The tabloid was soon forgotten, and a few days later, Ray and Egon found themself stuck in traffic on one of New York's various busy streets. It was late in the evening, sometime after six, and the two Ghostbusters, though no stranger to traffic jams, were annoyed. They were on their last scheduled call of the day, and rather eager to get it over with.
"You ever been to Dikeman's Clockworks, Egon?" Asked Ray, gripping the steering wheel tightly.
Egon was busy adjusting the wiring on a small, black, breadbox-sized gadget he had in his lap, and didn't look away from it as he spoke.
"Not personally. But a long time ago, my father bought one of those cat clocks with the rotating eyes from there. I dismantled it and used its parts to build a device that could be used to accelerate the decomposition of various kinds of market produce."
Ray nodded. As Egon spoke, the traffic began to speed up a bit, and he accelerated to match it.
"Think you can tell me more about this call? I know it's at the shop, but other than that…"
"Apparently one of their grandfather clocks has started shouting profanity at customers, giggling, and making obscene gestures at women."
"I see," replied Ray. "By obscene gestures, you mean-"
"Supposedly a ghostly hand appears in front of the clock face and extends its middle finger."
Ray nodded. "Sounds like a run-of-the-mill, class one, focused vapor if you ask me. It should only take a couple seconds to extract."
Egon stopped fiddling with his device and looked up for a moment.
"You mean a class two? A hand supposedly manifested, which means at least part of the entity has managed to enter our plane of existence."
"Yeah, that's right," Ray said, loosening his grip on the steering wheel a bit. "Sorry. I skipped lunch, so I'm kinda hungry. Why don't we stop somewhere and grab a bite on the way back?"
But Egon didn't reply. He had gone back to working on the mysterious gadget. Ray shrugged, and turned the down a street.
"This must be it," Ray said as he peered out the left window.
An enormous clock made out of concrete towered above a tall, brick building. Under said clock, situated above a big, green door, was a wooden sign which read;
DIKEMAN'S CLOCKS AND CLASSIC TIMEPIECES
Ray pulled the car up to the green door, and shut off the engine. He and Egon stepped out of the car and went around to the back to retrieve their proton packs. As Ray was extracting his, he suddenly noticed something rather alarming. The hose that connected the neutrona wand to his pack was completely detached on the wand end.
"Damn," Ray grumbled. "That's what I get for asking Venkman to fix it."
He went around to the side of the car to grab a toolbox from the back seat.
"Egon, you mind going in first to do a preliminary survey? My hose came off again."
"Alright," Egon said as he clipped himself into his pack. "But be quick about it. We're not supposed to go solo."
Egon walked over to the front door and opened it, then stepped inside. He immediately found himself standing in a well-lit room filled to the brim with nearly every kind of clock imaginable. Big clocks, small clocks, clocks shaped like apples, cuckoo clocks that played various licensed tunes, and even a few sundials. There were so many clocks in the room that Egon could barely move around with the proton pack without almost knocking something over or bumping into one of several grandfather clocks that seemed to be strewn around the room at random.
After a few slow, careful minutes, Egon finally squeezed his way over to the front desk. A somewhat plump, middle aged woman was leaning over the desk, looking down at some miscellaneous paperwork, so she wasn't aware of his presence at first. But after a few moments of silence, she looked up, and a sudden look of alarm spread over her face.
"I suspect you're one of those… Ghostbusters?" she asked hesitantly.
"Yes," Replied Egon. "I'm Dr. Egon Spengler. We received a call from the owner concerning an obscene grandfather clock?"
"Y-yes… That's true, but…"
Egon suddenly pulled his PKE meter out of its holster and pointed it at the woman, who jumped back in surprise.
"Have you ever experienced-"
"Hold that thought!" The nervous woman said quickly, before retreating into a back room behind the counter and slamming the door behind her.
Egon raised an eyebrow, and attempted to look through the tiny window in the back room's door, but at that moment his meter began to buzz and beep, so he quickly forgot about the woman's strange reaction and started heading in the direction the PKE trail seemed to lead.
