DISCLAIMER: I, Cliff Roswell, do not own the intellectual property Ghostbusters, nor do I own the property Twin Peaks. Repsectively, Columbia/TriStar, Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ivan Reitman as well as David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti do. I do not own some of the names mentioned in this story either, as they are "in-jokes" for the Ghostbusters Community. A lot of the other stuff is original, but inspired by Frank Miller's Sin City, which I do not also own.
With that in mind, please enjoy.
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Whatever It Takes
A Supernatrual Yarn
by Cliff Roswell
A saxaphone wailed into the dense air as I sat down at a table. The band was just warming up when I enetered the bar, and they were starting to get into full swing.
The drums kicked in with a toe-tapping rhythm as Sabrina brought me my usual: whiskey and soda with a bourbon chaser. My fingers jumped along in time to the music. I couldn't stop them. Never could. Quick drumming always had that affect on me, always keeping me in time with whoever was holding the sticks.
I tried to keep my mind on business, but that damn sax wailed again, that smoky, sensual sound that really accentuates a beautiful broad with a great set of gams. My thoughts strayed to my old flame, Becky, but I put a stop to that.
Business, I reminded myself, but still I ached to see her one more time, once more...
Oh, the band was really cooking, tying together a slow jazz melody with some of that old, classic rock-n-roll, the kind you never hear any more. The kind that you have to ask the guy at the music store to let you into his secret stash, because he's too sick of all this techno/cookie-cutter bullshit that the industry's passing off as music these days. I catch a whiff of classic Elvis mixed in with Ray Charles and Cab Calloway...and the sax picks up again, wailing a melancholy but sexy tune that makes one ache for their lost love...or a nearest alternative.
My wish for a great pair of gams is granted, and a smoking-hot blonde trails out on the dance floor...or what's left of it. Kent's Place used to be a great, upscale joint...band trained in the classics...bar stocked with the finest vintage booze and a nice assortment of antique wines (if you're into that sort of thing)...but that was before the depression.
God, that woman's beautiful. Blonde hair swirls around her head in loose coils as she dances to the melody...tight, green leather dress hugging her every curve, cut very low where it should, and high where you'd not expect it...and legs...legs that go on for miles, seeming to have a life of their own as they move smoothly across the dusty, cigarette-butt-and-alcohol encrusted dance floor...almost like living liquid.
Immediately, desire springs forth in me, wanting me--nay, urging me to leap across the bar, take her in my arms, and not let go for ages, making sweet, passionate love on and on and on...
Business, my rational mind chides me, not pleasure.
Others join the woman on the floor, dancing and gyrating to the music, living a life not known to them moments before, but seemingly at the back of their minds, waiting for the right moment to burst forth like a caged animal.
My hand slides to my jacket pocket, and I pull out the device. It's a box, basically, roughly three inches long, two inches wide, and barely an inch thick, with a small screen set in the upper third section of the top side. There are buttons on it, and a dial, but I have no real clue as to how to use those. All's I know is the "On/Off" switch, and that's good enough for me.
I'm a simple guy.
I thumb the small power switch with my thumb and take a shot of my whiskey and soda. The sweetly bitter taste slides down my gullet, making me cringe and grin at the same time. Oh, how I've missed you, old friend.
The screen flickers to life, showing me a quick welcome message. "Stay Safe!" It beckons. Damn Cingular sponsorship. Always gets on my nerves.
Discreetly, I swing the device from one side of the room to the other, never taking my eyes off the small screen. The tiny writing hurts my eyes, which aren't what they used to be, and the alcohol kicks in, making it even tougher to read what the damn box says.
I shake my head, trying to clear it, then take a shot of the bourbon chaser. It jolts me. Must be some new kind of alcohol, fused with anti-oxidants or vitamins or whatever the hell they're puttin' in the booze that shouldn't go there in the first place. Whatever it had, it worked. My vision's better than it has been in years.
There's a tempo change, moving from a jazz to a slow-dance, the kind that your parents' parents' parents' parents used to dance to. Shit, the band's pullin' out all the stops tonight, playing music that hasn't been heard in decades...unless you're the obscenely rich with the proper strings to pull.
