get any more out of it while we're on the way."

Egon laid a hand on Ray's arm to stop him. "Do you really want to take a fifteen-hundred-year-old parchment into an encounter with a hostile paranormal?" said Egon. "Not to mention carrying it around in the streets of New York?" 

"Good point," Ray replied. "I'll make a photocopy."

CHAPTER 15

"That's very helpful, Doctor," said Egon. "Thank you."

"My pleasure," said the voice on the other end of the speakerphone. "Glad to be of help. Good luck!"

Egon hit the button to break the connection. "Well, there you are. NASA confirms it," he said. "Xanthador isn't scheduled to ascend to power for at least another hundred and seventy-three years."

Ray steered the Ectomobile onto Seventy-second Street and headed west. "So this is what he's like with one hand tied behind his back. I'd hate to see him at the top of his game."

"You and me both. We'd better make sure that it never gets to that point."

Riverside Park wasn't the biggest park in New York City, but it was easily one of the longest. More than four miles in length, it stretched along the banks of the Hudson River, spanning nearly the entire expanse of Manhattan's Upper West Side. Its three hundred acres encompassed numerous sports fields and courts, more than a dozen playgrounds for children, a handful of dog runs for urban pets, and the tomb of an American president. Even multiple ghosts could take a while to find in a space that vast.

Fortunately, the call for help had placed the ghosts in a cluster near the Seventy-ninth Street boat basin. Ray and Egon couldn't be certain that there weren't more of the entities lurking elsewhere in the park, but it was the obvious place to start, at any rate.

The Ectomobile cruised up Riverside Drive until it reached Seventy-ninth Street. Ray pulled over into an illegal parking space beside a fire hydrant and a towering oak tree. After years of New York driving, he knew all too well that finding a legal parking space in Manhattan often could take longer than the trip itself. As a result, he had long since come to the conclusion that it made more sense to grab any open space in an emergency and try to fight the parking ticket later, if need be.

"See anything yet?" he asked, as he straightened out the car.

Egon craned his neck to scan the area, but between the foliage in the park and one of the city's everpresent construction sites across the street, the view was largely obscured. "it's impossible to see from here," he replied. "Perhaps we'll have a better view when we get out and stand up."

He started to open his door, only to have it stop short as it banged into the tree beside the car. The two-inch clearance between the two wouldn't have been enough to allow a mouse to get out of the vehicle.

"Sorry. I'll see if I can move the car enough to let you out," said Ray.

Everything that happened next took place in the space of less than ten seconds. Ray turned to check the traffic, just in time to see a cloud of black smoke and hear a mechanical roar as the driver of a passing cement mixer gunned the engine. The truck barreled out into traffic, tearing across the busy thoroughfare in reverse. The air was filled with the sound of screeching brakes and squealing tires as cars skidded and veered to avoid the runaway truck.

But the thing that mattered most to Ray was where the cement mixer was going: straight for the side of the Ectomobile.

The rear of the truck loomed larger and larger. Split seconds before impact, Ray released his seat belt and lunged sideways into Egon's lap. Behind him, the driver's door crumpled as the Ectomobile jumped with the force of the collision. Egon and Ray were pelted with a hail of shattered glass as the cement chute on the back of the mixer came smashing through the side window and stopped inches from their heads.

Ray's first reaction was shock, followed by anger. But all of that vanished when he saw the glowing, skeletal arm that waved to him from the cab of the cement mixer.

"Oh, no," said Ray.

"Please don't tell me this is another urban legend," said Egon, who was pinned beneath him.

"Hurry! Get out of the car!"

"We can't! The tree, remember?"

Ray's head jerked back and forth as his attention jumped between the tree on one side of the car and the cement mixer on the other. Egon was right. They weren't going to get through either door anytime soon.

"Out the back!" he said.

"The back?"

Ray struggled to squeeze over the seat to get into the back of the Ectomobile. Despite the awkward angle, Egon pushed as best as he could, trying to give him a boost.

Egon grunted with the effort. "Since when is a traffic accident an urban legend?"

