The Spiked Heel

8

It was quiet and lonely in the office with both Aaron and Griff gone. She had never realized before just how much life they added to her working day. She knew, of course, that with Guild Week less than a month off both men had a hell of a lot of work to do in preparation, but it still seemed unfair of them to leave her alone up here on the ninth floor. Oh, there were diversions, true enough, but somehow they weren’t the same. Danny Quinn was a nice enough fellow, and she appreciated his stopping in to chat every now and then, but he always talked of his coming baby, and a girl can get sort of fed up with that sort of thing after a while.

And Magruder came in often, too, but he only came to look at her legs, and he looked at her legs differently, in a way that made her want to pull her skirt down to her ankles. It was one thing to appreciate, and another to drool. Aaron and Griff were sincere appreciators. They made her feel good, but they didn’t make her feel naked. There was a difference.

Unless a girl were an out-and-out-flirt.

She did not consider herself that. She had begun showing her legs when she was fifteen, when she first realized she had something to show. She had abhorred the New Look when it popped onto the fashion scene, despising the long skirts that showed little more than her ankle. She’d cheated a little even then, wearing her skirts higher than most, but still not too high to be called unfashionable. And, oh, she had flirted, and she still flirted, and her legs were certainly her most valuable persuaders, but there was a vast difference between a girl who flirted occasionally and a girl who made it a profession. She showed her legs because they were good to look at, the way a girl with a thirty-eight bust favors low-cut blouses.

Well, in any case, there was no one to look at her legs now, not even Magruder. It was annoying, Aaron and Griff running around the factory costing samples like that. Of course, the samples were stunning, and, oh, that alligator lizard shoe had been a dream. In her mind, she formed a vague picture of herself modeling that shoe at the Guild Week showings, wearing a trim suit perhaps, a good Engish tweed maybe, or something with a man-tailored cut; those should go well with the reptile. She burst the bubble almost instantly, a little miffed because she knew her legs were a lot better than those of half the models Kahn used.

She took her purse from the desk drawer and reached for her lipstick, lipstick brush, and mirror. She touched up her lips idly, not feeling like working in an empty office. Working in an empty office was too much like work. She put the stuff back into her purse and then rummaged around among the items inside, as if she were seeing them for the first time. She fished out the identification card that had been issued to her just the day before. It had never occurred to her, before the card was issued, that anyone but a Julien Kahn employee would want to get into the factory. Besides, didn’t the watchmen know everyone who worked here?

And why would anyone want to sneak in? He certainly couldn’t sneak out again, not carrying stolen shoes or anything. Abruptly, she remembered the memo that had come around concerning the girl in Packing. That had been something, all right; why hadn’t the silly thing simply gone to Mauro in Wholesale Adjustment? He’d have fixed her with a pair of slightly damaged shoes at cost, and really the damage was usually so slight that no one could even notice it unless you pointed it out specifically. Well, perhaps the girl was an inborn crook; there were people like that, she supposed.

Perhaps that’s why the identification cards had been issued. Oh, not to prevent anyone from walking out with anything, because that was almost impossible anyway, although she had heard of girls walking out with shoes under their armpits, wearing heavy boxcoats, in the wintertime. But those were isolated examples, and she was sure the identification cards couldn’t stop something like that anyway. But supposing an I. Miller spy sneaked into the factory and stole all our patterns? Or someone from Andrew Geller’s. Now, that was something to contend with. Now that every employee had an identification card, it would be a little difficult for any unauthorized person to get in.

She looked at the celluloid card. The front of the card was printed with a very colorful design, and she studied that now. The card was mostly red, except for a white disk in its center. The red was a bright cheerful scarlet, and the white glistened like snow. In the center of the white disk, the artist had placed the bold black silhouette of a fashion shoe. It was really quite effective, and certainly distinctive. She turned the card over and read the back with her name and description, together with the department in which she worked. Of course, the watchmen never looked at the back of the card. During the past few days, she had only flashed it at the gate. Still, there was something very nice about having the card in her purse, like belonging to a sorority or something; oh, that was silly, but it made her feel that way nonetheless, sort of proud that she worked for Julien Kahn. She shrugged and put the card back into her purse.

