The Spiked Heel

4

The entire IBM Room was fired on Friday of that week. The firing came as something of a shock, because Julien Kahn usually let people go on Wednesdays, when the payroll was tallied. Titanic apparently preferred the last day of the week, a preference which would lead to a good deal of anxiety on that day for many weeks to come.

Everyone, of course, knew that the IBM Room was not worth a damn the way it was being run. Frank Fazio was a hell of a nice guy, but he didn’t know the IBM from the BMT. Ever since the machines had been installed last August, the department had been in a constant state of harried bewilderment. The machines, which would have simplified the department’s job if properly utilized, had become separate, quietly calculating monsters, and each employee in the department approached them with a mental illusion of being devoured, punched, and filed under D for Digested. Fazio had, of course, taken the required IBM course of study, but Fazio was an old dog, and these new tricks were a little too much for him to absorb. He had tried passing on his partially learned tricks to the people who worked under him, and the result was a confused mass of uninformed people playing around with a very well-informed mass of machines machines which assumed the characteristics of master brains by comparison. But even so, even knowing the department was something of a beheaded chicken, everyone in the factory had sort of grown accustomed to its aimless meanderings. It was something like having a drunken husband lying on the living-room couch all day long. You certainly didn’t call the ASPCA to come take him away, did you? No one in the factory would have dreamed of taking the IBM Room away.

Except Joseph Manelli, it seemed.

Joseph Manelli, it seemed, had no particular fondness for drunken spouses cluttering up the living room of his factory. Joseph Manelli called International Business Machines and told them to have their infernal monsters out of the building by Friday of next week, at which time most of the members of the department would officially leave the employ of Julien Kahn. There were seven people in the IBM Room: five girls, Fazio (who was supervisor), and an assistant supervisor. Manelli’s one-week notice applied only to the five girls. Fazio and his assistant were expected to stay on for an additional sixty days while they cleaned up shop, after which time the Accounting Department would take over its duties. Or so the memo from Manelli decreed.

Griff was not at all pleased with the memo, a carbon copy of which had reached his desk, since the IBM operation tied in with his own. He liked Frank Fazio, and he had also liked Joseph Manelli to some extent. But Manelli exhibited all the signs of becoming a worse son of a bitch than Kurz had ever been, and this was very disturbing to Griff.

He voiced his opinions in the seeming privacy of the Cost Department, and Marge listened to him quietly and attentively. When his tirade was completed, he was surprised to find McQuade standing in the open doorway, and he felt this strange panic again, and he cursed McQuade mentally, certain the man’s forefathers had all been Indian scouts.

McQuade smiled. “You shouldn’t condemn Joe, Griff,” he said. “He’s stepped into a difficult job. And, after all, you know as well as I do that the IBM Room was operating at a loss. Or at least that’s what Joe told me.”

“Well,” Griff said warily, “I suppose so.”

McQuade shrugged. “I’ve got a bad habit, I guess, of always trying to see the other man’s viewpoint. Griff, we’re all being paid to do a job, aren’t we? If we’re not doing our job, we’re accepting money under false pretenses. I think Joe did the right thing in letting the entire department go. And I think the big boys at Titanic will be pleased with what he’s done.”

Griff imagined they would, but he did not voice any comment. Throughout the past week, he had come to accept McQuade as a permanent fixture in the department. The tight formality of their earlier thrusts at friendship had dissolved into a smoothly functioning working relationship. Griff took to calling him “Mac” without feeling silly about it, and McQuade went about his getting-acquainted job effortlessly and quietly, asking nothing more than desk space from the department. He visited other departments, and he talked to people, and he spent a lot of time with Manelli and a lot of time with Hengman and a lot of time in the factory, and as much time in Chrysler Building across the river. He really seemed determined to learn the Kahn operation. He was always courteous and always pleasant, and there was no real reason to distrust him.

But, at the same time, Griff very rarely voiced any opinions about Titanic while McQuade was present. He was sensible enough to realize that McQuade was indeed a representative of the now-mother company, and he was in no hurry to vilify Mom’s name while McQuade was around. Lurking in the corner of his mind was Hengman’s declaration that McQuade was a “hetchet men.” Griff wasn’t sure that McQuade was, but he was not anxious to find out. He considered McQuade’s unfortunate entrance during his tirade a serious mishap, and he warned himself to be more careful in the future.