It takes a second, but the song registers in my head, and I look up from the box. Sure enough, there's a blonde onstage, wearing an antique dress: low-cut, white with black polka-dots, wide skirt with more undergarments than twenty people wear in a month in this day and age. Gloved hands caress an antique mike as she croons into it with lips painted a deep, rich red...another melancholy tune that really tugs at the heartstrings.
The Nightingale...I haven't heard that in ages. Not since Becky and I were together. "Our song," she called it. God knows where she found it. She told me once...something about being from an old teevee show from before the turn of the century...obscure, but it fit us, fit our relationship.
A tear winds its way out of my eye and rolls down my cheek. Hastily, I wipe it away. Getting too caught up in my memories...got business to do.
A thought wanders through my mind. I wonder what Becky's doing now...or even if that's her up onstage. Cosmetic changes can be done in seconds now...but, no. I'd know. I would tell from the sound of her voice...and though this dame's good...she ain't Becky.
The room's hot, stifling, with thick clouds of cigarette smoke and reeking of booze with an underlying scent of vomit. It's a smell I'm used to. Been around it all my life.
Despite the heat, I feel a cold chill race up my spine, rattle my brain, then plummet into my gullet, where it hardens into a rock-hard ball of ice. A split-second later, the box beeps softly, confirming what I felt. There's one here, I can tell. Got a whiff of it when I walked in, and now my gut plays catch-up.
Used to be, I didn't need the little box. Just relied on my own cognizance. But like I said. I ain't what I used to be.
The box buzzes in my hand, lights on the screen shooting into the red. There's one here, all right. And I got a good idea who it is.
The blonde onstage croons out the last note of The Nightingale, milking it for as long as she can. Her violet eyes close, and she bows her head. The spolight fades, leaving the blue stage lights to bathe her and the band in a comforting yet eerie glow. Polite applause breaks out, sparingly. I join in, mostly for memories' sake. The singer steps out of the blue lights, seeming to fade from reality.
The band starts up again, tempo a little quicker this time, and the slow-dancers retreat to their respective tables. The girl in the green leather and mile-long legs stays, dancing to the beat, slave to the music.
I pocket my box, take a final shot of whiskey-and-soda and the bourbon chaser, and slam the glasses upside-down on the stained and scratched table. My fingers instinctively tap to the beat --an interesting melange of jazz and heavy metal-- as I stand and make my way to the dance floor.
When I arrive, the girl in green leather's dancing up a storm, tossing a few licks on an air guitar with a few stripper moves. She takes immediate notice of my appearance, but doesn't stop moving, but raises her arms above her head and gyrates her hips, a pure gypsy move...and well executed, too. "You like what you see, Tall, Dark and Handsome?" She says, licking her lips.
I want to say "Yes, I do," but my rational brain pipes up again. Business, it commands. Regrettably, I say, "I'd like to talk with you." God, I wanted to say "yes."
"So talk," she says, dancing around and brushing up against me. I inhale, imagining Becky's perfume, that sweet mixture of vanilla and roses, but getting a pungent whiff of mangoes, chocolate, and something unnatural. My nose doesn't like the smell, and it almost gives the "Evacuate" signal to my gut. I fight the urge to vomit.
"I'd like to talk with you...in private."
The babe in green slowly rubs herself against my front, giving me a nice view of the Tetons, and licks her lips. "Oooh," she coos. "Party boy. I like."
I fight another urge, one in my nether regions, and grip her arm. "Not like that."
A perfectly plucked eyebrow quirks upwards, a questioning gesture, then she gives me another look. I don't give her enough time, and start pulling her to the rear exit. She tries to resist, but I won't stop until we're out the door. The music drowns out her protests...not that anybody would care. Stuff like this happens all the time in my city.
The back door slams shut and we're in a small alley, brick wall all around us. Though muted, we can still hear the music through the heavy steel door.
"I don't party like this," she says as I let go of her arm.
"Ain't no partying to be done," I say gruffly, and stare her right in the eyes. Despite her beauty and the harsh flourescent light, her eyes are dead-looking. Not a speck of life in those pale green orbs.
"I'm on the job," I tell her.
Her face hardens. "Shit. You're a PKA, aren't you?"
I nod. "Yeah. An' you're a Trannie."
