The Spiked Heel

by Ed McBain

  “Come on, Maria,” he said testily, “what are you standing around like a nincompoop for?”

  She hesitated for a moment, her lip trembling.

  “Come on, come on, let’s go,” Mr. Gardiner said, and Maria reached for the box with her house slippers in it and hastily put it back on the rack. She intended taking it off the rack again the first chance she got, but Mr. Gardiner did not move away.

  “A fire hose!” he kept saying, over and over again. “They’re not going to get away with that one, not by a long shot.” Maria kept packing shoes and putting them onto the rack. When the rack was full, a runner came for it, and she watched him from the corner of her eye as he wheeled the shoes to the chute and sent them downstairs. Mr. Gardiner walked away then, going over to talk to the foreman.

  Maria worked at her packing until five minutes to five. She went to the ladies’ room then and washed up. Her street shoes were in her locker. She was tempted to leave the red shoes in her locker in place of the street shoes, but how could she ever return them now that the box had already gone downstairs? She left the red shoes on, and when she went out of the building that evening the watchman didn’t give her a second glance.

  The shoes were hers.

  The retailer in Philadelphia had paid twelve dollars for a pair of house slippers which would be shipped to him the next day.

  6

  He thought about the incident with the fire hose for the remainder of that week, and in all his thoughts he was surprised to find himself seeking an excuse for McQuade’s behavior.

  He did not want to believe that the man who’d turned the fire hose on Charlie and Steve was the same man who’d bought him the cup of coffee afterward, the man he had grown accustomed to as “Mac.”

  He could not, in all truth, attribute any particular viciousness to McQuade’s hosing. There had been no sadism involved, he was certain of that. He had seen McQuade’s face when he was playing the hose on the two men, and there had been no glee there, in fact there had not even been any anger on it. The face had been expressionless, the hands holding the hose firm. In that moment, McQuade had looked like a man trying to put out a fire, nothing more and nothing less. But even so, even so …

  He began to question himself about brutality. From what McQuade had said, he was trying to teach an object lesson. By watering down Steve and Charlie, he was showing the rest of the workers that Titanic would brook no horse manure. He must have realized, then, that the fight could have been broken up without using the hose. But he preferred to use the hose instead, giving his lesson dramatic impact, and was this not brutality, and, if not, what was brutality? McQuade had used two other men for his own devious purposes. Those two men had been humiliated and damn near drowned, and those two men had lost their jobs in the bargain, and all so that McQuade could show the workers who was boss.

  Is that wrong? Griff asked himself. He did not know.

  He tried to discount the hosing from his evaluation. In his mind, the use of a hose was connected with penal institutions, and so he discounted the hosing in judging the case. Suppose McQuade had used his bare fists instead? Suppose he had stepped onto the floor and disarmed them and beat them senseless with his hands, or suppose he had not even beat them senseless, just socked one or the other or both, but stopped the fight, and got the men back to work, would he have been wrong then?

  Well, no, he supposed, not if it were for the good of the factory. A mixup on the eighth floor could mean a slowdown on every floor. The fight had to be stopped, and McQuade stopped it, and how he stopped it was not really terribly important.

  Except that I was damn close to stopping it myself, Griff thought, without the use of either a hose or fists. Now, wait a minute, wait a minute, he told himself, how can you be sure it was going to stop? Because they were listening to you? Steve could have stepped in any minute and cracked Charlie’s head wide open, and that would have fixed things up solid, wouldn’t it?

  McQuade had acted decisively. He had sized up the situation, delivered a warning, and then taken action when his warning had gone unheeded. He had behaved somewhat like a—a despot … yes, but hadn’t that been called for in the situation? There was danger present. Hadn’t he prevented any blood-letting?

  So, disregarding the automatic association of brutality with a hosing, didn’t one have to admit that McQuade was acting for the good of the company and even, when you got right down to it, the good of the two men who were menacing each other with dangerous weapons?