The firing of the IBM Room precipitated a flow of memos from every department in the factory and Sales Offices, as if the firing were a slap in the face which had suddenly brought the entire company to its collective feet. The week after the firing would long be remembered as Memo Week.

Manelli started the ball rolling with his upper-case memos, a sign of affectation no doubt, but certainly boldly impressive in their own quietly screaming way. The memos came from his office like ominously falling stones, and they probably started the avalanche which followed. The first memo was a short one. It said:

It was true, of course, that floor foremen had pets on their floors, or friends, or relatives, or even mistresses. It was also true that these assorted pets, friends, relatives, and mistresses did a lot of piecework, and that sometimes the piecework on a particular shoe ran out, and there was nothing left to do but go home. Being a pet, friend, etc. of the foreman came in handy at such times. The foreman found work for these idle pieceworkers, putting them on straight time for the remainder of the day. The work was usually of a non-laborious nature, and was generally a waste of time and — more important — company money. So Manelli’s first memo was not a silly one. It was, in fact, a pretty shrewd one, and Griff wondered how in hell he had ever found out about the delinquency or how he’d ever mustered up the courage to call a halt to it.

His second memo was an attempt at spilling a little oil on the troubled waters. It read:

Well, this was definitely soothing to the department heads, especially after being called down about favors to special friends. This meant that the denial of favors was to be accompanied by a little extra cash for the denial of those favors. For overtime was definitely a favor. If a man goofed all day long, he could stay at his machine to the wee hours of the morn, drawing time and a half, and goofing even more. It was an accepted means of pulling down a little extra dough that week, and the foremen casually overlooked it, even though everyone knew that four hours of overtime work amounted to about one hour of honest-to-God straight-time work. So the supervisors were happy, but the workers weren’t particularly overjoyed. Overtime, to many of them, meant the difference between a new TV set or last year’s paltry seventeen-inch model. The workers were not happy at all.

So Manelli issued a third decree, designed to lift the spirits of the factory personnel, and the third decree read as follows:

Not to be outdone by Joseph Manelli, the people in charge of various departments throughout the building began sending their own memos, carbon copies of which invariably reached Griff’s desk for one reason or another.

TO: George Natalis

FROM: Arthur Magruder

It has been brought to my attention that invoices sent by Kahn to Fred Rakon, Sioux City, Iowa, have met with delinquent payment, and it was suggested to me by Mr. Manelli that perhaps the Credit Department was to blame in not properly checking the new account before accepting his order. This is to notify you that this account was checked thoroughly with D & B, from which it received an excellent credit rating, plus a bank balance in the high six figures. And…

TO: Fred Purdy

FROM: David Stiegman

Concerning the memo which was addressed to Mr. George Natalis from Mr. Arthur Magruder concerning certain difficulties in payment we are experiencing with invoices sent by Kahn to Fred Rakon, Sioux City, Iowa. I have gone into this matter thoroughly, and the findings are as follows: There has been negligence in the shipping department where shoes already invoiced were not being shipped until a month, sometimes six weeks, afterwards and…

TO: Mr. Harris

FROM: Karl Vorhies

Beginning with the shipments of March 17th, orders for Louisville, Elizabethtown, and Frankfort, Kentucky, will be credited to Mr. Carter Jacobs. They were formerly accounts covered in the territory of Bert Binick. And…

TO: J. J. Carlson

FROM: Boris Hengman

Confirming our recent talk at lunch, we will accept special orders taken at special order showings wherever these special order showings occur in the Boston territory, and there will be no special order charge on these special orders taken, unless a special order charge is requested by you specifically, and…

Memos and memos, and more memos, flowing through the factory like mercury. Memos from Payroll to Sales, from Credit to Cost, from Cost to Payroll, from Sales to Production, from Production to Sales, from Tom to Fred and Fred to Mike and Mike to George and George to Sam and Sam to Louie and Louie to Tom, memos scrawled on scratch paper or typed or dittoed or mimeographed or crayoned or inked, memos delivered by the messenger boys, or the clerks, or the department heads, memos, memos, memos, and then the Sales Division climbed aboard with:

Toot and begorrah, if we’re not pickled tink!

We’ve noticed a pickup in stock, and everyone knows that’s the first sign of a stimulated business activity. Women are crying for shoes, begging for shoes, so let’s get out there and talk “stock” with our accounts.