When she looked up, McQuade was standing there. He gave her a start, and she sucked in an involuntary gasp.

“I’m sorry,” he said, smiling. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“You came up so quietly, Mr. McQuade,” she said, letting out her breath.

He glanced around the office quickly. “All alone, Marge?”

“Yes,” she said, thankful for his presence. “Isn’t it a drudge?”

“I suppose it can be,” McQuade said. He walked over to the windows and looked out over the surrounding rooftops. She wondered what time it was, and glanced at her watch swiftly. Three-thirty. Romeo and Juliet would have gone back to work long ago. She found herself sighing with relief, and she wondered abruptly if she were really thankful for McQuade’s presence. There was something frightening about him, oh, not his power, not that, so he was from Titanic, so what, that had nothing whatever to do with it. If Titanic didn’t like the way she worked, they could fire her. She’d certainly have no trouble getting a job elsewhere. But there was something too masculine about him, something animalistic almost, something almost supernaturally animal, like a prime gorilla specimen. She could visualize him in a museum someplace, tagged like the other animals as a superexample of Homo sapiens. And this was what frightened her. She had never known anyone quite so handsome. The other men she’d known had all possessed their own personal flaws, but she searched in vain for a flaw in McQuade’s physical appearance. However, this perfection — rather than elevating him above other men, as a man among lesser men — had somehow lowered him to the status of animal, pure animal. He was the golden dream of every adolescent American girl, bulging with impossible muscles, grinning with impossible smiles. She could smell manhood on him. She could smell masculinity, the way a cow in heat can smell a bull, and in much the same way the smell frightened her. He was too much a man, and so he had been labeled with scientific precision: Gorilla. Ox. Man.

She did not pretend that he was unstimulating. The first time he had walked into the office, she had been completely overwhelmed. That first day — she could still remember it clearly — she had involuntarily lifted her skirts for him, showing her legs, pretending she was worried about a run, but not pretending the way she did with Aaron and Griff, pretending in a compulsive way, a startling reflexive way that urged her to lift her skirts, forced her to show her legs to this superior being. She had been ashamed immediately afterward, but she could still remember the way she wiggled her backside on the way out of the office, even with the shame still upon her, even then, as if she had to show this man that somehow she too possessed a beauty, as if she were offering her very small beauty before the shining altar of his magnificent splendor.

He had not seemed to notice. She knew there were many men who only pretended indifference, but she suspected McQuade’s attitude was not a pose.

She had diligently fought the compulsion ever since. When McQuade was in the office, the skirts of Marge Gannon were tucked demurely about her legs. She sat upon them like a prim spinster. But she could not kid herself into thinking the compulsion was not there. She was always aware of him physically, aware in a painfully curious female way, mystified by her own chemical reaction to his maleness.

“I’ve heard fantastic things about our neighboring rooftops,” McQuade said drily.

“Have you?” she said. She automatically tucked her skirts tighter under her, and then began typing.

“Yes.” He dismissed the topic with that single word and turned from the windows. “So what is our pretty little typist working on today?” he asked; smiling.

“Toil, toil, labor and toil,” she chanted. In truth, she hadn’t been working on a hell of a lot since long before lunchtime.

“I’ve always envied people who could type,” McQuade said. “The typewriter will always be a maliciously complex instrument, as far as I’m concerned.”

“Can’t you type?” Marge asked.

McQuade shook his head. “I should learn, I know.” He paused. “What are you doing hidden away in this malodorous factory, anyway, Marge?” he asked.

“I don’t know what you mean, Mr. McQuade,” she said archly. She was aware that her foot had begun swinging under her desk. She did not stop its swing.

“You’re too pretty for this smelly dump,” he said vehemently.