  Had anyone really been hurt? No.

  Had anyone really suffered for it? No. (Except Charlie and Steve, and Hengman would have canned them, anyway.)

  And hadn’t it really set things straight in the factory? Didn’t everyone know the score now? Didn’t they know they were there to make shoes, and, whereas there may have been goofing and cheating and stealing and whatever-the-hell under the Kahn regime, didn’t they now know them days was gone forever, and that Titanic was a new firm with fresh blood and keen ideas, strong ideas, maybe, but ideas under which a company could flourish and thrive and beat out the rest of the field, and if that happened wouldn’t it benefit those people who worked in the factory, those people who spent nine hours of every day there, more waking hours than they spent at home, people who—in reality—damn near lived at the factory, wouldn’t, it help them?

  It was a question of the general good, he figured. Maybe things would be tough for a while, but it would all turn out for the best. The people of the factory would be served. Once you got that prejudical picture of the hosing out of your mind, things fell into place, and you had to admit no real injustice had been done. You had to admit that if you were being fair with yourself. And fair with McQuade.

  He was no monster. He was a man doing a job.

  Nonetheless, and in spite of Griff’s reasoning, a pall seemed to settle itself over the factory for the remainder of that week. He could not have described the pall accurately if he’d wanted to. It was more an attitude than anything else. The workers went about their jobs as usual, but the atmosphere seemed to have tightened a little. There was not as much laughter as there used to be, not as much jibing or friendly chatter. The workers worked, and whenever someone in a business suit appeared on the floor, they worked harder, and into their work a sort of tremulous fear crept, a fear that was never admitted except in the quick shifting of an eye or the sudden turn of a head over a shoulder. The shop stewards, despite their outrage over the hosing, were forced to admit that the two men involved had not behaved in an exactly exemplary way, and they couldn’t very well oppose the firing of those men once the facts were laid before them. Their hands were tired, and this bound helplessness spread to the rest of the factory until Charlie and Steve took on the proportions of martyrs in a forgotten cause.

  The workers remembered the fight, and then they began wondering why the fight had started, and they recalled there had been some business about piecework-and overtime, and in recalling that they also were forced to recall Manelli’s overtime edict, and so they worked harder during the day, knowing that overtime was frowned upon now. But their work was a sort of “I’ll-show-you-you-bastard” kind of thing. If they were to be denied overtime, they would have to earn that extra cash during the day. They worked with a vengeance, and behind their increased labor was this fear that sneaked into their eyes and their gestures. They did not want to lose their jobs. The factory was their home, and they did not want to be put out into the street.

  Griff could not ignore the changed tempo or the changed attitude of the factory. He had been with the firm for eleven years, and in those years, the business had become a part of his makeup. He loved the business, and he loved shoes, and he loved everything about making shoes. The factory, as corrupt and as badly functioning as it had been under the Kahns, was nonetheless a warm sort of retreat for him. There had never been a morning when he did not rise looking forward to the job ahead of him. He liked going to work. He knew there were many men who despised their
jobs, but this did not at all lessen his own pleasure. There was excitement in the factory, and warmth, and a feeling of well-being. He was a lucky man, and he knew it.

  But now, with the change that had moved in after the hosing, he felt a strange uneasiness, and the uneasiness gave way to a troubled mystification. He did not like the new climate of Julien Kahn. And because that climate was such an integral part of his life, he carried it with him all day long, he carried it home with him at night, and he carried it with him while he was asleep, and all the while it troubled him deeply because the making of shoes was his first love, and now he hardly recognized his love.

  He blamed the factory for the failure of his first date with Cara Knowles. Actually, his fixing of blame may or may not have been valid. He did feel extremely morose that Saturday night, but there were a good many other factors which combined to make the date a failure, and his moroseness was only one of them.

