Heaven is a Place on Earth Read Online Free Page B

bar set atop the Empire State Building, featuring spectacular views across night-time Manhattan and waitresses with seamed stockings and bright red lipstick. A pianist tinkled out jazz standards and the lighting was suited to quiet liaisons between fat middle-aged men in three-piece suits and their young, blonde companions in tight, satin dresses. Ginny liked to go there when she had lots to talk about and had dragged Della there despite her friend's protests, because tonight was definitely one of those nights.
    “ And then he told me that Cal had gone off the Net. His tag is no longer working.”
    “ What?”
    “ I know. This is all so weird, I can't get my head around it.”
    A waitress appeared and Ginny ordered two more Martinis.
    “Steady girl,” said Della. “It's all right for you self-employed types, but I've got to go to work in the morning.”
    “ Turn off your drip, then. After a day like today, I need the booze.” Most tanks these days would feed an alcohol solution into your veins, at a rate matched to your virtual consumption, so that drinking in bars could deliver the genuine pre-augmentation experience.
    Della rolled her eyes and took a pull at her drink. “What the hell? Why should you have all the fun? Tell me more.”
    “That's it, really. The cop left and I sat and brooded all day until you left work.”
    “ Have you tried calling Cal again?”
    “ Like every ten minutes!” She sipped her drink and stared out at the tiny lights of cars moving between the skyscrapers. “What do you think, Della? Should I take the package to Detective Sergeant Dickhead and just wash my hands of it all?”
    Della looked at her with sympathetic eyes. “You like Cal don't you?”
    “What's that got to do with anything?” Ginny said, although she knew perfectly well what Della meant.
    “ You're worried about him.”
    “ Well, duh. The guy disappears without trace, the police are after him, and before he leaves, he asks me to deliver a mysterious package. Of course I'm worried. The cop said he might be dead.”
    “ And you haven't opened the package?”
    “ No. I don't want to know what's in it. I don't want to be more involved in this than I have to be.”
    Della grinned and looked into her friend's eyes. “You're going to deliver it, aren't you? Oh my God, you're going to go and see this crim – what's his name?”
    “Gavin.”
    “ Gavin – and give him the drugs, or whatever. You've made up your mind already, haven't you?”
    “ No. That's why I'm here. So you can talk me into doing the sensible thing.”
    “ Which is what?”
    “ Well, going to the police, I suppose.”
    Still grinning, Della picked up her glass and sat back, watching Ginny over the rim. “The philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre, once had a student come up to him after a lecture and ask – ”
    “What the hell are you taking about?” Della had studied French Literature at university and was full of anecdotes about people Ginny had never heard of.
    Della just grinned more widely. “The student asked the great man for his advice about breaking up with his girlfriend.” Ginny sighed heavily and resigned herself to listening to whatever this nonsense was. “Sartre dismissed the lad with an airy wave of his hand saying, 'You already know what to do. Don't bother me with questions to which you already know the answer.' 'But – but –' the boy stammered – ”
    “Della, for heavens' sake. Does this have a point? I need you to talk sense right now.”
    “ That's just it. Sartre told the student off because the boy must have known already what his teacher thought about the matter and that's why he went to Sartre for advice and not someone else. He didn't really want advice, he just wanted authority for a decision he'd already made.”
    “ And you think that's why I asked you out tonight, so you can tell me what I want to hear?”
    “ Précisément !”
    “ Well I wish I'd asked Kerry.”
    “ Kerry's too timid. She'd have said go