"Hey, fuck you!" She slaps me in the face. Hard. I flinch at the blow, but stand my ground. "I don't need this shit!" She throws her hands in the air, pissed off. "I get so much shit from everyone, why the fuck are you comin' down on me like this!"
"Kent's is a Lifer's Only joint," I say calmly. "No transmortalities allowed. You know that."
She sighs then, something akin to a death rattle. It's not exact, but damn close. "How'd you finger me?"
Calmly, I pull out the small box. Technically, it's a Spengler Mark Seven, considered to be an outdated and obsolete model compared to the Baugh/Belmont Mark Tens the force is using today. The Mark Sevens were built back in the Thirties, the last model ever built by Spengler. Fixed the patent right before he died, the brilliant madman.
The girl in green sighs again and shakes her head, blonde curls bouncing around her pale, pale skin as I replace the Mark Seven.
"What're you doing here, Angie?" I use her real name, her dead name, the one known by most of the guys in the Ten-Seventeen.
She glares at me like I'm a piece of crap in her cereal bowl. "Workin'," is all she says.
I give a half-laugh. " 'Working'?"
"I got mouths to feed. I need the money."
"What for? You're a glob of ectoplasm in a proto-polymer suit. Ectoplasm doesn't eat."
She grabs me by the lapels and slams me up against the brick wall. I grunt in pain as she gets in my face. Her beautiful polymer suit distends as her plasmic makeup gets more agitated, stretching her face. "What the fuck do you know about me! About my kind! Huh! Have you or those moronic PK Agents ever stop to think about my family?"
I frowned. She shook me, and cracked my head against the brick wall, possibly to knock some sense into me, but probably just because of anger.
"I have my descendents to take care of!" She slapped me again, hard. I was starting to remember a few fun times I had with Becky back in the day, but pushed the memories aside. "I got twenty-odd grandchildren running around the Barrows, and they're all under twelve. They're in the shittiest orphanage in the city, and I gotta do whatever I can to take care of them all!" She sniffed loudly, ectoplasmic tears running down the polymer cheeks, leaving sticky trails of slime. "They're all in the Fortieth Street Orphanage," she sobbed, "and they ain't got no one to take care of them..."
I held her, gently, as she cried. She leaned against my chest and let it all out. Once again, Becky sprang to the forefront of my mind. Back in her "Working Days," she used to cry like this. There was an upheaval in the natural order of the city, and pimps came back into "style." But they were harsh, abusive, and rotten to the core. And Becky had the worst of them all. I took a day off from work, left my badge at home, and hunted down the bastard. I killed the pimp...and then I killed his ghost.
Becky was my angel...and I was her protector.
Angie sniffed loudly, finished crying for the moment, and dried her tears on a green handkerchief that she removed from her ample bosom. I silently wondered if the leather dress and handkerchief had been another color to begin with, before Angie or another Ecto-American got ahold of them.
"They're shutting it down, the orphanage," she said, pulling me out of my thoughts. "The city officials won't pay for the upkeep anymore...and they're gonna..." She hiccupped, and started to cry again. "They're gonna...gonna start putting down the kids that aren't adopted." She blew her nose and gestured to her body-suit. "Why do you think I'm doing this?" She asked me, her voice thick. "For the sheer pleasure of doing so?"
I didn't know what to say, so I kept my trap shut.
"I got eight other gals, living and dead, working for me. Together, we're a charity. 'Course, we don't tell our...clients that. We raise enough money to keep that damn orphanage open." She swallowed, and continued. "It ain't pretty, what we do, but us dead girls...we go a lot longer than the living. Which is why I'm here. I'm trying to get business, so I can keep my grandkids alive for a few more weeks."
A thought occured to me. "Twenty grandchildren?"
"Collectively." She stuffed the hankie down between her breasts, and a part of me wanted to go with it. "Me and the other dead girls."
She looked around, suddenly, eyes flicking back and forth, then dropped her voice to a whisper. "But the thing is...the city officials don't like it. We've been on our toes this past week, 'cause we heard that there's a coupla hit men gunning for us."
That really caught my attention. Never mind the prior offenses, even the prostitution...this goes a lot deeper than a dead girl screwin' a live guy for cash.
"Shelly, one of my Lifers? She said that the order came down from the Mayor himself." Angie licked her lips. "Something about cleaning filth from the city streets and getting rid of all the...what was it? The 'useless appendages,' he called it."
