The Spiked Heel

3

Monday morning, March 1, came in with all the customary bluster of the lion. Griff arrived at the factory at eight fifty, parked the car, and then shoved his way against the strong winds which threatened to tear off his overcoat. He went up to the office and forewent his usual cup of coffee, deciding to get right to work on pricing the orders which had gone untended Friday during McQuade’s factory tour. He had already begun working when Marge came in and walked directly to his desk.

“Here’s my summary, boss,” she said.

She put a sheet of paper in the center of his desk. Halfway down the page, she had carefully typed the words: “I type.” Beneath those, in the lower right-hand corner, she had typed, “Sincerely, Margaret R. Gannon.”

“Brief and to the point,” she said. “Nothing flowery.”

Griff smiled. “All right,” he said, “where’s the legitimate one?”

“I can never trick you, can I?” Marge said. She took off her gloves and coat, and then fished the real summary from her purse. She brought it to Griff, and he glanced over the paragraph-long outline of her duties and then put it into the IN basket on his desk.

“What’d you think of him?” Marge asked.

“McQuade?”

“Yes.”

“I think I like him.”

“Really?” She seemed surprised. She took a mirror and lipstick brush from her purse and began repairing her mouth.

“Yes,” Griff said. “Shouldn’t I like him?”

“I don’t know,” Marge answered, preoccupied. “I imagine he’d give me an inferiority complex if I were a man. I don’t think I’d like… well, say Betty Grable… working at the desk opposite me.”

“He’s a good-looking guy, all right,” Griff said, nodding.

“He’s a superman,” Marge said, lowering her mirror. “He’s almost frightening in a way.”

“Oh, come on, Marge.”

“No, really, Griff. I think he’s the handsomest man I’ve ever met, and he’s well-spoken and loaded with charm, and he’s not above using a mild swear word every now and then, and he seems intelligent, although that may be part of his polish. He’s too perfect. It gives you the willies.”

“It doesn’t give me the willies,” Griff said, smiling. “Maybe our biological makeup…”

“Oh, don’t be silly,” Marge said, but she turned her head away, avoiding his eyes.

“Well, I think he’s all right,” Griff said. “I don’t know how long he’s going to stay, but I’m sure he’ll give Julien Kahn a good shot in the arm, and Julien Kahn can use it. McQuade is one guy who’s not going to let any grass grow under his feet.”

Marge went to her desk and sat down behind the typewriter. “Well,” she said, “I imagine we’ll see.” She paused and looked over the papers on her desk. “I still haven’t finished this report.”

“And I’ve got to price these orders. That tour Friday knocked my schedule all to hell.”

“Back to the grist,” she said, sighing.

Their conversation ended abruptly as they both turned to the work before them. Griff knew his job well, and he was probably the only man in the factory who could labor over the pricing of an order without losing any time, appetite, or hair.

It was a pretty simple thing, of course, to price a standard model shoe. If the price did not instantly come to mind, there was always the price book to consult, and Griff frequently consulted it, his memory being good but not photographic. If an account requested a variation on a certain pattern, suede for example when the sample he’d seen had been in kid, Griff went to his files and pulled the cost card for that pattern. The cost card listed a detailed breakdown of cost for the sample shoe only, but it also listed surveys for that pattern in various substitute materials: suede, calf, fabric. When he knew how much suede the shoe would take, Griff had only to calculate the suede cost and substitute that for the kid cost, coming up with a new coat and subsequently a new price.

But there were times when even the cost card could not help him in repricing a variation an account called for. An open toe, for example, on a normally closed-toe, closed-back pump. The account out in Sioux City liked the pump the salesman was showing him, but open toes were going big for him this season. No, he didn’t like any of the open-toe patterns he’d seen. But damn, he did like that pump. Could he have it with an open toe? The salesman filled out the order, telling the account he’d see if it could be done. He wrote down the style number, and after that he put an X, and under that X= OT. If Sales approved the order, it was sent to Griff. When Griff saw that OT variation, he knew he could not go to his price book, and he knew he could not go to his cost cards. If the factory had never cut this particular variation, there was no bank of previous knowledge from which to draw. He was then forced to rely upon his intimate knowledge of each operation that went into the making of a shoe, visualizing the patterns that would be used, deducting so much for material, adding so much for labor. Except in rare cases like Posnansky’s black suede on Friday, where an outside estimate had been necessary, Griff could almost instantly gauge how much a variation from the basic pattern would cost, and he adjusted his price accordingly. If he ran into any trouble concerning the amount of material a variation would consume, he consulted Morris Davidoff and asked him to work out a survey with his graphs and charts. If he couldn’t figure what a certain operation would cost, he contacted Sal Valdero, the company’s Labor Man.

As a general rule, his department ran very smoothly. In most cases, when an order reached his desk, he jotted down the price in the lower right-hand corner, and then the orders were sent over to O’Herlihy in Production. Production copied the price onto the work ticket, alongside the final case number. When the shoe was completed, the Shipping Room attached a charge to the ticket, and both ticket and charge were sent up to Griff. He then checked his original price against the ever-changing price book. If his original price were correct, the charges were sent to IBM, and invoices were mailed on the same day the shoes were shipped.

If there had been any appreciable change in price, Griff immediately contacted Stiegman at the Chrysler Building, telling him of the changes and asking him to alter his future quotations. He then got up new price sheets for the salesmen, informing them of the new price. If the price was higher than that originally estimated, he couldn’t very well bill the immediate account at this newer, higher price. When an account had been told a pair of shoes would cost him thirteen sixty-five, he couldn’t be billed for fourteen dollars. Griff was well aware of this, so he generally let small cost increases ride as far as pricing went. A large increase was another thing again. A large increase, if ignored in pricing, could kill the company. In those cases, Griff contacted Sales and asked them to send off a diplomatic letter explaining the reasons for the price boost. If the account was willing to pay the higher price, fine. If the account wanted to be stubborn about it, he simply insisted that the acknowledgment of his order was, in effect, a contract, and he would pay only the price quoted in the terms of that contract.

