by Ed McBain
“Well,” Griff said, “that may sound all right, but—”
“You will admit that Sales is the logical place for a selling price to be established?”
“No.”
“You think Cost should establish the price?”
“Cost, in cooperation with Sales. Just the way we’ve been doing it.”
“I can’t agree with you. I’ve already sent a recommendation to Georgia, suggesting that Julien Kahn follow the procedure now being used in our other divisions.”
“It won’t work,” Griff said, shaking his head.
“Why not?”
“For several reasons. First of all, you’re dividing Sales from Factory. You can’t—”
“They should be divided.”
“No, they should not be,” Griff contradicted. “When Factory is slow, it’s Sales that comes through with permission to cut stock shoes. Why should Sales order stock shoes and then be penalized if they haven’t sold those shoes at the end of the year? Or penalized if they cut the price in order to merchandise them?”
“Factory is not going to be slow ever again,” McQuade said. “We are now cutting twenty-eight hundred pairs a day. We’ll be cutting three thousand soon. After that, who knows? There’ll always be plenty of work, believe me.”
“Except in slack seasons,” Griff said. “Besides, that’s not the most important thing.”
“What is?”
“Your figuring. It’s all wrong. You’ve taken yourself an average cost of seven dollars and twenty cents, based on last year’s pairage. You’ve just now said we’re already up to twenty-eight hundred, and soon we’ll be up to three thousand and maybe higher. Your cost is going to come down when we start making more shoes. It’s come down already.”
“Then we’ll adjust the average cost accordingly.”
“Sure, you can do that. Sure, why not? But it’ll still be nonsensical. This happens to be a fashion house. Suppose the fashion genuises decide that sandals are going to be the big thing next year? We’ll be cutting sandals until our eyes fall out. All right, the labor is higher on a sandal, but the cost of material is practically nil. What makes you think last year’s cost would apply in a year big with sandals?”
“It will,” McQuade said. “It’s worked in our other factories.”
“But what are you cutting in your other factories? Men’s shoes! What the hell ever changes on a man’s shoe? From year to year you’ve got the same damned thing, oh, a few extra gimmicks here and there, but basically the same. So, sure, you can figure so much for your leather, and so much for each operation, and aside from minor rises and drops in pay scale or material prices, that figure will apply year after year. Your average cost will be a working thing. The same damn thing with casuals.
“But this is fashion, fashion! Who knows what’s going to happen next year, or the year after? With women, you never know. They may take to walking in the street barefooted! God damn it, surely you know this for a fact! Who expected skirts to drop in forty-six or forty-seven or whenever the hell it was? Who can predict anything that will happen in the fashion world? I’m telling you that running a fashion house on an average-cost system is pure suicide. You’d be losing money left and right. You’d be losing so much—”
“I don’t think so,” McQuade said.
“It doesn’t matter what you think,” Griff said recklessly. He was talking about shoes now, and he was talking about Julien Kahn, and he knew and loved both. “I can go back in our books and show you. We’ve gone back one year already. All right, go back two years and three years, if you like, and you’ll see how the average cost for last year differs from the average cost for the years preceding it, and differs enough to make a big—”
He stopped short, realizing he was about to say “difference” and hating himself for getting tangled up in his own heated discussion.
“You can show me that from your books?” McQuade asked.
“Damn right, I can.”
“Then show it to me.”
“Show …?”
“That sounds like a good idea,” Manelli said. “Why don’t you show it to him, Griff?”
Griff glanced sourly at his comptroller.
“Go back to your cost cards,” McQuade said. “You’ve already given me the figures for last year. All right, go back two years, and then go back three years, listing your costs without profit for every pattern we made. Let me have average costs for two and three years ago, costs which we can then compare with the average cost for last year. If there is any appreciable difference …” McQuade shrugged. “I will then send the figures to Georgia, and let them decide.”
“That seems like a lot of work for nothing,” Griff said, beginning to suspect another invented work project, beginning to feel like something of a fool for having stepped into it so easily. “You can take my word for it that—”
“I take no one’s word where it comes to possible loss,” McQuade said quickly.
Manelli smiled. “Can’t condemn a man for that attitude, can you Griff?”
“I’ll tell you frankly what I have recommended, Griff,” McQuade said. “I’ve recommended that the Cost Department be disbanded, its employees transferred to other departments of our operation. I’ve recommended the establishment of an average cost, the addition of Factory’s six per cent profit to that cost, and the sale of shoes on completion to the Sales Division, the transfer to take place on paper. I’ve recommended that Sales be allowed to establish its own selling price, with full responsibility for them.” He paused. “You can see, I’m sure, that if we no longer find it necessary to either cost or price a shoe here at the factory, well, there’s no longer any need for the Cost Department.”
Griff shook his head. “No,” he said. “I tried to explain to you before that our costs are all estimated. In actual production, the cost comes all the way down. If you’re figuring an average cost based on estimated cost, you’re going to have a top-heavy budget. You’ll overprice yourself right out of the competition.”
