The Spiked Heel

by Ed McBain

  “Well, Mr. McQuade, we’re not allowed to have anything at our desks.”

  “Nonsense,” McQuade said, smiling pleasantly. “Come along.”

  They took the coffee up to Griff’s office, and Griff was not surprised to find a desk waiting for McQuade when they got there.

  “Is it all right?” Marge asked.

  “Yes, very nice, thank you, Miss Gannon,” McQuade said, moving toward Aaron’s desk. He sat on the edge of the desk, putting the coffee container down, looking around the office. Griff suddenly remembered the note he’d left for Aaron. It sat under the inkwell, not twelve inches from McQuade’s knee. He wet his lips nervously, anxiously.

  “Has Aaron been back?” he asked Marge, glancing uneasily at the note.

  “No, but he called in, Griff. He’s still checking those lizard and alligator samples for Guild Week.”

  “Costing,” Griff explained to McQuade. “One or the other of us usually handles it, depending on who’s free.”

  “I see,” McQuade said. His eyes fled over Aaron’s desk top, and a frown crossed his face, and Griff was certain he’d seen the note and its En garde! warning, a warning which seemed ridiculously overcautious now. Marge, who’d apparently read the note while Griff was gone, glanced at him apprehensively. McQuade sipped at his coffee, his blond eyebrows pulled into sharp wings, his gray eyes unreadable.

  “Is there anything wrong, Mr. McQuade?” Griff asked. He did not want an open breach with McQuade, because he had honestly, come to like him during the tour of the plant. But if there was going to be any enmity over the note, he preferred bringing it into the open at once.

  “This fellow,” McQuade said, snapping his fingers. “I forget which floor he’s on.”

  “Which fellow?” Griff asked, suddenly relieved.

  “The one with that little hot iron,” McQuade said. “The one who was burning those two holes on the bottom of the finished soles.”

  “Oh, yes,” Griff said. “Our eagle-eyer.”

  “Is that what you call him?” McQuade asked, amused.

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me, is that all he does?”

  “Sir?”

  “Your eagle-eyer. Does he sit there all day long with that iron and burn those tiny little holes on the bottom of each finished sole?”

  Griff could not hide his surprise. He had spent more than three hours showing McQuade through the factory, twice as long as he usually took with the high-school classes. McQuade had seemed to be an intelligent observer, asking pertinent questions at every step of the operation, and Griff had been immensely gratified with the response. But now, in the quiet of the office, away from the clatter of the machinery, he had expected more questions, and he had honestly expected questions of a somewhat higher caliber. After all McQuade had seen, was he most interested in a man who burned infinitesimal holes on the bottom of a sole? Was this what had interested him most in the whole fantastic operation of building a fashion shoe?

  “I … well … yes, that’s all he does,” Griff stammered. “He burns those two holes on each finished sole. Yes.”

  “Why?” McQuade asked. He did not look up from his coffee.

  “Why what, sir?” Griff asked.

  “Why the holes?” McQuade said.

  “Oh. Oh, I see. Well, sir,” Griff said, smiling, “there’s a pretty interesting story behind that. You see, before the industry began using cement on the shoe soles—remember, you saw the assembly belt downstairs where that leather cushion inflates and presses the glued sole to the inner sole?”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “Well, before the industry took to using cement, each shoe was hand-turned. That meant that the sole had to be tacked and then stitched to keep it in place. Frankly, we turned out a hell of a good shoe then, much better than we get with cement. You ask any of the old shoemakers on the floor, and they’ll tell you. Well, before the sole was stitched, it was tacked in three places. At the toe, in the center of the sole, and again where the instep breaks. Later, when the shoe was almost finished, those three small tacks were pulled. But they left three holes in the sole, three small holes, true, but three somewhat ugly holes. Someone got the idea of dressing up those holes, sort of ‘finishing’ them, to give the shoe a smoother look. The eagle-eyer came into existence then. He dotted each of those small holes with a small hot iron, finishing them, making them a part of the completed shoe. After a while, those three dots in the sole became associated with a quality shoe. When a woman turned over a shoe and spotted those three dots, she knew the shoe was a good one.”

  “That’s very interesting,” McQuade said.

  “Naturally, when we began using cement, there was no need for tacking the sole any more, and really no need for the dots, either. But milady had grown used to the dots, had come to look for them. We cut out the dot at the toe, figuring we’d save time and expense, but we left the other two dots, as a sort of quality shoe trademark.”

  “Those dots, in other words, serve no real purpose.”

  “Yes, they do,” Griff said. “In addition to identifying the shoe as a quality product, Mr. McQuade, we want that shoe to look as good underneath as it does on top. When you turn over a Julien Kahn shoe, you don’t just get a monotonous flat sole stretching out before your eyes. You get our eagle-eye treatment, a tiny dot on the center of the sole, and another just where the instep breaks. Those dots … well, they just break the monotony of the sole, that’s all.” He spread his hands wide. “Quality, Mr. McQuade.”

  “You’re kidding me,” McQuade said softly.

  “Sir?”

  “I said you’re kidding me. You do hear well, Mr. Griffin?”

  “Well—well, sure I do. No, I’m not kidding you, Mr. McQuade. That’s why those dots are burned into the sole. Those are the only reasons.”

  “And is that all that fellow does?”