In six weeks, the amount of time it took to run a shoe through the factory, a lot of changes in cost could occur. Other than increases or decreases in the actual material or labor costs, there were many other things to watch for. As the factory became more familiar with a shoe, they learned how to cut corners on it, how to save material here, how to cut out a full operation there. Conversely, problems sometimes cropped up which were not foreseen in the making and costing of the sample shoe. It was a difficult fence to straddle. Underpricing could ruin the company, and overpricing could have the same effect if the competition were offering the same product at a more reasonable price.

Costing and pricing were intimately linked, and Griff took neither of the jobs lightly. He knew how variable both were in the fashion shoe industry. He did his job well, and his job was to keep both the business and the customer happy.

There were orders for some six thousand pairs of shoes waiting to be priced on that Monday morning, and he worked at them rapidly and fastidiously. At nine-thirty, Aaron called in to say he’d gone directly into the factory and probably would not be up to the office all day. Jefferson McQuade had still not come into the Cost Department.

From one of the men working close to Manelli’s office, Griff learned that McQuade had been with the new comptroller since the beginning of the day and was, in fact, still there bending Joe’s ear. Griff was pleased with the news. As much as he had liked McQuade, they had still not reached the easy-friendship stage. There was a lot of pricing to do, and company manners would have held up the job, and Griff didn’t particularly feel like answering a lot of questions this morning. He immersed himself completely in the task, hardly speaking to Marge all morning, thoroughly absorbed with what he was doing.

At eleven-fifteen, the memo came from Manelli’s office.

It came in the interoffice envelope, the envelope with its printed face stating: “Office Communications Service. Do not seal or discard this until last line is used. Print clearly. Always state Department.” There were two names typed onto the lined face of the envelope.

Ray Griffin, Cost

Pat O’Herlihy, Production.

Griff took the envelope from the messenger boy, lifted the flap, and pulled out the memo. The memo read:

Griff automatically copied down the code words, and then signed the envelope alongside his name, putting the memo back into it, and handing the envelope to the messenger. When the boy was gone, he studied the code words again, and a frown crossed his forehead. He had priced orders for some three thousand pairs of shoes since 9:00 A.M. Those orders were stacked neatly on his desk now, waiting for delivery to the Production Department, where they would be transferred to work tickets. But if this memo were to be taken seriously…

My God, was he supposed to go over all those orders and substitute a batch of letters, erasing and whistling gaily as he went?

“What’s the matter?” Marge asked.

“Oh, this damn memo,” he said. He looked at the code words again. “I’m going to have to see Manelli.” He shook his head, shoved his chair back, and started for the door. “I’ll be down the hall if anyone wants me.”

“All right,” Marge said, going back to her report.

Griff headed down the corridor, thinking about the memo, and the more he thought about it, the more stupid it seemed. After all, what was this, an international spy ring? He could understand the coding of materials and colors, yes, because it was certainly a hell of a lot simpler to write “43” than it was to write “blue faille.” But what was the purpose of memorizing a bunch of letters, gray and white indeed — and besides they’d spelled gray wrong, hadn’t they? Shouldn’t it be an e? — to substitute for numbers? Who in the factory gave a damn about the pricing of a shoe, anyway, other than Cost, Production, and IBM? Hell, were the factory workers going to leak information to De Liso or I. Miller? Were they going to skulk up to Andrew Geller’s and whisper, “Andy boy, I got a hot tip for you, boy. You know this Julien Kahn glitter cloth job with the seal strip over the vamp? Fourteen ninety-five, Andy. Mark it down.” Now, that was plain nonsense. No, he’d have to talk to Joe about this. He’d have to set it straight now before the memo had a chance to foul things up.

He pushed open the door to Manelli’s office and walked directly to the secretary’s desk. He was surprised to see a new girl behind the desk, expecting to find Mr. Kurz’s beloved and trusted secretary, Mamie Lord. He realized then that Mamie’s head had probably joined G.K.’s in the sacrificial basket and that Joe Manelli had undoubtedly brought in one of his own favorites from Accounting. The girl wore her dark hair long, framing an oval face. He stood before her desk, and he could smell the subtly insinuating scent of her perfume. The girl was busy typing, and she did not look up.

“My name is Griffin,” he said pleasantly. “I’d like to see Mr. Manelli, please.”

The girl looked up from her machine.

He was startled to see that she was really exceptionally pretty. Her eyes were very wide and very brown, and she turned them up toward his face slowly, until they held his own eyes. And the moment they did, he read a dark knowledge in those eyes and on that face, a resigned sadness he had never seen on the face of a young woman before. No, he was suddenly shaken to realize, he had seen it once before. He had seen it on the face and in the eyes of a prostitute in France. Embarrassed, he dropped his gaze to the small brown beauty spot huddled in the hollow of her throat like a fugitive misplaced period. He concentrated his attention there.

“What did you say?” she asked. Her voice was unusually deep. He raised his eyes, and was surprised to discover that the disturbing impression was gone. He studied her then, frowning at his snap judgment, wondering how he could have seen anything here other than a sweet, young, pretty girl.

“I’m Ray Griffin,” he said. “I’d like to see Joe.”

“What department are you from, Mr. Griffin?” The girl’s voice had turned brusquely businesslike. If she were at all aware of him as a man, she showed no sign of it now.

Griff smiled, almost relieved. “Cost. Joe knows me, Miss. I want to talk to him about…”

“Mr. Manelli is in conference,” the girl said.