  March 13 had started out to be another normal March day, full of wind and ill temper. He had awakened from a deep sleep at about ten o’clock, smoked a cigarette, and then started preparing some bacon and eggs for breakfast. He began washing while the bacon fried, saving the shaving until that evening, and figuring he’d certainly have time enough to finish before the bacon was done. He miscalculated and, when he went back into the kitchen of his efficiency apartment, he was greeted with the sight of six curling black strips of charcoal. The burnt bacon killed all taste for eggs. He poured himself a cup of coffee and drank only that, having another cigarette at the table.

  He had awakened again with the memory of the factory sharp in his mind. For the hundredth time, he went over the hosing, and then tried to understand the attitude of the workers; and for the hundredth time he was left with a vague sense of uneasiness and despair. He tried to tell himself that he was, after all, not responsible for the attitude of anyone in the factory. He had a fairly important job, and he did that job better—probably—than anyone else in the factory could have done it, but he did not kid himself into thinking he was indispensable. He was simply a cog in a vast machine—perhaps a unique cog in that he recognized his own cogginess and at the same time was endowed with a sense of responsibility toward the rest of the machine—but nonetheless a cog. So why did he feel upset about the way things were going? He could not answer the question.

  It started raining at noon. It was a cold dreary rain accompanied by a sharp wind that flung enraged needles of icy water against the windowpanes. He listened to the rain, and the rain increased his gloominess, seemed to entrap him within the four walls of his apartment and the gray walls of his thoughts. He tried to read but soon put the book aside. He paced the apartment for a while, asking himself, What the hell is wrong with me, why doesn’t it stop raining? and then he threw himself onto his bed, seeking the solace of sleep, annoyed when sleep would not come. He got up finally and went out for a newspaper, but all the papers at his local stand were soaked through. He bought a copy of The Saturday Evening Post instead, but when he got back to his apartment he no longer felt like reading it. He looked at the Norman Rockwell cover, and then he thumbed through the magazine looking at all the illustrations and the cartoons, and then put it aside, convinced that eight o’clock was at least four million years away.

  He began looking forward to his date with Cara. In his mind, he wove a sort of dream fantasy around the date. Seeing her would set the rest of the day right, he told himself. They would have one hell of a good time, and all the rain and all the doubt would be washed away. He began to wage a silent battle with his wrist watch, playing tricks with time. The next time I look, ten minutes will have passed. I’ll count to three hundred slowly, and five minutes will have passed. It will now be four o’clock. It will now be five twenty-seven.

  At a quarter to six, he went down for supper. He was not very hungry, but he forced himself to eat, knowing he would be drinking later on, and not wanting to fall flat on his face. The pork chops were greasy, and the french fries were soggy and tasteless. Even the coffee tasted like muddy rainwater. He went back to his apartment, convinced now that nothing would go right until he was with Cara.

  He dressed carefully, putting on a white shirt and a blue suit. He tied a Windsor knot and then buttoned down his collar. He examined himself in the mirror and was somewhat pleased with the result, even though he’d nicked his chin while shaving. He remembered then that he’d forgotten to polish his black shoes, and he set to the task disgustedly, taking off his jacket and getting a smear of polish on the sleeve of his shirt. He debated changing the shirt, convinced himself it would not show under the jacket, and then went to wash the black goo from his hands. He had always enjoyed polishing shoes. Tonight, he had not.

  He left the apartment at seven-fifteen and drove through a blinding rain uptown to the Bronx. All I need is a flat, he thought, and then he looked skyward quickly and said aloud, “I didn’t mean that, Boss.” He could not find a parking space on the Grand Concourse. He almost collided with a bus while he was making a U-turn, but he finally found a narrow space near the courthouse.