He surprised her. She had honestly believed she’d made no more impression upon him than one of the desks. Faced with the newly gained knowledge that he had noticed her, the old panic returned, and with it a strange sort of excitement flowed through her veins. She swung her chair around, her foot swinging. She wore a gold ankle bracelet, and it caught the rays of the sun now, reflecting dizzily.

“Why, thank you,” she said. Her hand dropped to her skirt. She fought to put her hand back on the desk top, but it would not obey the command of her mind.

“You should quit,” he said. His eyes dropped to the swinging foot. “You should use those legs for modeling stockings or something.”

“Do you really think so?” she asked. She could feel the excitement raging within her now, and she sought to put it out, but the compulsive blanket she used only fanned the flames higher. She was unconsciously aware of her hand, and she knew that hand was flat on her thigh now, and she could feel the pressure of it as it pulled the skirt back over her knee, but she could do nothing to stop it.

“Yes,” McQuade said slowly. “I think so.”

He stopped before her desk, hulking over it, seeming bigger than he really was with the sunlight behind him. She looked up at him, and again her hand moved, a fraction of an inch, a tiny barely perceptible fraction of an inch, raising her skirt over her knee now, and then just a little bit higher, the foot jiggling, the ankle bracelet catching the feeble rays of the March sun.

She was very frightened. She was terribly frightened now, but she could do nothing to stop the motion of her hand or the jiggling of her foot. She wanted him to look at her legs. She wanted him to stare at her legs with those hooded gray eyes of his. She wanted to see some response in those eyes. She wanted terribly to feel like a Woman in the presence of this Man. She wanted to feel like all women, like Everywoman. And beneath this desire, her conscious mind told her that he was a man who could help her model, and her hand moved higher, carrying the skirt with it.

McQuade sat on the edge of her desk. His eyes did not leave her face. He glanced at her legs only once, before she had begun raising her skirt. The skirt was quite high now, no higher than she raised it whenever she searched for a run, but high in a different way now, high in a way that burned her flesh. She could feel her cheeks flaming. She felt wanton and cheap, and most of all she felt this sick panic inside her, this panic that screamed for her to stop, stop, but she would not stop.

She knew the skirt was past the ribbings of her stockings now. She knew her legs were good, and she knew they looked better in the high-heeled pumps she was wearing. Why wouldn’t he look down at her legs, why wouldn’t he, what kind of man was he, why, why? Look at me, you louse, look at me, look at me, let me see some life in those eyes of yours, let me see you looking at me, let me…

“What does a girl like you want here, anyway?” McQuade asked gently.

The words came to her lips before she could stop them. “A girl like me wants to model at the Guild Week showing,” she said.

McQuade smiled. His eyes did not leave her face. His hand moved effortlessly, almost gracefully, dropping to her thigh. His fingers tightened on her flesh, tightened like a vise, gripping the nylon and the skin until she wanted to scream in pain.

“That might be arranged,” he said.

He released her suddenly and slid off the desk. He walked to the door and out into the corridor without looking back at her.

She could see the bruise marks his fingers had left on her thigh. She stared at them, and then she shuddered and pulled down her skirt. When she began trembling, she really did not know how frightened she was. She took her purse from the desk drawer and went to the ladies’ room.

She began sobbing quietly then.

Another Friday rolled around.

And another head rolled…

Friday had become a dreaded day. Six men had been dropped from the Lasting Department on the Friday before, and two from Heeling on the Friday before that, and no one could forget the initial Friday firing in the IBM Room. Griff had been aware of the firings, of course, but he had been aware of them in a curiously detached way. After the IBM Room axing, the rest did not really concern him too much. Six men from Lasting. Six nameless, faceless men. What did they have to do with Raymond Griffin? Two men from Heeling, two names dropped from the payroll, two men he probably didn’t even know. It was all very far away and alien, and, whereas the firings made him vaguely uncomfortable, he more or less discounted them in favor of some of the things that had struck closer to home — like the hosing he’d witnessed in the Cutting Room, or the inquisition of Maria Theresa Diaz in Manelli’s office.

