The Spiked Heel

by Ed McBain

  “You can drop whatever you’re doing,” Griff said, “and get to work on this pattern. That’s what you can do.”

  “Can’t,” Davidoff said.

  “Swamped, I know. Morris, this is important.”

  “So is this. I’m working on something for the Hengman.”

  “Hengman? What the hell does he …?”

  “A project,” Davidoff said sadly, “Always projects when I’m up to my nostrils in other stuff. He says we’re not making enough money on Bare Facts. Now, if there ever was a shoe I surveyed right on the button, that was it. But Hengman says we’re making more on our other sandals, and he wants to know why. So he wants me to work out a detailed survey of material on that shoe as compared to our other sandals. You know how many sandals we’ve made in our history, Griff? That’s why I’m swamped.”

  “Morris, this can wait. Chrysler—”

  “Hengman wants it by Tuesday,” Davidoff said.

  “I see,” Griff said slowly.

  “Do you think I’m happy about it, Griff? I swear to God, if I didn’t know better, I’d suspect this was just a time-wasting operation that some stupid bastard dreamed up. But can I tell that to Hengman?” Davidoff shrugged helplessly.

  “So what am I supposed to do?” Griff asked.

  Davidoff shrugged again. “Call Chrysler. Tell them to postpone their meeting.”

  “They won’t do that, Morris. The salesmen have to get out on the road.”

  “Then call the Hengman.”

  “May I use your phone?”

  “Sure, go ahead,” Davidoff said.

  Griff asked for Hengman’s extension, and then he waited.

  “Hello?” Hengman asked.

  “Boris, this is Griff.”

  “I’m busy, Griffie. What is it?”

  “Morris tells me he’s working up something for you, and I need him on this new lucite heel pattern.”

  “Griffe dis is assantial. I ken’t pull Morris off what he’s doing now.”

  “What’s so essential now about a pattern we’ve been making for years? Can’t it wait?”

  “Losing money ken’t wait, Griffie.”

  “Are you in on this, too, Boris?” he asked impulsively.

  “In on what? What?”

  “Never mind. What am I supposed to do meanwhile? How the hell can I come up with a recommended price when …?”

  “You the head of the Cust Depottment, or me?” Hengman asked, and then he hung up. Griff stared at the receiver as if he could not believe he was holding a dead line. He dropped the phone back into its cradle.

  “Can you stay over tonight, Morris?” he asked dully.

  “What for?”

  “To work up this cost. If I can’t have you during the day, I’ll have to settle for overtime.”

  “Titanic doesn’t like overtime,” Davidoff said.

  “Yes or no? If you’re in on the deal, say no, and I’ll work out something for myself.”

  “What deal?” Davidoff asked. There seemed to be honest concern and bewilderment in his eyes. “Griff, I’d do anything in my power to help you. But my wife is expecting any day now, and I’m afraid she’ll deliver all over the bathroom floor if I’m not home to take her to the hospital.”

  “Oh,” Griff said. He wiped a hand over his face. “If you don’t mind, then, I’ll fiddle with your charts myself. You don’t lock the office, do you?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll stop in tonight. Thanks, Morris. Meanwhile, I’ll see Sal. Maybe I can work out the labor estimate with him.”

  He left Davidoff’s office feeling curiously empty. He had not expected Boris Hengman to turn on him, and it had come like a slap in the face. He realized then just how tight McQuade’s grip of fear was, and the knowledge was saddening.

  When he reached Sal Valdero’s office, he was not surprised to find him busy. He waited by Valdero’s desk until he looked up.

  “Oh, hi, Griff” Valdero said. “What’s the trouble?”

  “No trouble, Sal.”

  “What’s that in your hand?”

  “Something called L039. It’s the new lucite heel pattern. I need a labor estimate from you, and I need it by Tuesday.”

  Valdero was already shaking his head.

  “What’s the matter?” Griff asked.

  “Tuesday. Everybody wants everything by Tuesday. No can do.”

  “Read it to me,” Griff said.

  “I’m working out a new piece rate for Mr. McQuade. Planning another raise for the men. He wants it by Tuesday.”