"Meaning you, your girls, and the kids?"
Angie nodded, then brushed a stray hair behind an ear. "I can't get busted again," she said. "I...I gotta keep goin'...Whatever it takes."
Whatever it takes... Those words rebounded through my addled brain. One of the last things I said to Becky before she disappeared. I'll protect you, Becky, keep you safe...I'll do whatever it takes...
I nod, mostly at the memory.
"Whaddaya say, Jack?" She pouts, a look that would make men's hearts melt at a mere glance. "Can I get back to work?" She smiles coyly at me, and runs her hands over my shoulders and down my chest. She plays with my tie with one hand, while the other travels south. God, she knows how to push my buttons...
I take a deep, steadying breath, and take her hands in my own, holding them away from anything below the border. "All right," I say after a moment.
She grins a somewhat happy grin, which turns into a slight grimace at the thought of what she has to do.
"But," I say, "but...keep out of Lifers' Only joints." I look around then, searching for anyone who might be listening. Finding none, I continue. "Or, if you absolutely have to...be damn careful. Don't get caught."
"I won't," she says, "I swear."
"Good." I let go of her hands. "Whatever it takes..." I say. "I'll do my best to get to the bottom of this, see if I can't help out best I can. Meantime..." I gave her a playful slap on her ass. Damn, the new models feel lifelike. Creepy...but...not unpleasant. "...Stay out of trouble."
"I knew you couldn't resist a cheap feel," she said, playing with my tie again. "Might have to charge you for that."
"Angie...I'm a PKA. A cop."
"So I'll open a tab, huh?" She yanked on my tie and pulled me in close. Next thing I knew, her lips were on mine, and her tounge was probing the interior of my mouth. Her scent was one thing...but her taste? Otherworrldly.
Haven't been kissed like this in a long time.
What the hell...enjoy it while it lasts.
After what seems like hours, we part. She stares at me hungrily, breasts heaving in the night, and I try to calm myself down. A cold shower seems in order...or the next available alternative.
"I'm on the clock, Angie."
"So am I," she says huskily.
Slowly, achingly, I hold her away from me, fighting every urge to take her in my arms and not let go for days and days. "You got work to do," I tell her.
She looks away, ashamed, then nods. "I'll...I'll see you again...Jack?" She looks up at me from under midnight-blue eyeshadow, making the heart-melting pouty-face.
I hesitate for a second, then nod. I can't bear to see a woman cry. I'm a tough guy, hard-boiled to the core...but seeing something so vulnerable in so much pain...I couldn't stand it with Becky, my other two girlfriends before her...and I sure as hell can't stand it now.
"Yeah," I tell her. "I'll finish that kiss."
A smile quirks the corner of her shapely mouth. "First one's always free," she says, then turns and walks away, green leather high-heeled shoes clicking on the pavement, echoing into the night.
I start to turn back towards the door to Kent's when I hear Angie call out to me one last time. "Hey," she says.
I turn and see her perfectly posed under a streetlamp, merchandise on display for anyone and everyone to see.
"You...you'll protect me, right? ...Wh-when I need you?"
I pull a plastic card out of my coat pocket and toss it down the street. It spins in the night, flicking in and out of darkness and light...and then Angie catches it.
"Call that number anytime you need me," I tell her. "I'll come as fast as I can."
She looks as me, some life in her eyes, and suddenly, there's Becky, crying in my arms as I hold her on my couch and asking me if I'll protect her.
"Whatever it takes?" Angie asks.
I nod. "Whatever it takes...I'll protect you."
She looks down at the card, nods at me, then steps backwards out of the light, seeming to fade from existance, into the darkness of the night.
I stare at the spot where she was for a few minutes, sunk deep into memories, both far in the past and a few minutes ago. Through the door, I hear the opening chords of The Nightingale. Seems to be a popular song tonight. I press on the latch, open the door, and slip back into that familiar stench of beer, smoke, and faint vomit. Sure enough, the beautiful blonde in the black-and-white dress is crooning into the mike, telling us all about a lost love. I guess everyone's lost someone they've loved. It's happened to me before, on several occasions...
But I won't let it happen again.
I'm on the clock.
And I've got a job to do.
To Be Continued...