Kahnettes are going to be the big thing, Kahnettes and more Kahnettes, new and exciting at a price to fit milady’s purse, and…

We’ve just seen some of our Fall samples! If we are permitted to enthuse just a very little bit, they are positively terrific! We’ve got the freshest, newest, most complete line of women’s fashion shoes that have ever been offered, and we predict one of our best seasons to date. And what does all this mean to you? It means you’re getting new lasts, new silhouettes, new heels and trimmings. It means you’ve got a refreshing, terrific line to start pushing once Guild Week proves our prediction to be valid. It means…

He got the idea during Memo Week, when everyone and his brother was memo-happy. He went to see Manelli often during that week, trying to work out an increased production plan with him, and each time he went to Manelli’s office he lingered longer to chat with Cara Knowles. There was something very appealing about the girl’s quiet good looks, and Griff finally decided he should get to know her a little better than Manelli’s office permitted.

He went into the office on Wednesday of Memo Week and walked directly to Cara’s desk.

“Hi,” he said. “How are you?”

“Fine, Griff,” she answered. “Was Mr. Manelli expecting you?”

“Nope,” he said. “But this memo got sent to me by error. It’s addressed to you.”

“Oh?” Cara seemed confused. She bit her lip and said, “Who’d want to send me…”

“Why don’t you open it?”

“All right.” She hesitated a moment, and then lifted the flap of the OFFICE COMMUNICATIONS SERVICE envelope. The memo read:

Cara looked up, and for an instant he saw the same look he had first seen on her face the day he’d met her. And then she smiled, and her face softened.

“Well?” he said.

“I think so,” she said.

“Fine. What time?”

“Eight o’clock?”

“Fine. Where?”

“Here’s the address.” She scrawled it for him on a slip of paper. “This is the nicest memo I ever got,” she said. She paused and her smile widened and there was something coquettish in her eyes when she added, “In fact, it’s the only memo I ever got.”

“At eight Saturday, and dancing it is.”

He left her office feeling happy as hell, humming to himself all the way down the corridor. When he passed the open Credit Department doorway, he peeked in. Magruder and Danny were at the windows, wrangling over a pair of binoculars. He laughed aloud and then went to his own office.

A shoe was waiting on his desk.

Aaron Reis was standing alongside the desk, sniffing the air, his eyes sparkling.

“What do you think of it?” he asked.

Griff walked to the desk and studied the shoe. He backed away then, looking at it from a distance, and then he circled the desk, his eyes never once leaving the shoe. It was a simple shell pump in a tan reptile, cut extremely low in the vamp, starkly bare in its beauty. There was not a bit of trim or piping on the shoe. It carried a very high heel, at least a 24/8, and the arch of the shoe was a delicately scooped-out open area, giving the entire shoe a look of lightness and airiness. The lizard used had obviously been a damned good skin. The grain was uniform and small, and the lack of ornaments intensified the dignified bare beauty of the shoe.

“Well?” Aaron asked.

“Naked Flesh?”

“Naked Flesh.”

“I like it,” Griff said.

“Doesn’t it strike you as being a little strange?”

“The fact that it’s a shell pump, you mean?”

“Yes. Now who the hell wants to invest in a reptile shoe and get a shell pump? The most important thing in a reptile shoe is the skin, am I right? So a woman is willing to plunk down fifty bucks if she can get that skin. But we’re giving her a shell pump with a damned narrow heel. Just look at that low throat, Griff! Where’s the reptile? Why does she have to pay fifty bucks for this job?”

“Why indeed?” Griff asked.

“She doesn’t,” Aaron said. “Look at that beautiful bitch, Griff, just look at her. What woman wouldn’t hock her eye-teeth to stick her feet into that shoe? That would flatter the foot of a washerwoman. And it’s reptile, and I’ll be Goddamned if I’m not going to ask you to sell it to milady for as low as thirty-seven fifty.”

“Retail?” Griff said. “You’re joking.”

“Forty-two dollars, tops,” Aaron said. “And why? Griff, we’re saving piles of dough on this shoe. It’s a shell pump, so we can cut smaller vamps and quarters, and with those small alligator lizard skins that’s important. It means we can get more shoes from a single skin than if this were a regular pump, and all because of that throat. The heel is slender and long, and if we cut this bitch right, we can get our heel coverings from the skin left over from the low-throat pattern. And look at it, Griff! Now, isn’t it a beautiful shoe? Oh, Jesus, isn’t it a honey?”

“It’s something, Aaron,” Griff said, feeling more than he could express. “It’s really something, believe me.”

“Where’s Marge? I want her to try this on. You’ll see then, Griff.”