Ray's breathless voice reflected the strain as he wedged himself through the space between the top of the seat and the roof. "A cement truck driver comes home early from work. His wife was planning to surprise him with a fancy new car. But when he sees the car, and the stranger with his wife - "

Suddenly, Ray's body became unstuck. He shot through the space and fell headfirst, to crash on the floor in the back seat. He fumbled around to bring himself upright and grab the door handle.

"He thinks she's having an affair?" asked Egon, hoisting himself up over the seat.

Still sprawled across the floor, Ray got the back door open and reached up to pull Egon over the seat. "He gets furious. Insanely jealous."

Egon's skinnier frame slid through the space without incident. He landed on top of Ray and scrambled across his body toward the open door. "So he rams the car with his truck."

"No!" Ray managed to follow him out the door just as a river of cement started to gush down the chute and through the broken window. "He fills the car with cement!"

The two Ghostbusters tumbled painfully out onto the sidewalk. "We're spending far too much time Iying on sidewalks these days," said Egon.

Ray watched the cement flowing into the Ectomobile with despair. "Our beautiful car!"

Egon set his jaw with grim determination. "Come on," he said. "Let's salvage the equipment before it all turns into a giant paperweight."

They stepped briskly to the back of the vehicle and opened the rear hatch. Moving quickly, they started to pull out proton packs, ecto-traps, PKE meters, and other tools of the trade.

As Ray continued to rescue whatever he could get his hands on Egon strapped on his proton pack and switched it on. Without another word, he moved around the car, drew out his nutrona wand, and zapped the cackling ghoul who was driving the truck. He tightened the ion stream, yanking the creature out through the window.

"Ray!" he called. "Trap! please!"

"Huh?" Preoccupied with the equipment, it took a second for Ray to register what was happening. Once he saw the ghoul struggling in the grip of the ion stream, his face darkened. He grabbed an ecto-trap and slid it across the ground. "Here! Get the spud!"

Egon caught the trap with his foot and stamped on the pedal. There was a brilliant flash, and the ghoul was gone.

Satisfied, he sheathed his nutrona wand. He hoisted himself up on the step beside the driver's door and reached through the open window to shut down the cement mixer. The massive drum on the back of the truck slowly stopped turning, and the flow of cement dribbled down to nothing.

Once the cement stopped flowing, Egon rejoined Ray at the back of the Ectomobile. They continued to unload a variety of instruments from the car as they talked.

"Xanthador's gone too far this time," Ray said. "He trashed our car. Our
car!"

"It could be worse," Egon replied. "I don't think the cement had time to travel far beyond the front seat."

"Even so. Replacing the door? Unbending the frame? Chopping out concrete? Do you realize how hard it is to scrape two hundred pounds of cement off upholstery?"

"Still, compared to the last few days, you have to admit that this incident was relatively easy to handle."

"I guess so. I..." Ray froze in mid-sentence, struck by a thought.

"What's the matter?" asked Egon.

"Didn't Janine say there were multiple sightings?"

That was when they heard the explosion.

Louis stood up and waved his arms wildly. "Dana! Dana! Over here!"

Dana looked in the opposite direction, pretending not to hear as she struggled to maintain the slightest shred of dignity.
There must be another empty seat somewhere,
she thought.

Truthfully, she felt badly about trying to ignore Louis, but the fact was that she always felt uncomfortable standing out in a crowd. It was one of the reasons why she was so content to be part of a large orchestra - she wasn't the type for a solo career. Even at the MOMA dinner a couple of nights before, she'd been able to sit unobtrusively in her seat while everyone focused on Peter and his speech.

Things didn't tend to work that way with Louis, though. He was a nice enough guy and he always meant well, but subtlety wasn't exactly his strong point.

And here's a perfect example,
she thought. Much as she might have been trying not to see Louis, the same couldn't be said for anyone else in the studio. The more she tried not to notice him, the more frantic his attempts became and the more heads swiveled in her direction.

By this point, he was jumping up and down and yelling, "Dana! Yoo-hoo! Dana!" Then he lost his balance and fell on top of the man sitting in front of him, knocking off the man's toupee in the process.

Dana craned her neck to scan the studio one more time. She would have taken any possible seat. But even at a glance, she could see it was in vain. The rest of the studio was packed.

