"Understood, Your Honor," the prosecutor said with a grin.
"Uh-huh," Louis muttered.
Stantz leaned over toward Spengler. "Seems like a pretty open-minded guy, huh?"
Egon nodded, the hair on the back of his neck bristling. "His nickname is the Hammer."
Venkman spotted Dana in the visitors' gallery and slowly backed toward her, leaving Spengler and Stantz trapped with Louis. Louis nervously glanced up at Spengler. His voice was in high-whine mode. "I think you're making a big mistake here, fellas. I do mostly tax law, and some probate stuff occasionally. I got my law degree at night school."
"That's all right," Egon reassured him. "We got arrested at night."
Venkman and Dana exchanged looks. "I wish I
could stay," Dana whispered. "I feel personally responsible for you being here."
"You are personally responsible. If I can get conju gal rights, will you visit me at Sing Sing?"
"Please don't say that!" Dana blurted. "You won't go to prison."
Venkman puffed out his chest. "Don't worry about me. I'm like a cat."
"You mean you cough up hairballs all over the rug?" Venkman shot her a look. "I'm El Gato. I always land on my feet."
"Good luck," Dana said, giving Venkman a quick, unexpected kiss before dashing out of the courtroom.
"Thanks," Venkman said, savoring the kiss for a long moment. He walked back to the defense table. Across the aisle, the mayor's top aide, Jack Hardemeyer, was goading the pretty prosecutor on for the kill.
Venkman strained his ears to listen.
"How are you doing, hon?" Hardemeyer asked. "Just put these guys away fast and make sure they go away for a long, long time."
Venkman wasn't pleased.
"It shouldn't be hard with this list of charges," the prosecutor replied.
Venkman sighed. He should have finished that Dan ish last night. It might be a long time before he experi enced another one.
"Good." Hardemeyer smiled. "Very good. The mayor and future governor won't forget this."
Venkman scurried to his seat at the defense table. Hardemeyer made a major production of removing his well-groomed presence from the D.A.'s team and walk ing slowly past the defense table on his way out of the courtroom.
He looked down at Spengler, Stantz, and Venkman.
"Nice going, Venkman," he cooed. "Violating a judicial restraining order, willful destruction of public property, fraud, malicious mischief... smooth move. See you in a couple of years—at your first parole hearing."
Hardemeyer turned and marched out of the room. Louis watched the retreating figure, his face turning the color of damp chalk. "Gee, the whole city is against us. I think I'm going to be sick."
Spengler offered Louis a wastebasket as the prose cutor called her first witness.
The Con Ed supervisor took the stand.
Venkman sat at the table and began to doodle. He knew what was coming. He'd been railroaded before.
Venkman battled to keep from dozing off as the supervisor rattled off a list of crimes that he, Stantz, and Spengler had inflicted on the poor streets of New York.
He snapped to when he noticed a court employee carry some very familiar equipment into the room and place it on a nearby table.
The prosecutor was still hammering away at the Con Ed man. "Mr. Fianella," she said, "please look at Exhibits A through F on the table over there. Do you recognize that equipment?"
Spengler, Stantz, and Venkman exchanged uh-oh glances as the Con Ed man surveyed the table. There, spread out on its top, were the basic tools of the Ghostbusting trade. Three proton packs and particle throwers. A few unsprung ghost traps. The Giga and PKE meters.
The Con Ed man nodded vigorously. "That's the stuff the cops found in their rented van."
"Do you know what this equipment is for?" the prosecutor asked.
"I don't know." The burly man shrugged. "Catching ghosts, I guess."
The prosecutor whirled toward the judge. "May I remind the court that the defendants are under a judi cial restraining order that specifically forbids them from performing services as paranormal investigators and eliminators?"
The judge with the ice-blue ferretlike eyes nodded.
"Duly noted."
"Now," the prosecutor continued, "can you identify the substance in the jar on the table marked Exhibit F?"
She walked over to the exhibit table and picked up a large specimen jar. In it was housed the slime sample Stantz had removed from the swirling, churning tunnel
floor.
The Con Ed man screwed up his face in confusion. "Lady," he said, "I been working underground for Con Ed for twenty-seven years and I never saw anything like that in my life. We checked out that tunnel real early this morning and we didn't find nothing. If it was down there, they must have put it down there."
Venkman and Spengler shot a suspicious look at Stantz. Ray withered under their gaze. "Hey," he said defensively, "I didn't imagine it. There must have been ten thousand gallons of it down there."
Egon Spengler stroked his square jaw. "It may be ebbing and flowing from some tidal source," he con cluded.
Louis leaned toward the two men, nearly knocking
over his books. "Should I say that?"
Spengler patted Louis's hand. "I doubt that they'd
believe us."
Louis uttered a plaintive moan and slithered farther down in his chair. Why couldn't he have taken the dry- cleaning course instead of law? By now, he would have known what one-hour Martinizing really meant.
The Con Ed man was dismissed, and within minutes
Peter Venkman found himself on the stand, facing his own lawyer, the rattled, diminutive Louis. Louis had been babbling for about a minute, Venkman encouraging him with a helpful nod, a wink, or a hearty "Hear, hear." That gave Venkman the chance to think of what he would do when he was finally paroled. Not much, he concluded.
"S-so," Louis said, stammering. "Like you were just trying to help out your old friend because she was scared and you didn't really mean to do anything bad, and you really love the city and won't ever do anything like this again, right?"
Before a smiling, modest Venkman could reply, the prosecutor was on her feet. "Objection, Your Honor! He's leading the witness."
The judge glared at Venkman. "The witness is lead ing him. Sustained."
Louis blinked. "Ummm, okay. Let me rephrase that question."
Venkman smiled sweetly at Louis as the little man chirped, "Mr. Venkman, didn't you once coach a basket ball team for underprivileged children?"
"Yes, I did," Venkman said proudly. "We were city champs."
"Objection!" the prosecutor spat. "Irrelevant and immaterial."
The judge sighed. "Sustained." He focused on Louis. "Mr. Tully, do you have anything to ask this witness that actually may have some bearing on this case?"
Louis turned to Venkman. "Do I?" he asked.
Venkman flashed Louis a reassuring smirk. "No, I think you've helped them enough already."