“Oh.” He remembered McQuade. “How long will he be?”

The girl looked up at the wall clock. “He asked me to buzz him at eleven-thirty. He has a luncheon appointment with someone from the Chrysler Building.”

“Well,” Griff said, glancing up at the clock too, “maybe I can catch him on his way out. I’ll wait, if you don’t mind.”

“Not at all,” the girl said.

Griff walked to the easy chair opposite her desk, sitting down and folding his hands. The girl went back to her typing. The white-faced clock on the wall read eleven twenty-two. He listened to the busy clatter of her keys, studying her hands as they worked, glancing up at her face. The girl had a good profile, too, a damned good profile.

“How do you spell gray?” he asked.

The girl looked up. “What? I’m sorry, I…”

“Gray. How do you spell it?”

“Oh, the memo,” she said. She started to smile, but then she thought better of it. “Mr. Manelli spelled it out for me. He wanted it g-r-a-y.”

“But that’s not the way you spell it, is it?”

“No, I think e is the preferred spelling.”

“But Joe wanted an a, huh? Well, you know what the Bible says.” He smiled. “An a for an e.”

The girl stared at him blankly for a moment. She got it then, and said, “Oh.”

“No, e,” Griff said, still smiling. The smile expanded on his face. “Oh, I,” he said, “I’m probably bothering you.”

This time, the girl returned the smile. “I’m really quite busy,” she said apologetically.

“I’ll be quiet,” Griff said. “I promise.”

“He won’t be much longer.”

Griff nodded and then looked among the magazines on the table for something to read. He passed by the several retail shoe journals, and then opened a copy of Vogue, looking for the Julien Kahn advertising spreads.

“Here’s a pretty shoe,” he said.

The girl’s typewriter stopped. She looked up. “What?”

“This shoe.” He turned the magazine so that she could see it. “We call it ‘Flare.’ It’s red Swisscraft straw, a really pretty job. Look at the lines of it, will you?”

“It’s nice,” the girl said.

“A shoe like that makes your mouth water, doesn’t it?” Griff said: “Did you ever see anything so pretty? ‘Flare.’”

“It’s very nice,” the girl agreed, and went back to her typing.

Griff turned the magazine right side up, skimming through it, looking over the lines the competition was offering. He glanced up at the clock once more and said, “You’d better buzz Joe. It’s eleven-thirty.”

“Oh,” the girl said, seemingly flustered. “Thank you.”

She swiveled her chair around and depressed a lever on the intercom.

Joe Manelli’s voice came from the inner office. “Yes?”

“It’s eleven-thirty, Mr. Manelli.”

“Thank you, Miss Knowles.”

“And… Mr. Manelli?”

“Yes?”

“Mr. Griffin is waiting to see you.”

“Griff? I’ll be out in a few minutes. Ask him to wait, will you?”

“Yes, sir.” She flicked up the lever and turned to Griff. “He said—”

“I heard.” He sat back to wait, glancing occasionally at the clock, occasionally at Miss Knowles. She seemed to be a good typist, and she sure as hell had a damned fine profile. What the hell had been the matter with him before?

At eleven-thirty-five, the door to Joe’s private office opened, and McQuade stepped through it. Manelli followed after him, and McQuade took his hand and said, “Thanks a million, Joe, I certainly appreciate all the time you’ve given me. And we’ll work that out, okay?”

“Fine, Mac,” Manelli said. “It’s been a pleasure talking to you.”

McQuade nodded and smiled and then turned. He spotted Griff and walked to him quickly.

“Morning, Griff,” he said, extending his hand. “Have a good weekend?”

“So-so,” Griff said, taking his hand. “We’ve got those summaries for you, whenever you want them, Mr. McQuade.”

McQuade smiled. “Let’s make it, ‘Mac,’ shall we?”

“All right,” Griff said.

“I’ll look at those summaries later. Incidentally, I imagine the other departments will begin delivering sometime today. If I don’t get a chance to stop by the office… well, I wonder… would you sort of stack them up on my desk, and I’ll look at them when I get a chance?”

“Sure.”

“Well, I don’t want to hold you up. If you’ve got business with Joe, I know he has a luncheon engagement, so…” He spread his hands wide and smiled. “I’ll go snoop around someplace else.” He winked at Griff, glanced disinterestedly at Miss Knowles, and then left the office.

“Well,” Manelli said, “to what do I owe this honor?”

Manelli was a tall thin man with a shock of black hair and tired brown eyes. The eyes were distorted behind a pair of tortoise-rim glasses which were very close to being bifocals. Manelli had been an accountant all his life. He had been head accountant of the firm prior to his recent promotion, and his weak eyes could be blamed on the columns and columns of figures he had studied and restudied during his career. Yes, the weak eyes were a direct reflection of the erstwhile profession of Joseph Manelli, Accountant. His weak mouth was another thing again. His weak mouth was a direct reflection of the personality hiding beneath the pale white skin of Joseph Manelli, Man.

“I just received a memo,” Griff said.

“Oh? Which memo was that, Griff?”

“This code business. This ‘gray and white.’”

“Oh, yes, yes. Got that one already, did you?” He glanced up at the clock. “We’ll have to make this short, Griff. I’ve an appointment at twelve, and I don’t want to—”

“It won’t take a minute, Joe,” Griff said. He paused and considered what he was about to say, remembering that the accountant he had known for such a long time was at present the comptroller of Julien Kahn, Inc. “With all due respect, I don’t think this memo is a practical one.”

“You don’t, eh? Why not, Griff?”

“Well, there’s no real reason for trying to conceal our prices, Joe. This new scheme will only result in a loss of time. Actually, it’ll throw three smoothly functioning departments into a state of mass confusion.”