But the firing on that Friday of March 26 struck very close to home, very close to home indeed.

When Griff had been in the Army, he had always felt guilty when a-soldier standing beside him took a bullet between the eyes. He had always felt guilty, but he had also felt relieved. Since his discharge, he had read many fictional accounts of the war, and each account never failed to relate this strangely mixed feeling of guilt and relief, guilt because a buddy had been killed, relief because you yourself were still alive. He had accepted it as a statement of fact. He had experienced it, and apparently a good many other people had experienced it, too.

He did not feel any relief at all when Danny Quinn was fired.

He met Danny down at the lunch counter, and for some strange reason the twinkle in Danny’s eye seemed to have been extinguished.

“What’s the matter?” he asked immediately.

“Nothing,” Danny said. He attempted a smile, and then he limped closer to the counter and picked up his coffee cup.

“Come on, pal,” Griff said, “don’t snow me. You been getting some static?”

“I guess,” Danny said. He seemed very troubled. There was a pained look in his eyes, as if even talking were excruciatingly unbearable.

“What is it, Danny?” Griff asked blankly.

“I’ve been canned.”

For a moment, it didn’t register. “What do you mean, canned?”

“Fired.” Danny turned his head away. “It’s nothing to get excited about, Griff. People get fired every day, especially at Julien Kahn. I’ve just been canned, that’s all. Fired, axed, let go, dismissed, discharged, disemployed, laid off, cast off, thrown aside, kicked out, oh, Christ!”

“Are you kidding me, Danny?”

“No, I’m not kidding you.”

“When’d you find out?”

“About ten minutes ago. Manelli. Griff, what am I gonna do? What the hell am I ever gonna do? How can I tell Ellen I’ve lost my job? With her the way she is now, Griff? Oh, Jesus, I feel like bawling. I wish I was a kid, Griff. I’d lay down on the floor and bawl my ass out.”

“I’m going to see Manelli,” Griff said.

“What good will that do?” Danny sighed heavily. He seemed actually on the verge of tears. It was painful to look at him. “Listen, Griff, forget it,” he said. He bit his lip. “I’ll find something else. What the hell, I’ve got to find something else.”

“I’ll see you later,” Griff said. “I’m going to talk to Manelli. That son of a bitch has gone too far this time.”

He left Danny standing disconsolately at the counter, and he took the elevator up to the ninth floor and then walked straight to Manelli’s office. Cara must have been powdering her nose, for a girl he had never seen was sitting in for her at the reception desk.

“Is Joe in?” he asked.

“Yes. I’ll buzz him. Who shall I say is—”

“Never mind,” he snapped. He walked past the desk and then threw open the door to Manelli’s office. Manelli was signing something at his desk. He looked up, surprised, and started to say, “Well, Griff, to what do I owe—”

“Is it true you fired Danny Quinn?”

Manelli stared at him as if he were a maniac. “Yes. Yes, I did,” he said.

“Why?”

There was something about the way he said that single word that ruffled the comptroller feathers of J. Manelli. He put on his crown, picked up his scepter, and said, “Now, just a moment, Griff. Just a—”

“I’m asking you why you fired Danny Quinn,” Griff said coldly. “I’d like to know why. I damn well would like to know why.”

“I don’t see as it’s any of your business, Griff,” Manelli said curtly.

Griff recognized the crown and scepter, but they didn’t matter much to him now. “I’m making it my business,” he said recklessly. “Are you going to tell me why?”

“He was dead weight,” Manelli said, sighing.

“Dead weight, my foot! He does as much work as Magruder, if not more. Are you trying to tell me—”

“He does not. We’ve no need for a two-man Credit Department,” Manelli said hastily. “We’ve got less than a thousand accounts, big accounts, true, but Danny was handling only four hundred of them, and Magruder can throw those four hundred into his pile just as well. Griff, that job in Credit was manufactured for him, you know that as well as I do. It was invented, Griff, and we can’t afford paying a man for a useless—”

“Shut up!” Griff said angrily.