  “Yes, that’s all.”

  “Is he on piecework?”

  “Yes, I think so.”

  “How much is he paid?”

  “Well, I don’t know exactly. I can check with Payroll, if you like.”

  McQuade smiled suddenly, looking up from his coffee container. The smile erupted all over his face, making him seem somehow larger than he actually was. “No, no need to do that, no need at all. Forget I even mentioned it, Mr. Griffin.” He slid off Aaron’s desk and walked to the desk Marge had requisitioned for him. “Say, this is certainly a good-looking desk, Miss Gannon. You people get things done in a hurry, don’t you?”

  “I’m glad you like it,” Marge said. She smiled broadly.

  “Oh yes, I do,” McQuade said. He rubbed his palm over the polished top of the desk, as if trying to absorb the veneer of it. He nodded abruptly then and went behind the desk, sitting in the swivel chair there. He seemed to dwarf everything with which he came into contact. His body seemed too big for the desk and certainly too big for the chair. “Today was quite an experience, Mr. Griffin. I don’t think I can thank you enough.”

  “Oh, there’s no need to …”

  “I’m afraid you think I’m an impossible incompetent, though. I must admit I was somewhat dazzled by the operation. You people are doing a tremendous job here, tremendous.” He nodded his head, and then touched the cleft in his chin with his forefinger, rubbing it thoughtfully, almost as if he were trying to erase an invisible spot. “It’s …” He left his chin suddenly, bringing his fingers together into a cathedral. “It’s a lot to absorb, all in one day. I hope you’ll forgive my seeming stupidity.”

  He seemed waiting for Griff to contradict him. When Griff started to say, “Oh, no …” he interrupted.

  “No, really, Mr. Griffin … say, do I have to keep calling you that? I hate formality with a vengeance. Miss Gannon calls you ‘Griff,’ I notice. Would it be all right if …?”

  “Oh, certainly,” Griff said.

  “All right, Griff,” McQuade said, “man to man. It’s one hell of a job tring to absorb the separate job each man does.
One hell of a job. In a factory of this size … well, how many men would you say were in the operation, Griff?”

  “About fifteen hundred,” Griff said.

  “Well, there you are. And what’s our pairage per day right now, Griff?”

  “We’ve been hitting twenty-six hundred,” Griff said.

  “Yes, well, that’s a large operation, a large operation. So, I hope my ignorance can be excused.” He spread his hands wide, as if the entire thing were simply too big for him.

  “I can understand how.…”

  “Now, put yourself in my position. Can I ask every man in the factory to submit a written summary of what he does? Hell, half these people probably can’t write their own names. Of course, the office is another thing again. How many people are there up here on the ninth floor, Griff?”

  “About sixty, I suppose,” Griff said.

  “Say, you know …” He paused, as if trying to get the idea straight in his mind. “Say, that isn’t a bad idea at all. Here, Griff, what do you think of it? It’d certainly make this job of understanding a lot simpler, a whole hell of a lot simpler. Suppose I asked Mr. Manelli, your new comptroller, to have each man on this floor submit a short summary of what he does?” He snapped his fingers. “I like that idea, I really do.”

  “Well—” Griff started.

  “Oh, just a brief summary,” McQuade interrupted. “Hell, I’m not teaching a course in English Composition. But something that will acquaint me with each man’s job, and nothing—God forbid—which will ever be used against anybody later on. Griff, I’m sincere when I say I’m not here to pry or spy.” He leaned over the desk, folding his large hands. “I want to get along with the people here. I want to do my job, that’s all. Look, I’m here to marry Titanic with Julien Kahn. I’m something of a minister, you might say, the Reverend Jefferson McQuade—Marryin’ Mac.” He laughed a short laugh and then sobered instantly. “I want to be friends, Griff. You don’t know how much I appreciate the time you gave me this afternoon. I know what a pain in the neck these damned requests can be, believe me. That’s why I think these summaries will be a good idea. Matter of fact, I think I’ll go talk to Mr. Manelli about them right this minute.”

  He stood abruptly, unfolding his length, his height coming as a complete surprise after getting used to him sitting.

  “In the meantime, Griff—if you will—you might have your department get started on those summaries, sort of get the jump on the rest of the floor. Nothing fancy, you understand, just a few words. And please, for God’s sake, don’t entertain any fears in respect to these summaries. I wish you’d pass that word along. As I told you, I only want them so that I can better acquaint myself with each man’s job. All right?”

  He tossed his coffee container into a wastebasket and started for the door. At the door, he turned and said, “He’s right down the hall, isn’t he? Mr. Manelli, I mean?”

  “Yes,” Griff said.

  “Good. I probably won’t be back at all this afternoon, but I’ll see you at nine Monday morning. You might have those summaries ready for me by then, all right? Then we can talk a little more intelligently. And remember, please, no trepidation. No reason to feel …” He hesitated and his brow knotted, as if he were reaching for the appropriate words. “No reason to feel … well, as the French would say … en garde!” His eyes met Griff’s levelly. “Okay, Griff?”

  He smiled pleasantly then, turned his back, and left the office.

  Griff watched his departing back until it was no longer visible down the corridor. A smile crept onto his face. “Touché, McQuade,” he said aloud, and then he broke into quiet laughter.

  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 wi
th 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.