Brett Halliday: Blood on the Stars

“So?” He sprang up and helped her pull up two chairs, and enthusiastically explained his projected three-horse parlay while they breakfasted in the sun-drenched luxury of their corner suite.

When the meal was finished, Celia sat on the window seat and idly turned the pages of the morning paper while Mark dressed. She was restless and moody. Mark hadn’t mentioned any plans for the day. There would be the racetrack, of course. Mark was a reckless, inveterate, and lucky gambler. He had been like that ever since she had known him. Sometimes he lost, but always he recouped his losses a few days later. It didn’t matter how he gambled, on mining stocks, in poker games, or at the racetrack, he always won. In the early days of their marriage she had worried, but not any more. There was always plenty of money and she had gradually come to share his belief that there would always be plenty.

Laying the paper aside, she gazed out the east window and wished she might go swimming before the races. Mark usually wanted to, but he hadn’t mentioned it. Her spirits rose. Perhaps he had other plans. Perhaps he hadn’t forgotten.

Mark was dressed in fawn-colored slacks, blue sports shirt open at the neck, and a darker blue slouch jacket when he came into the living-room. The jacket had heavily padded shoulders that gave extraordinary breadth, tapering down to a lean waist and muscled hips. He was barely six feet tall, but the way he held himself gave the impression of greater height.

It wasn’t arrogance, Celia thought, just as she had a thousand times when she studied him with appraising eyes. It was self-assurance. The stance and carriage of a man who has met the world on equal terms and faced it down. From the stories he had told her of his youth, early days of prospecting for gold all over the globe, she had gained an insight into his character that fully explained his present attitude toward life. He had received no quarter from life in his youth, and now he neither asked for nor offered it. If he was ruthless in his business dealings it was because he had discovered long ago that only the ruthless survive in this modern world of rugged individualism. His movements had the smooth co-ordination of a man who keeps himself in trim, a physical sense of balance that matched his mental equilibrium.

Celia watched his approach with a swift rush of emotion that frightened her. He stopped in front of her and took a flat platinum cigarette case from his pocket, opened it and took out a cigarette, placed the cigarette between his lips, and lit it. There were three faint lines etched between his eyes as he studied the open case before returning it to his pocket.

“What would you like to do today?” There was an absent look in his gray eyes and his tone was flat.

“Whatever you’d like, Mark.” She tried to speak eagerly, but his voice, his whole expression told her he had forgotten. Then she saw his frown deepen, and she remembered he didn’t like to have her answer that way. He wanted her to have definite opinions and give a definite answer, but she waited hopefully.

He looked at his wrist watch and said, “It’s eleven-thirty. Suppose we take a ride and end up at the track in time for the first race.”

“I’d like that.” She kept her voice quiet and even, as though she meant exactly what she said. She got up and went past him into the bedroom to get her bag. She heard Mark call to order the roadster brought around, and he was waiting at the door when she came back.

Mark stopped at the bell captain’s desk. Celia stood a little back from him, scarcely looking at him when he spoke to the captain in a low voice. She wasn’t consciously listening to the conversation nor eavesdropping, but she heard the captain say, “I’d recommend Voorland, sir. On Lincoln Road near the bay.”

Mark Dustin said something in return. His low, perfectly modulated voice did not carry far, but she caught the question, “… very best in town?” spoken with a stronger inflection than the first of the sentence.

The bell-captain said emphatically, “Voorland has the highest reputation of any on the Beach.”

Mark thanked him and came back to Celia with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. He took her arm firmly and said too heartily, “I’ve been asking about a new place to try for lunch.” He moved her toward the door and they went out into the bright sunlight to wait for the sports roadster to be brought around from the garage.

Celia didn’t believe he had been inquiring about an eating-place, for neither of them ever ate lunch after a late breakfast. Despair settled over her again, and she wondered why she didn’t tell her husband what was in her heart and why men had to be such brutes.

Mark drove extremely well, as he did everything requiring muscular and mental co-ordination, his well-kept hands relaxed on the steering-wheel, handling the powerful eight-cylinder motor as deftly as Celia visioned him handling sixteen-mule teams and tons of ore in the Andes. He threaded his way easily into the stream of traffic going south on Collins Avenue, the breeze riffling the tufted curls on each side of his forehead.

Celia sat quietly beside him with her hands folded demurely in her lap. Her flaxen hair was coiled around her head in two thick braids, the sun brightening its natural luster. She was relaxed in a dreamlike acquiescence, slothfully conscious of the other sleek cars in front of them, of the rustling fronds of tall palms lining the roadway, the bright massed colors of Bougainvillaea and flamevine, the odor of tropical blossoms, and the languid sense of well being that pervades pleasure seekers who have eaten of Miami’s lotus, but her inward thoughts were on other things and other days.

She didn’t bother to rouse herself when Mark swung sharply westward onto the wide expanse of Lincoln Road with its ultra-modern shops bearing names famous the world over for smart fashions and extravagant prices. She wasn’t interested in fashions nor in shopping. There was a dull ache in her heart, and for the first time since their marriage she allowed herself to think what life would be if Mark stopped loving her.

It was too terrible to think about. Life would be only a void, empty and awful. After two years as Mrs. Mark Dustin she couldn’t go back to that other life. The intensity of her feelings frightened her and she clasped her hands together tightly to stop their trembling. She wouldn’t let herself look at her husband, though she knew that even a momentary glimpse of the debonair man beside her would reassure her. She was gripped in a nightmare of unreality which made her rigid.

The roadster came to a smooth stop, and Mark’s cheerful voice tore her away from the frightful vision of emptiness. He merely said, “Here we are,” but it was like a reprieve from some high authority when one is ascending to the gallows.

She sat erect with a start and saw that they were parked in front of a small modernistic building with lines unbroken by corners. A chaste sign over the door said W. Voorland. That was all. The curved plateglass windows were shrouded in shimmering silken drapes of royal purple.

Celia got out of the roadster and they started up the walk toward the door. A smart doorman bowed obsequiously and held the heavy glass door wide for them. They entered a thickly carpeted, air-conditioned room with subdued indirect lighting and elaborate modernistic chairs and couches grouped around small display tables.

Celia stopped just inside the door and looked at the glittering showcases lining both sides of the room. She caught her breath in an inarticulate gasp of delight. Her fingers tightened on her husband’s arm and she whispered, “You did remember, Mark. You didn’t forget!”

He smiled into her white, upturned face. “Of course I didn’t forget, Ceil. Let’s see if they’ve got anything you like.”