“What?” Manelli asked, his eyes popping wide.

“I said shut up! Where’d you get all this garbage from? You know goddam well the job wasn’t invented for Danny. He replaced Alberghetti who was shifted over to Sales. There was a legitimate opening in Credit, and Magruder filled it with Danny. Joe, I’ve been working at this factory for a goddam long time now, so don’t give me any crap about invented jobs. I know exactly which jobs were invented, and Danny’s wasn’t, and you know that as—”

“I don’t like the way you’re talking to me,” Manelli said. “I don’t like it a bit. I don’t think—”

“Do you know Danny’s wife is pregnant?”

Manelli’s words ended in a short gasp.

“Do you know how much trouble he had finding a job at all? God damn it, do you think he’s going to step into some other firm the second he walks out of here? What the hell’s wrong with you anyway, Joe? Can’t you let a week go by without throwing someone out into the gutter? What the hell—”

“Griff,” Manelli said, raising his hand. There was something of cowed surrender in the gesture, something almost pathetic. Griff stared at Manelli, his anger subsiding.

“Call his office,” he said softly. “Tell him it was a mistake, Joe. Go ahead.”

Manelli turned his head, avoiding Griff’s eyes. “I… I can’t,” he said.

“Why not? Why not, Joe?”

“I just can’t. I… I had no idea his wife… Griff, I had no idea. Griff, am I bad guy? You know I’m not a bad guy, don’t you? You’ve known me for a long time now, Griff, and have I ever hurt anyone? Would I ever hurt anyone, Griff? Griff, am I a bad guy?” He would not bring his eyes to Griff’s face.

“Joe,” Griff said, “you’re a goddam jewel if that’s the way you want it, but give Danny back his job. Call him and tell him you made a mistake.”

“No,” Manelli said weakly. He shook his head. “No. I… I can’t. Can’t.”

“Joe—”

“I can’t!” Manelli screamed. “God damn it, Griff, I can’t! Do you think I want to wind up in the street, too? Griff, he’s fired, he’s fired, leave it at that. I can’t change things, Griff. Things are the way they are, and I can’t change them, not me, not me, Griff. Griff, try to understand that. I had to… he’s fired, that’s all. Forget it. Leave me alone, just leave me alone and forget Danny Quinn.”

“You’re comptroller!” Griff said incredulously. “If you haven’t the power to—”

“Comptroller!” Manelli snorted. “At two hundred dollars a week! Do you know what Kurz was earning? Have you any idea? Close to five bills, Griff, five bills, and I’m comptroller now and I’m making two hundred bucks, and they call me comptroller. No, I can’t do anything for your friend, I’m sorry. That’s the way it is.” He shook his head violently. “I’ve got my own job to think about. No. No, I can’t do anything.”

“Did you fire him, Joe?”

“Yes,” Manelli said.

“Did you?”

“I said yes, didn’t I? The comptroller fired him. J. Manelli, comptroller of Julien Kahn, Inc., fired him. Are you satisfied now? Are you satisfied you came in here and… and…” Manelli shook his head wildly. “Get out of here, will you? For Christ’s sake, leave a man alone, will you? I got enough headaches of my own. Can’t you just leave a man alone?” He shook his head again, and then buried his face in his hands.

“All right, Joe,” Griff said.

He left Manelli’s office with his head crystal-clear.

His head rang with its new clarity. It rang like a village bell atop a high steeple against a painfully blue sky, it rang loudly and sonorously and incessantly. It rang with knowledge that had hung in his hand from almost the very beginning, knowledge he had somehow hidden from his own consciousness until just now. It figured now, all of it, the IBM Room, and the memos from Manelli, and the hosing, and the Diaz girl, and now Danny. It all figured very clearly.

When he learned that Joe Manelli had fired the eagle-eyer, the man who gave quality to the bottom of a Kahn shoe, on the same day — there was no longer the slightest doubt in his mind.

He knew for certain then that any order coming from J. Manelli, comptroller, was conceived by J. McQuade, The Man From Titanic.