  “I see.”

  “So …” Valdero shrugged.

  “Mardi Gras,” Griff said.

  “Huh?”

  “Greasy Tuesday,” he answered, and he left Valdero’s office.

  He did not once think of quitting.

  If McQuade’s building of pressure was intended to force him to quit, it came nowhere near its mark. The thought never once entered his mind. On the contrary, he was determined not to let the pressure beat him, even if he dropped dead trying.

  Marge was in the try-on room for the remainder of that Thursday. He suffered the substitute typist’s clumsy abortions all day long, wrangling with Manelli’s cost cards at the same time. He had called Chrysler earlier and asked one of the sales clerks to send over the Pattern Log Book, from which he might obtain the number of pairs sold on any pattern, by account. When the book arrived by messenger, he dropped the cost cards and got to work on the pairage sales.

  At quitting time, he went to Davidoff’s office and tried deciphering the charts and graphs, fumbling with the slide rule. He left the factory at midnight, said good-by to the watchman, and went home, no closer to a cost and price estimate than he’d been when he started.

  On Friday morning, Marge called in to say she’d be in the try-on room with Naked Flesh all that day, and I love you. He told her he loved her, and then he got to work on the pairage again, working on it all that day. He went to Davidoff’s office after hours and tried again to work through the maze of charts, giving up at eleven. He took his cost cards home with him, jotting down the cost without profit, the cost with profit, the selling price, tallying them on long sheets beneath the pairage sold by account, the information he’d got from the Pattern Log Book. There were thousands and thousands of cards for him to wade through.

  He called Marge on Saturday and told her he wouldn’t see her that week end, and then admitted the reason only after constant questioning from her. She was at his apartment within the hour, taking off her gloves and efficiently beginning to transcribe the figures he had jotted down.

  They worked steadily over the week end, stopping only for an occasional meal or an occasional kiss. By Monday morning the cost cards were almost finished. The costing and pricing of the lucite heel pattern hadn’t even been started.

  On Monday morning Aaron magically appeared at the office, freed from the nebulous Chrysler Building duties. Marge, as was expected, was yanked out of the office and transported to another modeling of Naked Flesh, an intrigue she suffered reluctantly now that she knew what was in the wind. Aaron, blithely unaware of the stress, sat at his desk and rattled on about the lucite heel shoe.

  “A beauty, a real beauty, you’ve got to hand it to our Fashion people. Like walking on air, Griff. The sun strikes that shoe right, and you’d never guess there was a heel on it.”

  “Yes,” Griff said, thinking, Tomorrow’s Tuesday. Just what do I tell Stiegman when he calls for the prices?

  “Glockamorra,” Aaron said, “a honey even when we built it on the 429 last. But with this improved last, and with the lucite heel … say, do you remember Glockamorra?”

  “Yes.”

  “There was a shoe,” Aaron said proudly. “But picture it with the lucite heel! That’s the difference, my friend. You stick the lucite heel on it, and you’ve got that honey of a black suede and then this clear plastic. Oh, brother, you’ve got a shoe then!”

  “Yes,” Griff said.

 
; “They’re calling it Spindrift,” Aaron said. “From Glockamorra to Spindrift. What does spindrift mean?”

  “I don’t know,” Griff said.

  “But it clicks anyway, doesn’t it? Sort of a drifty, spinny feel to it, like walking on air. Glockamorra on air. Glockamorra with a lucite heel.”

  “What?” Griff said.

  “Huh?”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said … how should I know … why don’t you pay attention?”

  Griff was on his feet. “Did you say Glockamorra with a lucite heel? Is that what you said?”

  “Yes. Yes, I guess so. Hey, what’s …?”

  “You mean this lucite heel pattern is just Glockamorra? It’s just that black suede pump with a lucite heel substitute? Is that all?”

  “Is that all? Man, it took all our combined brains to shove this thing into the line so fast. The competition will flip when Kahn comes out with—”

  “But that’s impossible,” Griff said. “The pattern number on Glockamorra is 537. This one is L039. How come they’re diff—”

  “We’re using a new last,” Aaron said. “Improved, better-fitting. And then, of course, there’s the lucite heel. Didn’t want any confusion between Glockamorra and this new baby, so we’re giving it a different pattern number.” Aaron stared at Griff, puzzled. “You mean … you mean you didn’t know this was the same shoe?”