After another minute of carefully squeezing past clocks, Egon finally found what he was looking for. A rather ordinary, plain-looking grandfather clock tucked in the back corner of the room. If it weren't for the PKE readings emanating from the clock, he probably wouldn't have even remotely suspected it was haunted. Egon lifted the meter to the clock face, and as he did so, the sound of a loud raspberry being blown emanated from within.
A couple of seconds later, Ray's voice crackled out of Egon's walkie-talkie.
"Alright, Egon. I got it fixed. Have you found the clock yet?"
Egon lifted his radio to his mouth. "I have, Ray. It's in the back left corner of the shop. But before you come in, could you grab the Paranormal Eradication and Expulsion Device for me? It should still be in the passenger's seat."
"The PEED?" replied Ray's voice. "You sure we'll need it? I was hoping to run a couple more tests on it just to fine tune it before we used it in the field. And maybe give it a name change."
"We know it works, Ray," said Egon. "And this is an opportune moment to test it. It's hard enough to find ghosts that attach themselves to physical objects as it is."
"Okay then," said Ray. "I'll be there in a second."
Egon reattached his radio, and was trying to figure out where the PEED should be attached, when all of a sudden, a furious looking bald man quickly maneuvered his way through the clocks and stormed up to him.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?!" The man shouted.
Egon was stunned. He opened his mouth to speak, but the bald man quickly cut him off.
"I'm Joe Dikeman, the owner of this shop, and I demand to know why you, Dr. Spengler, are here when I specifically insisted over the phone that you stay the hell away?!"
Egon quickly tried to regain his composure.
"Sir, I'm afraid we can't honor specific requests. The Ghostbusters Inc. team needs every man on deck when-"
A deafening BANG suddenly sounded from the front of the room. Egon and Dikeman looked in the direction it came from, and saw a rather sheepish looking Ray looking back at them. He had knocked over a grandfather clock.
"Sorry about that, sir," Ray said, attempting to make his way towards them while wearing a proton pack and carrying the PEED at the same time. "I-oops!"
His pack bumped into a clock made of glass, which fell to the ground and shattered. Dikeman's head turned red as an apple.
"What is this man doing here?!" he shouted, pointing at Egon as if he were a ugly avant-garde sculpture.
"Dr. Spengler is one of our team members," said Ray, gingerly stepping over the glass.
"I know that!" grunted Dikeman. "But I specifically requested that you leave him behind!"
"Sir, we can't pick and choose who gets sent out on our calls," said Ray. "The Ghostbusters are a team of trained and fully qualified professionals who are experts-ow!"
(Ray had bumped his elbow into a wall and knocked down a cuckoo clock.)
"-experts that are indispensable. So we have to-"
"Forget it!" interrupted Dikeman "I shoulda never hired a bunch of guys who associate with a menace."
"What?"
Egon looked shocked. Ray bit his lip.
"Sir, you know the tabloids-"
"I'm not talking about the tabloids! I'm talking about the evening news! 'Egon Spengler: A Modern Frankenstein'."
"What are you talking about?" Egon asked.
"Don't play dumb with me, Spengler," Dikeman replied. "I know you infected half your chemistry class with poisonous spores as a kid. And performed lobotomies on your neighbor's cats!"
Egon looked over at Ray, eyes wide, as if to ask "Where the hell is he getting this?" but Ray seemed to be having trouble opening his mouth. Finally, after a few moments, Ray said,
"None of that is true. The report was completely falsified! And there's no evidence to prove any of it."
"It's okay, Ray," Egon said after being silent for such a long time. "The-"
But Ray wasn't having it.
"Mr. Dikeman, either you allow us to remove your ghost, or we leave it here, where it can flip off your customers for eternity if you like," he said in a tone that seemed to be threatening.
Dikeman looked at Ray. Then Egon. Then his haunted clock. He looked around at the damage caused by Ray. He looked over at the front desk. He then looked at the ceiling. After that, he closed his eyes and was silent for a few, long, agonizing moments. Finally, he opened his eyes.
"I'll take the ghost. Get out, or I'll call the cops."