“I see now,” Griff said honestly. “Is it her size?”

“Four-B,” Aaron said. “Hell, you know she’s got a model’s foot.” He looked toward the door. “Where the hell is she?”

“Probably in the john.”

“Look, Griff, would you buy this shoe? If you saw this shoe for thirty-seven fifty, alligator lizard, mind you, with those god-damn pure lines, would you buy it? Tell me the God’s honest truth, if you were a woman wouldn’t you sell your husband to buy this shoe?”

“I’d sell my mother,” Griff said, smiling.

Marge came in, putting her purse down on her desk, and then walking over to where the shoe caught the sunlight.

“Do you like it?” Aaron asked, beaming.

“Do I like it? Aaron, it’s beautiful!”

“Thirty-seven fifty retail,” Aaron said.

“No!”

“Yes, yes.”

“Try it on, Marge,” Griff said.

“Oh, could I?” she asked, her eyes wide.

“I’d be insulted if you didn’t,” Aaron answered.

“To hear him talk,” Griff said, “you’d think he designed the damn thing.”

“I love that shoe,” Aaron said. “Oh, I love that bitch.”

Marge sat down and crossed her legs, pulling her skirt up over her knees, smoothing her nylon, and then taking off her shoe. Griff picked up the pump tenderly, cradling it in one hand.

“Milady,” he said, bending down and taking Marge’s foot. Aaron handed him a shoehorn, and Griff slipped the shoe onto Marge’s foot and then backed away.

“Can I stand on it?” she asked.

“I don’t want to scuff the sole,” Aaron said. “Here, just a minute.” He spread his handkerchief on the floor. “All right, go ahead.”

Marge stood, placing the sole of her foot on the handkerchief. Gracefully, she smoothed her skirts back against her right leg, in a shoe model’s pose, taking a short step backwards with the other foot, showing the full curve of her leg, the pump hugging her foot, the low throat scooping down to reveal the beginnings of her toes.

“What a shoe!” Griff said.

“What legs!” Aaron said, clucking appreciatively.

“Oh, now hush,” Marge said. “Oh, isn’t it beautiful! I don’t think we’ve ever had a shoe like this one. I adore it.” Her eyes flared. “Griff, can we get a pair for me at cost?”

“Well…”

They heard the footsteps hurrying down the corridor, and then they heard the voice.

“Griff!”

Griff whirled instantly. Sven Jored, supervisor of the Cutting Room, rushed through the doorway, stared excitedly around the office for a moment, and then ran over to where they were standing. He was a big man with ash-blond hair and blue-eyes, his sleeves rolled up over bulging muscles, his shop apron stained with sweat.

“Griff,” he said urgently.

“What is it, Sven?”

“Downstairs,” Jored said, and then stopped to catch his breath. “Charlie Fields… your friend… the kid…”

“What about him?”

“Griff, the whole floor is in an uproar. I swear to God, I don’t know what got into them, but he likes you, Griff, I thought you could…”

“What the hell is it, Sven? Spit it out!”

“Charlie and Steve… they’re both apprentice cutters, you know that… work side by side… Griff…” He gulped more air into his lungs. “I don’t know how it happened… first time anything like this on my floor… the runner says Steve got sore because Charlie was getting the stuff that paid more per piece, but how was the kid to know, he just got the fabrics and dumped them, didn’t he? But Steve got sore, that’s what they tell me, and he started riding Charlie, and you know Charlie, Griff, he’s got a bad temper, so he told Steve to shut the hell up and mind his own business. Griff, we’ve all been on edge, this crap about no more overtime, that hurts a man, Griff, they’re all trying to get the cream jobs now, the stuff that pays off.”

“What happened, Sven?”

“I don’t know how it happened, I swear it. But they’re on the floor now, Griff, circling around those goddam benches. Everything’s stopped, Griff, everything, the whole floor, Prefitting everything. They’re circling around, and Charlie’s got a cutting knife in his hand, and Steve is swinging that heavy mallet we use for stamping dies, I swear to Christ, Griff, one of those stupid bastards is going to get killed. I tried to talk to them, but they won’t listen, they just keep circling like two goddam tigers or something. Griff, I thought maybe you could talk to Charlie, he knows you and he likes you and maybe he’ll listen to reason, otherwise we’re gonna have a lot of goddam blood down there, I can promise you that. Griff, the girls in Prefitting are all screaming like a bunch of—”

“Come on,” Griff said.