“Three departments?” Manelli asked.

“Well, yes. The IBM Room makes out the invoices, and they’d—”

“IBM, oh yes, yes.” Manelli blinked. “Well, Griff…”

“Look, Joe, you know we have to work fast in Cost. This code business will only mean unnecessary work, and it’ll mean a slow-down in production for the next week or so, until everyone concerned gets familiar enough with it to make it a working thing. And, even then, Joe, if you’ll excuse my saying so, it’ll be senseless.”

“Well,” Manelli said, “Titanic has been using it with success, Griff, and I thought I’d give it a whirl.”

“Yes, but Kahn isn’t Titanic. You can’t compare a fashion shoe to a casual.”

“Ah,” Manelli said, “but Kahn is Titanic, isn’t it?”

“Of course,” Griff said, shaking his head impatiently, “but that’s not what I meant. I meant where it concerns making a shoe. Titanic—”

“Griff,” Manelli interrupted, “I’m here to learn. I won’t dispute the fact that you know a hell of a lot more about our operation than I’ll ever know, and don’t think I won’t be counting on your experience heavily in the weeks and months to come. But really, and admit this, Griff, I know you’re big enough to admit it, don’t you feel this request is really a very simple one? I mean, and tell me the truth, Griff couldn’t your department and Production and IBM get used to this new system in a matter of days? Now, really, is ‘gray and white’ so difficult to learn? G is one, and r is two, and a is three, and so on, and so on. Now, is that really so difficult to learn, is it really? Come, now, Griff, are you going to oppose one of my first official acts as comptroller?”

“That’s not the point,” Griff said, beginning to lose his patience. “Joe, look, there’s… there’s just no sense to it, even after we’ve memorized the stu… the thing. Who are we protecting the prices from? Who the hell would want—”

“People,” Manelli said, smiling.

“People? What people? Who gives a damn what we price our shoes at? Are you thinking of the competition? Joe, you know as well as I do that’s not a valid argument. All De Liso has to do is shop at any retail outlet. He takes our retail price, deducts forty-four per cent and he’s got our invoice price. So what are we trying to hide?”

“Ah, but does De Liso know that?” Manelli asked.

“Does De Liso know what?”

“That there’s a forty-four per cent markup on our shoes?”

“Well, he damn well ought to,” Griff said. “He’s been in business for a long time now.”

Manelli shrugged. “If he does know it,” he said, avoiding Griff’s penetrating stare, “there’s not much we can do about it, is there? But if he doesn’t… ah, that’s a horse of a diferent color. If he doesn’t know, we’re not going to hand him the information on a silver platter, not by a long shot. He’s going to have to work for it. Now isn’t that sensible, Griff? Tell me the truth, is that not sensible?”

Griff was astonished. “No,” he said, “it’s not sensible. To tell you the honest truth, Joe, it’s plain stupid!”

Manelli raised his eyebrows in shocked aloofness.

“Don’t you see, Joe? There just isn’t any secret to guard. The price of a shoe isn’t something—”

“We had to use a instead of e, if you were wondering about the spelling,” Manelli said, “so that no two letters would be repeated. A really remarkable set of words, you know.”

“Joe,” Griff said, sighing, “please don’t give me the brush-off. I’m asking you to toss this idea out. It’s only going to—”

“Say, I’d better hurry if I want to—”

“…foul up production, and if we want to keep hitting twenty-six hundred pairs a day, we can’t afford to fool around with a lot of—”

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that, Griff. I want to raise our pairage. I want to show Chrysler something like twenty-eight hundred, maybe three thousand a day by the end of this month. Think we can do it?”

“Why ask me? Boris gives the cutting orders,” Griff said angrily.

“Ah, yes, but it’s common knowledge you ran interference for G.K. with Chrysler whenever he got into a tight one. I want you to help me, too. Can we hit twenty-eight?”

“It depends on Chrysler,” Griff said. “I suppose so.”

“What’s bothering you? Have you priced a few pairs today under the old setup?”

“I’ve priced three thousand pairs, but that has nothing to do with this damned stupid scheme, Joe! Now, Joe, for Christ’s sake, listen to reason.”

“Forget those pairs,” Manelli said genially. “If they’re what’s bothering you, forget them. Use the new system from now on, okay?”

“Joe—”

“I’ve got to rush, Griff. Stop in some time tomorrow, all right? We’ll talk over the pairage then, and you can tell me how we inveigled Chrysler in the past, eh?” He turned to his secretary. “Cara, I’ll be out for… oh, two hours at the most.”

“Yes, sir,” Cara Knowles said.

“Come on, Griff, snap out of it,” Manelli said, smiling with his weak immature mouth. “Cheer up.” He patted Griff on the shoulder and walked out of the office.

“That stupid son of a—” Griff started. He remembered the girl abruptly. “Excuse me,” he said.

“It’ll work out,” Cara answered.

“Yeah,” Griff said dully.

“No, really, Mr. Griffin. You’d be surprised how quickly people get accustomed to new ideas.”

Griff nodded sourly. “That’s what Ilse Koch said when she began making lampshades.”

He ran into Danny Quinn after lunch that day.

Danny came limping through the Credit doorway as Griff hurried past, still burning with the memory of his encounter with Manelli.

“Hey,” he said, “what’s the hurry?”

“Oh, hi, Danny,” Griff said. Danny’s presence somehow always helped dissipate his anger. Danny had a narrow smiling face with bright blue eyes and unruly brown hair. Griff had helped him get the job in Credit more than a year ago, using his influence with Magruder, the head of the department. He had known Danny for a long time, had known him since before the Korean fracas, when Danny could walk without a limp.