  “Then L039 is just a new pattern number for 537? Oh, those rotten bastards! Why didn’t someone tell me?” And then his eyes lighted with the calculations he immediately began to make. “Same cost,” he said, “less the suede heel covering. Slight difference perhaps, because of the improved last, but I can gamble on that. Just substitute the lucite for the wood heel. Same labor, too, unless the lucite heel requires special work. But I can check that with Heeling.” He snapped his fingers. “Where are we buying the heels, Aaron?”

  “What?”

  “The lucite heels. Where the hell are we buying them?”

  “Oh. That was another piece of genius. It took us almost two days to locate—”

  “Where?” Griff shouted.

  “All right, all right,” Aaron said, surprised by this outburst. “Plastics, Inc. Four thirty-two Madison Avenue. You want the phone number?”

  Griff grinned broadly. “Goddam right I want-the phone number!”

  He called Plastics, Inc., and talked to a man named Franklin there. Franklin told him just how much each lucite heel was costing Julien Kahn, and Griff jotted down the cost and then went down to the Heeling Department to talk with Baldy Pujaks. Pujaks said no, he could see no reason why the lucite heel should bring more per piece than the ordinary heel would bring the workers. Griff thanked him and went back up to Cost.

  He fished the card for the Glockamorra pattern from his files, pattern number 537, a pattern he knew like the back of his hand, oh those rotten bastards, and then he made his allowances for difference in cost between lucite and wooden heels, deducted the cost of the heel covering as listed on the cost card, and then adjusted the total cost to conform, realizing he was taking a very slight gamble because of the new last but certain his estimated cost and price would be damned close nonetheless. He dug out the prices he’d arrived at for the entire fall line, jotted those down under the price for the new lucite heel pattern, L039, L039, God damn it, it was Glockamorra all along, and he was ready to roll. All he needed now was a ditto machine, and there were two of them down in Production.

  Pat O’Herlihy was in charge of Production. He was a big red-headed man with a barrel chest and a deep voice. When Griff showed him what he wanted run off, he shook his head.

  “I’m sorry, m’boy,” he said.

  “What’s the trouble?”

  “No trouble a’tall. Except both my ditto machines are tied up and will be tied up all day, I’m that busy.”

  “What are they tied up with?”

  “Th’ Hengman sent down a flock of notices he wants dittoed. Says he needs them in a hurry.”

  “What kind of notices?”

  “Here, be takin’ a look at one of them for yourself.”

  O’Herlihy led him to the two ditto machines where the girls with their ink-stained fingers were pulling sheets. He picked up one of the sheets and handed it to Griff. It read:

  ATTENTION

  DUE TO INDEPENDENCE DAY FALLING ON A SUNDAY THIS YEAR, THE TWO-WEEK FACTORY VACATION WILL BEGIN AS NORMALLY ON MONDAY JULY 5TH, BUT CREDIT WILL BE GIVEN FOR THAT MONDAY AND WORKERS ARE NOT DUE BACK UNTIL TUESDAY MORNING, JULY 20TH.

  Griff stared at the notice incredulously. “This?” he asked.

  “That,” O’Herlihy said. “That and a few dozen others of similar nature.”

  “Can’t you run them later?”

  “Wants them tomorrow, he does.”

  “For July Fourth? Jesus Christ, this is still April!”

  “Do I argue with Hengman? Now, what good will arguing with Hengman do me, I ask you?”

  Griff shook his head. “When will the machines be free, Pat?”

  O’Herlihy shrugged. “When we knock off to go home, I suppose.”

  “Thanks, Pat.”

  At five o’clock that evening, he and Marge went into the Production Department. They set up both ditto machines and knocked off more than enough price sheets for Stiegman and his salesmen, more than enough price sheets, in fact, for the entire Russian Army.

  They went out for a quick dinner, and then they went to Griff’s place where they finished compiling the cost card information Manelli had demanded.

