The fire captain offered a sad smile. "If I had a nuclear warhead ... maybe."

The mayor turned to Venkman.

"You know why all these things are happening?"

Venkman was angry now. "We tried to tell you last night, but Mr. Hard-on over here had us packed off to a loony bin."

Hardemeyer felt himself losing it. He didn't care. The Ghostbusters were his enemies. "This is preposter­ ous!" he whined. "You can't seriously believe all this mumbo jumbo, Mr. Mayor. It's the twentieth century, for crying out loud!"

He bared his teeth to Venkman. "Look, mister, I don't know what this stuff is or how you got it all over the museum, but you'd better get it off now, and I mean right now!"

Hardemeyer ran up to the museum's entrance like a madman possessed. He began to pound at the wall of slime with his fists.

Both the mayor and the Ghostbusters watched in amazement as the wall of slime seemed to give in for a fleeting instant. Hardemeyer's fist plunged through the wall. He flashed a defiant sneer at Venkman. His sneer, however, soon turned to something more closely resem­ bling the letter O.

Within seconds the wall promptly sucked Harde­ meyer inside the slime curtain, emitting a gushy, sloooooshing sound.

Before anyone had the time to react, Hardemeyer was gone.

Only his three-hundred-dollar shoes remained... hanging from the re-hardened wall of slime.

The mayor of New York emitted a heavy sigh. He turned to the Ghostbusters. "Okay," he whispered, "just tell me what you need."

28

The quartet of Ghostbusters sat stone- faced in the tiny diner with the mayor of New York City.

The mayor was sweating.

The Ghostbusters regarded him coolly.

Outside the small burger joint, a dozen security men patrolled silently.

The mayor was nearly in a state of panic. "Did you know the Titanic arrived this morning?"

Venkman nodded. "So I've heard, and I bet all the hotels have weird bookings... this being New Year's Eve and all."

"Don't get cute with me." The mayor barked. "Just tell me why all these things are happening!"

Venkman sipped his coffee. "We tried to, Yer Honor. But you wouldn't believe us. I don't wanna get too technical here, but basically, things are going to hell because people in New York act like jerks."

The mayor nearly swallowed his catsup-covered weenie. "What?"

Stantz smiled sweetly at the paranoid politician.

"Imagine an ocean's worth of bad vibes being poured into a small glass, the glass being this city. That's the situation we're up against. We have about four hours before that glass, under pressure from the flow, shat­ ters."

Winston took the opportunity to thrust a mighty forefinger into the mayor's chest. "Plus, you've got one mean lean Carpathian mother in that museum who is just ready and willing to pick up the pieces and go gung ho."

The mayor emitted a small moan. "And it had to happen in an election year. Well, who is this guy and what does he want?"

Stantz stared at the mayor. "He wants it all In every great social breakdown there has been some evil, power-mad nutball ready to capitalize on it. This one just happens to have been dead for at least three hun­dred years."

"It's happened before," Spengler informed the mayor. "Nero and Caligula in Rome. Hitler in Nazi Germany ..."

Stantz jumped in. "Stalin in Russia. The French Reign of Terror!"

Winston decided to put his two cents in: "Pol Pot? Idi Amin?"

Venkman turned toward the fidgeting mayor. "Car­ dinal Richelieu, George Steinbrenner, Donald Trump!"

The mayor caved in, his face resembling a three- day-old Mr. Potato Head. "But being miserable and stomping on people's dreams is every New Yorker's right... isn't it? What do you expect me to do? Go on the TV and tell eight million people that all of a sudden they have to be nice to each other?"

Venkman grinned, crocodile-style. "Naaaah. We'll handle that part. We only need one thing from you."

The mayor nodded up and down, like a Slinky toy.

He felt a sudden surge of relief. Dr. Venkman only needed one thing from him. Maybe the mayor would come out of this looking okay. Maybe next year's elec­ tion wouldn't be affected.

Then Venkman explained what the Ghostbusters needed.

At that point the mayor fainted.

29

Behind the Ghostbusters, the skyline of Manhattan sparkled radiantly, ready to embrace the New Year. They stood at the feet of the Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island, donning their new equipment. They strapped compression tanks to their backs and hooked up nozzles from their backpacks to the bazookalike weapons Stantz and Spengler had created. They adjusted the gauges, valves, and regulators on the prototypes of the latest ghostbusting weapons.

Weapons that were untested.

Weapons they had never used before.

Slime blowers.

Venkman tightened the shoulder straps on the slime blower, gazing up at the Statue of Liberty. "Kind of makes you wonder, doesn't it?"

"Wonder what?" Winston asked.

"If she's naked under that toga," Venkman replied. "She's French, you know."

Spengler missed the humor. "There's nothing under that toga but three hundred tons of iron and steel."

Venkman's face fell. Another dream dashed.

Stantz was clearly worried about their hastily con­ ceived plan of attack. "I hope we have enough stuff to do the job."

"Only one way to find out," Venkman said, facing Stantz. "Ready, Teddy?"

Venkman and Stantz entered the base of the statue and began the long, torturous climb up the spiraling iron staircase within Lady Liberty. The staircase cork­ screwed some one hundred feet inside the hollow su­ perstructure.

Down below, at the base of the statue, Spengler and Winston assembled hundreds of wires connected to dozens of relays. They carefully mounted the relays to the interior of the gigantic structure.

At the top of the stairs, Venkman and Stantz installed large auditorium-sized loudspeakers on a section of the statue near Lady Liberty's head.

That done, Stantz raised his slime blower and gazed at the interior of the Statue of Liberty. "Okay, boys," he commanded. "Let's frost it."

Venkman and Stantz let loose with wave after wave of psycho-reactive slime. Venkman watched the slime ooze down the interior of the statue, hoping that the plan worked.

Hoping that he and his ghostbusting buddies had the wherewithal to save Dana and her child.

Across the river, in the slime-encrusted museum, Janosz smiled in front of the massive portrait of his master, Vigo. Dana sat helplessly in a corner, watching her baby float, suspended in midair, below the horrible face of Vigo.

Janosz, brush in hand, walked merrily up to the baby and carefully began painting mystical symbols on its little arms and legs.

Dana felt faint.

The symbols were identical to the ones Janosz had uncovered on the ancient portrait.