Their friendship had been a curious one in that Danny was some six years younger than Griff, and six years can make a hell of a lot of difference in early childhood. Griff was twelve when Danny moved into the teeming Puerto Rican-Irish slum that was 138th Street and Bruckner Boulevard, in the Bronx. They discovered almost instantly that they had one thing in common, a split Welsh-Irish ancestry. Griff’s father was Welsh, his mother Irish. The reverse applied to Danny’s parents. The ancestral bond somehow destroyed the barrier of years. Griff would sit on the front stoop of his tenement for hours on end, telling his mother’s stories of the old country, stories about goblins and leprechauns and good fairies, while Danny listened in wide-eyed wonder. Having no brothers or sisters of his own, Griff adopted the skinny kid with the blue eyes, protecting him in street fights, insisting that he be allowed to play with the older boys. Danny was a grateful kid, even if he was out of his league. Valiantly, he tried to keep up with Griff in the neighborhood games of Ring-a-leavio, Johnny-on-a-pony, Kick the Can, I Declare War. When a stickball game was started in one of the side streets off 138th, Danny was always a participant, usually in the least desired position of catcher. But he was always there, out of breath, true, and Griff watched over him like a patron saint.

When Griff and the older boys discovered sex, Danny was left behind somewhat. There was a sixteen-year-old Puerto Rican girl in the neighborhood, and her name was Ida, and she was well known. Griff, together with the other boys who were approaching adulthood, discovered Ida, and they discovered that Ida had sisters who were not related to her by blood. The sisters were not all Puerto Rican. Some of the sisters were Irish, and there was somehow something more honorable about lifting the skirts of an Irish lass, even though Griff had been painfully aware of his mother’s ancestry that first time with Mary Murphy. He learned the way of the gutter, and he learned it well, but he was always conscious of the undesirability of his environment, wondering why he had to live where he lived, surrounded by poverty and squalor, unable to reconcile the charming handsome ways of his father with the man’s curious inability to earn more money than he was earning.

He read a lot, partly to escape the dull reality of the tenements, partly in an attempt to better himself, somehow raise himself above what was around him. His grades in school were good. His teachers considered him a well-mannered, studious boy. His mother often talked of his becoming a priest. Her brother had been a priest in the old country, and she considered service to God the worthiest profession. Griff, however, was not a particularly religious child. He had received his First Communion at the age of seven, when he’d barely understood the mystery of the Mass or the meaning of sin. He had been confirmed at ten, his Uncle Roger serving as his godfather, and presenting him later with a Mickey Mouse watch. The confirmation had been disappointing. Griff had heard tall stories about the slap the priest gave you when he confirmed you. The slap was supposed to be a mighty thing, a thing that nearly knocked you off your feet, a test of manhood. Contrary to what he’d heard in the streets, the priest practically stroked his cheek when he gave Griff his middle name. The test was disappointing. He’d been hit harder when the fellows were just clowning around on the front stoop.

Later, when he had known Ida, and Mary, and a redheaded spirited buxom kid of fifteen named Betty, when he had known real sin, he could never again listen to his mother talk about “the call” with any amount of seriousness. He had learned about life in the gutter; he could not for a moment believe the celebrated, celibate fortress of the priest was a reality. He knew reality. He did not plan on entering the priesthood. He planned, instead, on going on to college. Meredith Griffin died when Griff was sixteen. He had never been a good money-maker, but he had been a fine man, and Griff was honestly broken up by his father’s death. His mother, religious as she was, realized that a breadwinner was a more desirable asset at this stage of the game than a man of God would be. When Griff came to her with his first working papers, she dutifully signed them.

He started his career at Julien Kahn, the first place he worked, the only place he ever worked.

In 1944, when he was eighteen, the Army called him. Danny Quinn was twelve at the time, rapidly learning the secrets of the hallways from the younger sisters in the sorority of the Idas, the Marys, and the Bettys. Danny gave Griff a silver identification bracelet when he went away, a bracelet which Griff lost later in France, or which — more accurately — was stolen from his wrist as he lay fighting the chills and fever of dysentery in a field hospital outside Cherbourg. He survived the dysentery, and he survived the lesser dangers of the march through France, the exploding hand grenades and mortar shells, the strafing aircraft, the frightening experience of a line of heavy tanks advancing and firing. All these, he survived.

He was recalled from France when his mother died in October of 1944. The Army flew him to New York, and he buried his mother on a cold, rainswept day.

He was not sent back overseas. The Army sent him to Dix, where he spent the duration as a small-arms instructor. When he was discharged in 1946, he went back to Julien Kahn and asked for his old job. He was immediately rehired. He did not know why he didn’t go to college now. His mother was dead, and he had no further financial responsibilities. The G.I. Bill would have paid for his education. But somehow, college seemed like a frivolous thing now. He could not visualize himself being hazed or wearing a beanie. He was twenty years old, only twenty, but, like so many others of his generation, he felt much older. He dedicated himself to his job. He was a good worker. He liked Julien Kahn, and the company liked him. Occasionally, while watching a football game, he was attacked with a deep nostalgia for the alma mater he had never known, but the nostalgia passed, replaced by a contentment with the work he was doing.

He still read, and he still occasionally thought back to his childhood on 138th Street, pleased that he had risen above it, if only in a small way.

He went back to the old neighborhood when Danny was called into the Army. He had thought that his war would be the last war, and he was surprised and shocked with the flare-up in Korea. He bought Danny a silver identification bracelet, and then he went to the party in the now-heated tenement. He felt nothing for the old neighborhood, oh, perhaps a passing wistfulness, but nothing that lingered. He had gone to see off an old friend, and he met other old friends there, but there was nothing deader than a dead friendship.