“You’ll have to prove that to me, too.”
“You mean that actual cost is lower than estimated cost? Oh, hell, that’s a simple production fact. Everyone knows that.”
“Certainly, but how much lower?”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re not interested in a difference of ten cents or so per pair. That wouldn’t strain us, budget-wise.”
“It would come to a hell of a lot more than that, I can tell you,” Griff said.
“How can you tell me?”
“How? By checking the actual figures with Sal and Morris. They’ve got figures which show what every pair of shoes that ever went through this factory really cost us. No guesswork there, Mr. McQuade, none at all. They know what we paid for material, and they know how much material went into each shoe, and they know what the man got for working on that shoe. Why, how do you think we check our estimates?” Against those figures, and we adjust our price accordingly.”
“In that case, we could base our budget on the actual cost for last year,” McQuade said, spreading his hands at the simplicity of the idea.
“But the actual cost for last year won’t be the actual cost for this year,” Griff said wearily. “Not in a fashion house, can’t you see that? That’s why we have a Cost Department. Look, take this Far Eastern brocade we’re working on now. Do you know what that stuff costs? Forty dollars a yard! All right, we’re now figuring our budgets on a four-month basis. Suppose the next four months is going to be loaded with this brocade, and alligators, and lizards, and Sapphire silks. We get those silks from Spain, you know. Do you honestly think your average cost, estimated or actual, will be the same for those four months as it was for the preceding four months? That’s plain lunacy. I never heard of a budget based on—”
“Titanic does it,” McQuade insisted.
“With your goddam men’s shoes and casuals,” Griff exploded. “This is a fashion house! Your Cost Department is the only department that
can keep an eye on trends and adjust the budget accordingly. Your budget must be based on what is actually happening. You can’t possibly base it on a crazy figure you took from last year’s books.”
McQuade smiled for the first time, as if he were happy the conversation had swung back to the books again. “Prove it to me,” he said.
Griff sighed. “And if I don’t?”
McQuade shrugged. “My recommendation is already in.”
“I see.” He paused. “You’ll send my figures to Titanic? You’ll let them judge on the basis of those figures?”
“Of course.”
“I’ll get the figures for you.”
“In a hurry, I hope.”
“I’ll need at least two weeks. Even with Marge and Aaron helping, it’ll take at least two weeks. There’s other work to be done every day, too, you know.”
“Oh yes, I know,” McQuade said, his smiling expanding. “But two weeks sounds fair enough. If your figures prove valid, I’m sure Titanic will veto my recommendation. If not …” He gestured limply with one hand.
“What do you consider ‘valid’?” Griff asked.
“A sizable difference between estimated costs over the past three years. And for last year a sizable difference between average estimated cost and average actual cost.”
“And what do you consider a ‘sizable difference’?” “What do you consider a sizable difference, Griff?”
“I’d say anything over ten cents a pair would be a large enough difference to knock your budget all to hell. But I won’t quibble. I’ll give you twenty cents on a pair.”
“That sounds fair enough, Griff. You know, of course, that I’ll have the figures thoroughly checked before sending them down to Georgia.”
“Of course,” Griff said sourly. He raised his eyes, meeting McQuade’s levelly. “And you know, of course, that I’m not talking through my hat, don’t you? You know these figures are going to prove you wrong.”
McQuade smiled. “We’ll see,” he said. “I suggest you get started as soon as possible.”
“I will,” Griff said.
“Well,” Manelli said, sighing and smiling. “Well, now.”
Griff rose. There seemed no need for further conversation. He nodded his head briefly and walked out of the office. He probably would have gone directly past Cara’s desk had he not noticed her face. He stopped abruptly, staring at her.
“What’s the matter?” he asked.
Cara looked up from her desk. Her eyes were wide, and brown … and dead. They were lusterless and dull, emotionless … dead.
“What’s the matter?” he asked again. “Is something wrong?”
“No. No, nothing,” she said.
“You look …”
“I’m leaving Julien Kahn, Griff,” she said. “I’ve already given notice.”
“You are?” he said. “Why?”
She was silent for a long while. Then she said, “I have to.”
“Has Joe been giving you …?”
“No, no, he’s fine. It’s … for myself, Griff. I think … I think this is a dead end; do you know what I mean?”
He watched her eyes. There was no life in her eyes. She seemed to be an empty shell with nothing inside. And then suddenly her eyes clouded, and then they were wet, and he stared at her surprised, wondering what had caused the tears.
“Hey, look,” he said, “what’s the matt—”
“Griff,” she said, “be careful. Please, please be careful.”
“Of what? Hey, come on now. You don’t have to—”
“Of McQuade,” she said, and there was timbre in her voice now, and her eyes sparked momentarily.
“I am careful of him,” Griff said honestly.
“You’re a good guy,” she said, “one of the good guys. Don’t let him destroy you, Griff. He … he can destroy you, you know.”
“Is he the reason …?”