  He did not believe in umbrellas or hats. He turned up the collar of his raincoat, checked the address she had given him, and then stepped out into the rain. He was beginning to feel a little better. He’d be seeing Cara soon, and everything would be all right. He quickened his step and then abruptly glanced at his wrist watch. It was only seven forty-five, and he’d told her eight o’clock. He looked around hastily, spotting a bar and heading for it. He shook off his coat when he was inside and then found a stool at the bar and ordered a whisky sour. A blonde was seated alone at the far end of the bar. She was not pretty, but she received the automatic attention any blonde in a bar receives. He was surprised when she looked up and smiled at him. He smiled back courteously and then sipped at his drink, pleased she had noticed him, more convinced than ever that the evening would make up for the day. Something stupid was on the television set. He watched it for a moment, identifying Ken Maynard, Bob Steele, and Hoot Gibson. What did they call Maynard’s horse? Trigger? Champion? Oh hell. It annoyed him. He kept watching the movie and sipping at his drink, and he finally called over the bartender and asked, “What’s his horses’s name?”

  The bartender stared at him as if he were drunk, and he found this amusing.

  “Whose horse?” the bartender asked.

  “Ken Maynard’s.”

  The bartender fixed him with a contemptuous stare. “Tarzan!”

  Griff snapped his fingers. “Tarzan! Of course.” The “of course” suddenly reminded him of McQuade. Of course, of course. Pee on McQuade, he thought, both barrels.

  He left the bar at seven fifty-five, imagining the blonde sighed wistfully as he went to the door. The rain had let up a little, and he walked up the Concourse cheerfully, thinking of the games he’d seen at the Stadium, wondering if Cara liked baseball, wondering what he would do if she didn’t like baseball. He was twenty-nine years old, and the idea of changing his ways did not particularly appeal to him, especially if it meant forsaking baseball. Well, she probably did like baseball. He would ask her.

  He found the address easily enough and stepped into the well-kept foyer of the building. He examined the bell buttons in the foyer, saw she was on the ground floor, and then walked into the lobby, looking for the apartment number. He saw the white letters on the small black shingle immediately: FREDERICK KNOWLES, D.D.S.

  A dentist. Well now! He remembered the old joke, is he a doctor doctor? No, he’s a doctor dentist. Smiling, he pushed the chime panel set in the door jamb. He waited patiently, and then he heard footsteps and a voice coming from somewhere in the depths of the apartment. “Just a moment.” He realized abruptly that he had used the office entrance, and that there probably was another entrance to the apartment, and he felt somewhat foolish.

  He heard the peephole flap swing back and then fall again, and then the door was opened, and he stared into the darkness of the waiting room.

  “Hi,” Cara said. “
Do you have a toothache?” She said it almost automatically, and he sensed it was a gag line she’d used before whenever a calling swain had made the same mistake. The knowledge that he was getting secondhand humor annoyed him. He forgot his annoyance and said, “Yes, a bicuspid at the back of my mouth. Can you fix it?”

  “Come on in,” Cara said. “I won’t be a moment.”

  He stepped into the waiting room, and she threw on a light and said, “Do you want to wait here, or do you prefer the comforts of the living room? I’d introduce you to the family, but only the dog is home.”

  “I’ll wait here,” Griff said.

  “Fine.” She looked at him and said, “You look nice.”

  He felt suddenly embarrassed. She had beat him to the punch, and now anything he said about her appearance would seem like a bald-faced return of her compliment. He tried to gag it through.

  “You look ravished,” he said, and then he snapped his fingers in seeming Freudian-slip annoyance. “Ravishing, I mean.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Cara said, and then she fled into the depths of the apartment.

  Actually, he had been a little disappointed with her appearance. He had expected something gayer, he supposed, but she was wearing a black silk dress with a rather high throat, a string of pearls at the neck. He had noticed the Julien Kahn suede pumps almost instantly, and had begun to price them automatically before he’d caught himself. He realized with a start that he’d been disappointed because the dress did not reveal the tiny beauty spot in the hollow of her throat, and he smiled at his own fetish. He found a chair in the waiting room, picked up a copy of Life, and began to feel as if he were really waiting to have a tooth extracted. This is psychologically bad, he thought. I must tell Cara she shouldn’t make her beaus feel as if they have a dental appointment.