He should have told Danny about picking up souvenirs. There had been a lot of souvenirs lying around in France, but he’d never touched any of them.

Danny, on the other hand, wanted something to bring back to the old neighborhood. He had stooped to pick up a souvenir Tokarev in Korea, and the pistol had set off a land mine, giving him a bigger souvenir than he’d bargained for. The souvenir was still lodged in his left leg, and Danny had discovered upon his discharge from the Army that not many prospective employers backed up the respect they mouthed for the symbol of the Ruptured Duck when the duck was in reality ruptured. He’d worn out a good many pairs of shoes, limping despondently from one unresponsive office to the next, until Griff had finally located him with Julien Kahn. The job had done wonders for Danny, restoring his badly demolished confidence. He’d married Ellen, a girl from the old neighborhood, and they were now expecting their first child.

“I was just coming in to show you this,” Danny said, extending a memo sheet toward Griff. Griff read it quickly.

“That pompous ass,” Griff said. “It will no longer be necessary to visit the rest rooms,” he mimicked. “This is Joe’s way of saying too many people have been goofing off on company time.”

“I thought you and Joe were buddy-buddy,” Danny said. “What happened? He giving you some static?”

“A little,” Griff said.

“Well, he’s stepping into a big job,” Danny said. “This smoking business suits me fine, though. I never did like the smell of urine with my cigarettes.” He shrugged. “What’s this other garbage, though?”

“I don’t follow,” Griff said.

“This ‘summary’ business. Did you see that one?”

“Oh, yes. That was McQuade’s idea.”

“The Georgia peach?” Danny asked.

“He’s not a bad guy,” Griff said. “He’s got a good head on his shoulders.”

“And what shoulders!” Danny said. “Man, he’s built like a goddam ox. What’s he doing, tightening the screws?”

“No, nothing like that,” Griff said. “He just wants to acquaint himself with what everyone does, that’s all.”

“Mmm,” Danny said. “He’s here for good then? Or will this just be a short visit?”

“I don’t know,” Griff said. “I’m glad you mentioned that. I think I’ll give the Hengman a buzz later and find out what the scoop is.”

“Let me know when you get it, will you?” Danny said. “Say, have you got a minute?”

“Sure.”

“Come in here, will you? This you gotta see.”

“What is it?”

“Come, on, come on.” He limped into the Credit Department and over to where Magruder stood by the window. Griff followed him, mystified.

“We’ve got the tallest building in the area,” Danny said, smiling, “so we can see all the other rooftops. Well, every day now, for the past week, at one o’clock on the dot, just like clockwork, it happens.”

“What happens?”

“Hot Pants Harry,” Danny said.

“Who?”

“He must be on his lunch hour, or maybe his company gives him a half-hour break at this time. Go ahead, take a look.”

Griff looked through the window. “I don’t see anything.”

“No, you’re not looking in the right place. Over there, the toy factory, do you see it?”

“Yes.”

“All right, on the roof. Up against the skylight. Do you see Hot Pants and his girl?”

“Oh, yes, yes,” Griff said. “I see him but…” He stepped closer to the window. “What’s he doing?”

“What the hell do you think he’s doing? He’s doing what makes the world go round.”

“Oh, come on,” Griff said.

“I swear to God,” Danny said. “So help me, I should get struck dead right this minute if it’s not so. Am I snowing him, Magruder?”

Magruder shook his shaggy head. “This is the truth, Griff. Every day now for the past week. She’s not a bad looker, either, seems from here.”

“You mean… right there on the skylight?” Griff asked incredulously.

“They’ve got a set pattern,” Danny explained. “They come up at one o’clock, both of them together. They lean on the roof railing for a while, watching the sights. Then he puts his arm around her, and she moves away and he goes after her. They run around the roof a little, and she always leads him straight to that skylight, and bingo! up go the skirts.”

“I’ll be damned,” Griff said.

“It’s fantastic, isn’t it?” Danny said. “That poor son of a bitch probably thinks he’s putting something over on the world. But I was down on the seventh floor yesterday, checking something with O’Neill, and would you believe it, the whole damned floor was lined up by the windows watching old Hot Pants. Some of the guys had binoculars, Griff, I swear to God. That bastard is responsible for more production loss than if we had a fire in the building. We ought to charge him up to the cost of a shoe.”

Griff kept staring at the roof of the toy factory. “I feel like peeping Tom,” he said. “My God, you know, I believe he is!”

“Well, of course, he is!” Danny said. “But every goddam day, that’s what gets me! In broad daylight, with sixteen hundred pairs of eyes on him. Oh, if that poor son of a bitch only knew.”

“She’s got good legs,” Magruder said, his face serious. “When she lifts her skirt, you can see she’s got good legs. I’m going to bring my own binoculars in tomorrow.”

“We ought to get a camera with a telescopic lens,” Danny said, smiling, “and then send the developed print over to Hot Pants, whoever he is.”

“With a round-robin letter from every worker in the factory,” Griff supplied. “How does that sound?”

“And a special pair of Julien Kahn’s Roundheel Pumps for the young lady with the legs,” Danny said, laughing.

“You’re just a bunch of horny bastards,” Griff said. “I’ve got work to do.”

“So has Hot Pants,” Danny said, still laughing.

He left the Credit Department, chuckling to himself, happy he had put the Manelli skirmish out of his mind. When he went into Cost, Marge was standing at the windows looking out. He stopped in the doorway. She had not heard him, and she continued looking through the windows, and he wanted to laugh aloud. He cleared his throat.

She whirled from the windows quickly, her hand going to her throat.

“Working on that report?” he asked happily.

“I… I…” A flush started on her neck and worked its way up into her face. Griff smiled and walked to his desk.

