Dana blushed slightly. "Oh, I'm sorry. This is Peter Venkman. Peter, Janosz Poha."
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.