“Promise, Griff,” she said. “Promise you’ll watch yourself.”
“I promise,” he said. He paused. “Listen, let us know where you relocate, won’t you? Marge and I would like to …”
And then he stopped because her eyes had become dead again, and she was not listening to him.
He was not for a moment fooled by McQuade’s strategy, nor was he annoyed with having been taken in by it. Actually, he’d had no choice. He knew that McQuade was wielding a double-edged sword, and he examined each razor-sharp edge dispassionately.
The first edge had been dipped in the oil of despair and then honed with subtlety, a last quiet attempt to force Griff into throwing up his hands in disgusted defeat. Searching back through an additional two years’ cost cards was nothing more than a tedious, back-breaking job. Compiling actual cost for the past year was another thankless task. The tedium and monotony itself would have been enough to discourage most men.
A lesser man, or perhaps even a smarter man, would have said to hell with it. A smarter man, or perhaps even a lesser man, would have conceded to McQuade and left Julien Kahn to plow its own insane road to certain disaster.
But there was still the other edge to McQuade’s weapon, and that edge was a sharp one, far sharper than the first.
Griff was fighting for his job.
McQuade had already made his senseless recommendation to Titanic. The recommendation, if acted upon, would eliminate the Cost Department. Griff did not want Cost eliminated.
If his figures showed McQuade to be wrong, McQuade and Titanic would undoubtedly concede, and the Cost Department would survive, but the flow of stupid requests would not end until Griff quit the job. If he refused to work up the figures, the Cost Department was doomed, and he’d be transferred God only knew where. In either case McQuade would win.
But suicide was not a cheerful prospect, nor was Raymond Griffin the type of man who could put a gun to his own head. And so, doggedly, wearily, almost vengefully, he got to work on the problem of fighting for his job, the job that was his life and his roots.
The idea was a curious one. In his mind, it took on an overwhelming enormity that went beyond the tangible aspects of the problem. He felt, somewhat foolishly, like the last bastion of defense against McQuade’s encroaching army. The picture of a hero standing alone sometimes made him want to laugh aloud, but, amusing or not, he accepted the picture.
McQuade was only one man, a representative of the machine which was Titanic Shoe. He had stepped into Julien Kahn, and he had sweet-talked and bludgeoned and oiled and pressured, but he was only a man, wasn’t he? He was only a man trying to do a job, that’s all. He was only a stationmaster trying to get those trains to run on time. Well, by God, he was succeeding. The trains were running jim-dandy now what with all the factory changes. There was just one funny thing: nobody liked riding the trains any more.
It was sure a funny thing, all right. Hadn’t Titanic done everything possible for the workers? Raises, sanitation, safety, comfort, leisure? Hadn’t Titanic magnanimously showered all these wonderful things on the populace of Julien Kahn?
But beneath the smooth running of the trains, beneath the slick, streamlined metal and the smoking cars and the shining new rails and the clean depots, there was an unspoken fear: no one wanted to get run down.
Griff was no exception. With calm, saddening resignation, he realized that he was no exception.
There was something frightening about that rushing sleek steel monster. He did not want to be run down.
But he did want his job.
Doggedly, wearily, almost vengefully, he got to work.
“Pattern number 73—41,” Davidoff said.
“Seven three dash four one,” Griff repeated.
“Last 601 J.”
“601 J.”
“Upper materials. Suede, .143. Pair, .1476. Unit, .90. Pair, 1.318.”
“Got it.”
“Calf, .134. Pair, .1474. Unit, .98. Pair, 1.445.”
“Check.”
“Lining, sock, .45. Pair, .504. Unit, .26. Pair …”
> “Tape,” Marge said.
“Point zero zero six,” Aaron replied.
“Thread.”
“Point zero five zero.”
“Cement.”
“Point zero zero five.”
“Nailheads …”
“Cutting,” Valdero said, “.185.”
“Check.”
“Prefitting, .089.”
“Check.”
“Fitting, .827.”
“Check.”
“Assembly, .016.”
“Check.”
“Stockfitting, .078 …”
.206 …
.036 …
1.001 …
.703 …
.225 …
1.289 …
2.307.…
1.006 …
4.602
.118.1357.45.611
.120.1310.26.024
⅜″ d. f.2½ yards lin.
(SEE LIST)
Pat. 2.633
Calf 2.688
Suede 2.703
Total Upper Materials
Total Other Materials
Total Materials
Total Factory Overhead
Total Factory Cost
silk
faille
linen
brocade
lace
alligator
lizard
sapphire
black snake
brown suede & calf combination
sport rust cobra
green cobra
white cobra
purple cobra
red cobra
red and black calf
1.418
1.445
.833
1.445
.131
.611
.037
—
.120
—
—
.450
.100
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123456
78910
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suede and calf and patent leath
er
recapitulation and elements of cost
and selling price and profit and loss
and upper materials
and reserve
and other materials
and reserve
and direct
labor and
shipping