“Amazing how word spreads around, isn’t it?” he said.

Marge walked to her desk, her shoulders erect, her head high. Griff glanced over his shoulder, through the windows. The couple were still there. He could not erase the smile from his face. He got to work on the order blanks, humming happily. “La-da-dee-dah, dee, dah, dah.”

“You are a smug idiot!” Marge said from her desk, enunciating each word clearly.

“Hmm?” he asked, looking up impishly.

“I was curious,” she said. “Is there any law against that?”

“Perish the thought,” Griff said. “Magruder’s bringing binoculars tomorrow. Why don’t we pack a picnic lunch and all—”

“Oh, shut up,” Marge said, angry. She tapped her foot viciously. “Really, Griff, sometimes… oh, the hell with it!”

“What, doll?” he said.

“Nothing. Just shut up, that’s all.” She sat fuming at her desk for several moments, and then her anger seemed to vanish completely. She rose, walked over to Griff’s desk, and sat on the edge. “But how can they stand it at this time of the year?” she asked innocently. “Don’t they just freeeeze up there?”

He called Hengman at three-thirty, when he was almost finished with the order blanks. Hengman’s secretary answered the phone and then connected Griff with Boris himself.

“Hello Boris,” Griff said, “how goes every little thing today?”

“Dun’t esk,” Hengman said. “What’s on your mind, Griffie?”

“This McQuade fellow,” Griff said. “He seems like a nice guy.”

“He’s ah hetchet men,” Hengman said.

“Where’d you get that?” Griff asked.

“From Chrysler. Dave Stiegman tuld me. He’s opp to no good, this McQued. You be careful ov him, Griffie.”

“He seems okay,” Griff said defensively.

“Seems, shmeems, I’m talling you. End you’re gung to be in conteck with him most, him being stock opp there in your office. So watch ott, I’m talling you.”

“How long will he be here?” Griff asked.

“In’dafnite,” Hengman said.

“What does that mean?”

“Jost what is says. In’dafnite. He’ll be here a lung time.”

“Well, he still seems to be a nice guy.”

“Sure, but I’m talling you what Dave Stiegman tuld me, that’s ull. I’m a reputter, that’s ull. Look, you got nothing else what to do but cull me? I’m a busy men.”

“Okay, Boris,” Griff said, laughing. “You know what I think, don’t you?”

“What’s det?”

“I think McQuade is after your job, Boris.”

“It’s not to left, snotnose,” Hengman said. “Wait. Soon you’ll be selling epples on the stritt. Den you’ll see how fonny it is.”

“I like apples,” Griff said.

“End I dun’t like westing time. Good-by, Griffie.”

Hengman hung up, and Griff put his phone back into the cradle, looking up to find McQuade standing near his desk. He did not know how long McQuade had been standing there, and his lack of knowledge brought this queasy sort of panic to his stomach again. But McQuade smiled down at him easily, and the panic disappeared, to be replaced by a sort of wariness generated by Hengman’s warning. Could McQuade really be a hatchet man? He would have to be careful.

“Sorry as hell to bother you, Griff,” McQuade said, “but I was wondering if any of those summaries had come in yet.”

Marge looked up. “I put them on your desk, Mr. McQuade,” she said. “We had a regular stampede with those things earlier today. You should have been here to see it.”

“Oh, thanks a lot, Marge.” He paused embarrassedly. “Say, is it all right for me to call you ‘Marge’?”

“Sure,” Marge said. “That is my name.”

McQuade smiled and walked over to his desk, but Griff noticed he had not returned the courtesy and asked Marge to call him “Mac.”

“Well,” McQuade said, “we’ve certainly had a good response, haven’t we?”

Griff nodded abstractly, and went back to pricing orders, struggling with Manelli’s code. McQuade picked up the sheaf of summaries on his desk and began leafing through them. Griff glanced up at him once, and then threw himself into the job wholeheartedly.

Black suede pump, 68-3125, $12.65, that’s GRHW.

Wht emb linen pump, 982–421, $12.00 that’s GR, now what the hell do I do for zeros? Oh, there it is: N. All light, GRNN.

Alabaster/blk pat pump, 714–768, OT, wht leather binding… figure fifty for the binding, open toe cancels out, more labor but less material, so add… what was the basic price? $13.35, plus…

“Here’s a good one,” McQuade said, laughing.

“Huh?” Griff looked up.

“From this fellow in Payroll. Quite a sense of humor. He writes: ‘I spend most of my time doing the following things. I go to the Men’s Room once every ten minutes. I smoke a cigarette once every fifteen minutes, a total of four cigarettes an hour, or approximately a pack and a half a day. I visit one of the girls in the IBM Room at least three times a morning; sometimes, I make airplanes out of paper and throw them around the room, laughing with glee when they land in the department head’s inkwell. It is also good clean fun to shoot paper clips, so I do that occasionally, when I am not hiding the shoes of our typist who takes them off because they are too tight. (Note: They are not Julien Kahn shoes.) I sometimes fill paper bags with water and drop them out of the windows, and sometimes I set fire to wastepaper baskets. Yesterday I had a lot of fun putting a barracuda in the water cooler. But when I am not occupied with these delightful pastimes, I can be found…’ and then he goes right on to tell what he really does. Very clever, don’t you think?” McQuade said.

“Yes,” Griff answered. “Who wrote that?”

“Oh…” McQuade glanced at the signature on the bottom of the summary. “Well, it’s not important. I thought you’d get a kick out of it; though.”

“Yes,” Griff said, having enjoyed the summary, and wishing now that he had jokingly submitted Marge’s “I Type.” He caught Marge’s eye, and she apparently was thinking the same thing, because she gave him a highly superior look. He turned back to the orders again.

