by Ed McBain
McQuade stared at the girl silently for several moments. The girl was visibly trembling. She was not a bad-looking woman, with small perfectly formed breasts beneath the thin smock she wore. Her legs would have been good if they were not so thin. There was a small, healing scratch on her right leg, and the scratch somehow made her seem more vulnerable to McQuade’s penetrating stare. McQuade looked her over from her head to her toes, scrutinizing her face, and then her body, examining her like a man ready to buy a slave on the open market. His gaze seemed to pierce the girl’s body. She raised her hand, covering her small breasts, and then dropped it suddenly.
McQuade changed his tactics.
“You know why you’re here, don’t you, miss?” he asked. His voice was low but forceful, like the thud of a rubber-headed hammer.
“No. No, I do not, señ—sir.”
“What is your name, miss?”
“Maria Theresa Diaz.”
“You stole a pair of shoes, didn’t you, Maria?” McQuade said softly.
Maria blinked at him.
“You did, didn’t you, Maria?” he said hypnotically. “You stole a pair of shoes from the company, didn’t you? Where do you work, Maria?”
“I work een Packin’,” she said. Her lips trembled and she could barely get the words out. Griff thought she would collapse on the carpet. He tensed himself, ready to leap for her when she started to fall.
“And that’s where you stole the shoes, isn’t it, Maria? Isn’t that true, Maria? You stole a pair of red shoes in the Packing Department, didn’t you? Didn’t you, Maria?” He brought the Flare pattern to the top of the desk in one fluid movement, almost as if the movement were a part of his low, rumbling speech. “This is the shoe you stole, Maria. We know you stole it, Maria. You did steal it, didn’t you? Didn’t you, Maria?”
The girl’s lips moved. She tried to speak, but no words came to her mouth. She kept her eyes on McQuade’s face, as if she could not pull them away. Her entire body strained in an effort to take her eyes from McQuade’s face, but she could not do it.
“You did steal them, Maria, didn’t you?” he asked slowly and quietly. “We know you stole them, Maria, so you can tell us about it. They’re very pretty shoes, Maria, and we know you stole them, so why don’t you just tell us about it? You did steal them, didn’t you, Maria?”
The girl began shaking her head. She still could not speak, but she began shaking her head mutely, and tears welled up in her eyes and then trickled down onto her cheeks while she shook her head.
McQuade rose, huge and wrathful behind Manelli’s desk.
“You stole these shoes!” he shouted, and the girl flinched before his voice, as if he had struck her in the mouth with his fist. “You stole them, you thieving, sniveling little cheat. Admit it! Admit it!”
The girl began to blubber. She put her hands to her face and sobbed into them. “I … I deed not want … only to try them on … only to try them on … Meester Gar’ner, he come back.… I wass only try them on … I wass—”
“You took them home?” McQuade roared.
The girl nodded, sobbing, her breast heaving.
“Bring those shoes back,” McQuade said, “do you hear? Bring them back with you tomorrow morning, do you understand? You may go now.”
The girl stood sobbing before the desk, unmoving.
“You may go, I said.”
She nodded her head, and then shook it, and then nodded it again. She turned then and walked out of the office, and Griff watched her go, watched the defeated slump of her shoulders, the battered droop of her head.
The office was very silent for several moments. Griff could hear Manelli breathing harshly beside him. McQuade walked from behind the desk and stood staring at the closed door.
“When she brings those shoes back, Joe,” he said, “fire her. And then I think it would be a good idea to get a memo off to every floor in the factory, telling them of the incident. Of course, that’s up to you.”
He was changing again. Right before Griff’s eyes, he was changing back to the smiling gentleman from Georgia. He was removing his mask and his blood-smeared gloves, and he was picking up his walking stick and donning his high felt hat. The smile mushroomed onto his face, illuminating his good looks, full of beneficence and warmth, full of humble clay, full of good-guyness. It took him less than ten seconds to complete the change, and once he’d managed it, it was almost impossible to remember the persecuting bastard who had raged at the frail girl before Manelli’s desk. This was the real McQuade, this smiling, genial fellow. The other man had never existed.
“Well now, Griff, what were you saying about increasing our pairage?” McQuade asked, smiling.
“I … I …”
“Or would you rather get it clear with Joe before you ring me in on it? Is that it?”
A man with a fire hose in his hands popped into Griff’s mind. The man unleashed a torrent of water, and the water turned to a torrent of words, and then the water and the words vanished, leaving only a smile like sunshine in a godlike figure, a golden glow of sunshine around a blond smiling face, a golden glow that wiped away the mist of confusion, smiling, smiling.…
Smiling, McQuade walked toward the door. “You two talk it over,” he said. “I’ll see you later, okay?”
He was gone then, and Griff squeezed his eyes shut tightly, remembering the panic of Martha Goldstein, remembering the silent sobbing terror of Maria Theresa Diaz.
Beside him, Joseph Manelli cleared his throat. Griff looked up, his eyes meeting Manelli’s.
“He … he gets things done, doesn’t he?” Manelli said. His voice was a little sad, and it lacked conviction.
Griff did not answer him. Griff was struggling with the curious trembling that had suddenly attacked his body.
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 st
op 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 …