She could watch on the monitor in the dressing room, she supposed. But that wouldn't be the same as watching Peter live, and he wouldn't be able to see her when he needed a bit of support. No, there didn't seem to be any other way.

Louis was awkwardly hoisting himself back to his feet in his own row, the toupee dangling from his shirt button. He yanked at it with one hand while he continued waving at her with the other. Everyone but Dana seemed to be enjoying the show tremendously.

She waited until Louis pulled the toupee loose and dropped it back on the man's head, where it landed at an odd angle. As the red-faced man fumbled with it, Dana looked over at Louis and smiled as though noticing him for the first time. She screwed up her courage, waved sweetly, and walked down the aisle to his row. "Hi, Louis."

"Hi! Come on over. I saved you a seat."

"That's so nice of you. You, um, you shouldn't have."

"Oh, no problem."

Excusing herself repeatedly, Dana squeezed past the other people sitting in the row until she reached the empty seat and sat down as quickly as she possibly could.

"This is going to be really good. Look, I've been preparing for it," said Louis. He unfolded an oversized sheet of paper that not only covered his lap, but also Dana's and the woman sitting on his other side, too. "See, I made up a grid to keep track of what all the candidates say about each of the issues. White is for their initial statements, yellow is for rebuttals, and pink is for follow-up. Here's Peter's column over here. Then I've got a section down here for cross-referencing when appropriate. 

"That's, um, very impressive, Louis," said Dana. "Very organized."

"I figure there's going to be a lot of ideas flying back and forth today. When things start to get hot and heavy, all these people in the audience are going to have a hard time keeping track if they don't have some kind of tool to help them stay on top of it all."

"Ah."

"But that's not all."

"No?"

"Not by a long shot. See, I don't know if you've thought about it, but I figure that we've got to support Peter in the debate."

"Uh-huh."

"So I painted his name on my chest. I got the idea from seeing a commercial for professional football. Or maybe it was soccer - I get those things confused sometimes. But anyhow, whenever Peter makes a really good point, I'll jump up and tear open my shirt and cheer. You want to see?"

Louis started to reach for his shirt, but Dana quickly grabbed his wrist. "No!" she exclaimed, more loudly than she intended. Heads started to turn again at the unexpected outburst. She flushed and lowered her voice. "Um, Louis, that sort of behavior - painting your chest and all - well, it's true that some people do it at sporting events."

"Yes, and I used fluorescent paint so it would show an really well..." He started to reach for his shirt again.

Dana caught his left wrist. "But it's nor really the kind of thing people do at political debates." 

"No?"

"No, not really. It might make people think that Peter's not as serious as he should be."

"Oh. Well, I wouldn't want that to happen."

"No, I'm sure you wouldn't."

"It's just that I've never been to one of these before. I wasn't sure what was expected."

"I understand."

"I guess I probably shouldn't wave the pennants that I made, either."

"Probably not."

"Oh. Okay."

Louis reached down with his right hand and fingered a few obviously homemade flannel flags. "VENKMAN #1" had been written on the first one.

The second said, "GO VENKMAN!" against a background of tiny "RAH"s. The third one read, "VENKMAN OPPOSES PASSAGE OF ORDINANCE NY-237, WHICH PROVIDES TAX RELIEF FOR THE TOP 2% OF WAGE EARNERS WHILE SIGNIFICANTLY INCREASING - " Dana wasn't completely sure why it stopped in the middle of a sentence. She assumed that it continued on the other side.

With a look of mild disappointment, Louis stashed the pennants beneath his seat. Still, even after they were safely stowed away. Dana waited a moment to make sure the message sank in before she felt secure that the danger was averted. She breathed a sigh of relief, and slowly released her grip on his wrist.

It was only then that she noticed the woman who was sitting on Louis' other side. She was a small African-American woman. probably in her sixties, and she was chuckling heartily. She caught Dana's eye. "Say what you want, but the boy surely does have spirit, don't he?"

Dana smiled weakly, but couldn't quite bring herself to answer.

Louis. on the other hand, was his usual irrepressible self, apparently immune to embarrassment. "Dana, do you know Mrs. Zeddemore?" he said. "We met out front before. She already has her nephew handling her income taxes every year. but she's a nice lady anyway. Mrs. Zeddemore, Dana Barrett."