Alabaster/blk pat pump… what did I figure for that binding? Forty, was it, no, fifty… total of… $13.35 and fifty… that’s thirteen eight…

The phone rang. Marge picked it up and said, “Cost.” She paused a moment and then said, “Oh, just a moment, Aaron, he’s right here.” She turned to Griff. “It’s Aaron, Griff, on four.”

Griff pressed the extension button and lifted the phone.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi, stupid,” Aaron asked. “You miss me?”

“Not very. What the hell are you doing, anyway?”

“Costing, costing,” Aaron said. “What’s this I hear about an ogre from Joe-juh invading our cave?”

“Uh, yes, that’s right,” Griff said, glancing apprehensively in McQuade’s direction.

“He there now?” Aaron asked.

“Yes, that’s right,” Griff said.

“You can’t talk?”

“No,” Griff said.

“If you keep answering in monosyllables, he’ll know damn well you’re talking about him,” Aaron said.

“Yes, I guess so,” Griff answered. “In that case, why don’t you get back to what you were doing?”

“Now there’s a fancy bit of subterfuge,” Aaron said, chuckling. “Has he got you doing some work for a change?”

“I’m pricing some orders,” Griff said.

“And I’m costing some samples, which makes us blood brothers, sort of. Brother, wait until you see the fall line! I know you saw the style sheets, but the shoes themselves, man! You’ve never seen such beautiful stuff!”

“No kidding?” Griff asked, leaning closer to the phone.

“It’s wonderful, really wonderful. Griff, if Guild Week isn’t a success this year, the industry can’t blame Julien Kahn. We’ve got some stuff that makes Paris look like Wichita. You remember the style sheet for ‘Naked Flesh’? Jesus, what a shoe!”

“What’s it made of? Old chorus girls?”

“It’s that lizard pump, Griff, but in a natural tan, and the smoothest goddam job you ever want to see. Griff, there’s not a bit of crap on it, not a bit. No bows, no stripping, no trim, just a plain shell pump, but with these lines that make you want to eat the goddam shoe. It’s out of this world, I’m telling you.”

“When do I see it?” Griff asked, visualizing the shoe.

“Come on down. I’ll show it to you now.”

“I’m busy as hell, Aaron.”

“Can’t you break for five minutes? I want your ideas on what we should price this baby at, anyway. It’s like nothing we’ve ever done, Griff, I mean it, and you’ve got to hand it to Chrysler for coming up with a tag like Naked Flesh. If that doesn’t sell a shoe, nothing will.”

“It sounds like an ad for a whore house,” Griff said.

“And it looks like what a whore would wear,” Aaron added, “but a very high-priced whore. Griff, let’s face it. Every woman in the world thinks of herself as a whore.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Griff said, smiling.

“There’s a certain glamour attached to the profession of prostitution,” Aaron expanded. “Every woman recognizes that glamour, so every woman wears low-cut blouses that reveal her breasts, dresses that hug her ass, shoes that accentuate the curve of her leg. Every woman—”

“Now you sound like a morality play,” Griff said.

“And you sound too goddam smart for your own good. Are you coming down to look at this shoe?”

“No.”

“All right, screw you,” Aaron said playfully.

“And thee, dad,” Griff answered.

“And tell the Georgia boy that my grandfather was one of the few Jews in Sherman’s army. See how that sits with him.”

Griff burst out laughing. “I’ll do that,” he promised.

“Yeah, I’ll bet. So long, chicken.”

“So long, hero.”

He put the phone back into its cradle, the smile still on his face. He shook his head and went back to the orders.

“Was that Aaron?” McQuade asked.

“Yes.”

“I don’t see a summary here from him.”

“No, he hasn’t been in the office since Friday. We didn’t get a chance to pass the word to him.”

“Pretty busy, is he?” McQuade asked.

“He’s costing our fall line,” Griff said. “I usually handle that myself, but this time I was jammed up and couldn’t… Aaron knows as much about costing as I do, anyway, and we had to get a man on it right away. Guild Week is coming up in a little over a month, you know, and Chrysler is beginning to put on a little pressure.”

“I see,” McQuade said. “Pretty important, is it? Guild Week?”

“Guild Week?” Griff asked, surprised. “Oh sure, Guild Week is… well, don’t you know about Guild Week?”

“I’m afraid not,” McQuade said. He ducked his head. “Here comes my abysmal ignorance to the surface again.”

“Oh, Guild Week is a lot of work,” Griff said. “Hell of a lot of work, but it’s fun, too. It’s a showing for the entire fashion shoe industry, you see. We usually take over a hotel somewhere; this year it’s in New York, last year it was in Chicago; it varies. Kahn will have one floor, or room, like the Empire Room, for example, and I. Miller will have another, and De Liso, all of them will be represented, as well as the allied leather trades, handbags, belts, stuff like that. Our salesmen are all called in, and most of our accounts show up, and we give them a preview of our complete line for the following season, either spring or fall. There are models, and a sales pitch, and a dinner sometimes, and drinks, and, well, it’s something like a convention, I suppose, and really pretty exciting because we do a bang-up job on the presentation of our line. Guild Week is something, all right.”

“I’ll be looking forward to it,” McQuade said.

“It isn’t until the middle of April,” Griff said probingly.

McQuade only nodded in answer, and Griff looked at him for a moment before he went back to his pricing.

“I’m really glad I asked for these summaries,” McQuade said at length. “It really makes things a whole lot easier, do you know?”

“I imagine so,” Griff said.

“And I’m glad no one took them really seriously. They’ve told me just what I want to know, with no attempt at making their jobs more important, no attempt to deceive me. Hell, I’m not an inquisitor.” He smiled happily. “Yes, I’m very, very pleased with these summaries. Very pleased.”