  At 9:00 A.M. the next morning, that information was on Manelli’s desk.

  And Dave Stiegman was slightly surprised when a messenger walked into the Chrysler Building at ten-thirty and delivered the price sheets he needed for his sales conference.

  For the moment the pressure was off.

  13

  It was hot for May.

  The heat attacked the city with a fierce July intensity. Girls in low-cut cotton frocks magically appeared on the streets; men’s bulky tweeds were exchanged for shantungs and linens and seersuckers; and the sun seekers crowded the sauerkraut pots of itinerant hot-dog carts. The city, under sudden siege, sucked in its fetid breath and people talked of a hot summer coming and began to drink Tom Collinses and Gin and Tonics.

  Cara Knowles had never liked the heat. The heat and she were natural enemies. From the age of four, she had been whisked away to expensive camps in upper New York and Connecticut, safely away from the muggy, clinging oppressiveness of the sweltering city.

  She had gone to camp every year until she was fifteen. When she was sixteen, she experienced her first pang of conscience. She tallied up one day the staggering amount of money her father had spent over the years to keep her cool. Her feeling of guilt was strong, but unconquerable beneath that was the memory of what a summer in the city was like. She struggled with the idea of staying home that summer, but on July 2, along with a passel of squealing brats and harried, hurried counselors, she once more boarded the northbound train in Grand Central Station. But this time there was a difference. This time she went as a junior counselor, an apprenticeship which cut her usual camping fees in half. Her father was pleased, and her mother was, also. Their little Cara was growing up; their little Cara was assuming the responsibilities of womanhood.

  And, indeed, their little Cara was growing up. She had been a pale, thin, awkward fifteen-year-old the season before, her dark hair wild and unruly, her chest as flat as any boy’s, her legs spindly, her eyes wide staring brown saucers in her narrow face. As she approached sixteen, she suddenly ripened. For some inexplicable reason (she ate no more than usual!) she began to put on weight. Her arms rounded, and her legs matured, the thigh growing firmer to taper down to a well-rounded knee and a shapely calf and ankle. The flat monotony of her breast suddenly puckered, and then sloped gently, and then burst with womanhood so that even the good Dr. Knowles was slightly embarrassed when he inadvertently barged in one day on his
newly buxom daughter struggling into a sheer nylon brassiere.

  Her hair, uncontrollable until now, took on a new gloss, a shiny-dull blue black which she combed into the popular page-boy of the day. Her skin, pimply with adolescence, shed its scales, emerged clear and pristine, outdone only by the shining white line of her teeth, teeth which had received loving attention over the years under the hands of her father.

  Secure in the padded comfort of her new body, content with her oval face and bright brown eyes, thrilled with the new gleam of her hair and the new thrust of her breasts, Cara Knowles arrived at Taka-Manna.

  The sudden attention she received was a bit overwhelming. Last year the senior boys had studiously avoided her, dancing with her only when a counselor forced the task upon them. Their inattention had not disturbed her, mainly because she was thoroughly uninterested in boys and their peculiarly boisterous ways. For, coupled with the child’s body she had worn that season was a child’s mind, content to ogle butterflies in the Nature Shack, happy to engage in Ping-pong with an equally childish girl friend while her more enterprising bunkmates cast amateurishly inadequate glances at the senior boys.

  This season, aware of her newly found charms, she had expected some measure of attention from the male j.c.’s. She had not expected attention from full-fledged counselors, most of whom were college boys, and some of whom had already seen service in the war! The attention she did receive was flattering and bewildering, but most of all ecstatically enjoyable.

  When Cara’s brassiere was stolen from her trunk and was found fluttering from the flagpole the next morning, she laughed delightedly. When she won the camp’s beauty contest, exhibiting her charms against the bathing-suited glamour of older, wiser girls, she bore her queenship with royal grace and virginal humbleness. When men—well, yes, couldn’t these college boys be called men?—rushed to do her bidding at a barbecue or a dance, she was excitedly thrilled with a new strange sense of power, but she hid her ecstasy behind a pertly smiling, teasing face.