Richard Marsten
The Spiked Heel
This book is for George and Corinne
Author’s Note
The companies called “Julien Kahn, Inc.,” and “Titanic Shoe Corporation of America” were invented by the author and do not in fact exist. There are real fashion shoe houses mentioned in this novel, but they are included as part of the background, and no similarity is intended or implied between their workings, external or internal, and the business procedures of the fictitious firms. “Plastics, Inc.,” is likewise a fictitious name for an invented company. The characters and incidents, too, are part of the fictional pattern — and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual happenings is purely coincidental.
“And the protector of the people is like him; having a mob entirely at his disposal, he is not restrained from shedding the blood of kinsmen; by the favorite method of false accusation he brings them into court and murders them, making the life of man to disappear, and with unholy tongue and lips tasting the blood of his fellow-citizens; some he kills and others he banishes, at the same time hinting at the abolition of debts and partition of lands: and after this, what will be his destiny? Must he not either perish at the hands of his enemies, or from being a man become a wolf — that is, a tyrant?”
1
Even the factory wore a jubilant face.
It squatted on the Jersey flatlands like a grinning gargoyle, its. windows reflecting the early morning sunlight like rows and rows of bright shining smiling teeth. He pulled the car around the wide white sweep of concrete and then through the cyclone fence into the parking lot. He could smell New Jersey, but the smell wasn’t an obnoxious one this morning. No, nothing could be obnoxious this morning. The smell was a dash of cologne and a sprinkle of Shalimar, and the sun was shining and the factory was smiling and puffing at its chimneys like a fat burgher with a pipe, and all was right with the world.
He drove through the lot leisurely, picking a good spot, and then locking up. He automatically looked for Aaron’s old Dodge, and when he found it he derived a peculiar satisfaction from knowing Aaron was already in. He walked through the lot quickly, unable to keep the unconscious spring out of his step, unable to keep the smile off his face.
High up on the roof of the factory, like the overgrown face of an envelope sprawling between two chimneys, the company sign looked down at him, a huge white rectangle with black script lettering on it:
Good morning, Julien Kahn, he thought.
And good-by, George Kurz. Good-by, you old son of a bitch.
Now, now, he chided himself, we shouldn’t be gleeful over another man’s misfortune, but oh am I delighted that rotten bastard is finally getting the ax, I’m tickled pink, I’m so damn happy I could bust.
The smile expanded on his face. He felt the sudden nip of the February air, threw a hasty salute at the sign above the building, and then went through the wide glass doors and past the information booth and Bill, the watchman, walking directly to the elevator banks. He pushed the UP button and then pulled back the sleeve of his coat, glancing at his watch. Eight-forty-five. Early this morning, early for the beheading. Any volunteers to hold the basket? And forty thousand men were killed in the mad rush to the scaffold.
He began humming to himself, standing in the corridor where the real factory began, an abrupt changeover from the marble-floored entrance lobby with its plaque to old Julien Kahn and its glass cases of shoes. Occasionally, he glanced up at the floor indicator needle, and it wasn’t until the needle reached 3 that he realized he was humming “The Funeral March.” He burst out laughing and then looked over his shoulder, managing to suppress his glee before the car doors opened.
“Morning, Max,” he said cheerfully.
“Morning, Griff,” the elevator man answered. He was a short squat man who wore his dungarees with all the authority of a brigadier general. His shoulders were wide and muscular and the face above the shoulders was beaming and round.
“Nine, Griff?”
“Nine, Max.”
Max pulled the doors shut and set the car in motion. The men were silent for a moment, listening to the whir of the car’s mechanism, hearing beneath that the steady thrum-thrum of the factory.
“G.K. gets canned today,” Max said happily.
“He does,” Griff answered, “he does that.” He was always amazed by the efficiency of the intrafactory spy system, a system which apprised every employee of everything that was happening or about to happen even when it was top-level stuff.
Max shook his head in mock sorrow. “I bleed for him.”
“All over the rug,” Griff said, smiling.
“But,” Max said, returning the smile, “those are the breaks. Some got it, and some ain’t got it.” Max paused philosophically. “Yep, I really bleed for G.K., all right. I really bleed for the poor bugger. Now he’ll have nothing to do but sit back and spend what he’s been stealing from the company for the past twenty years.”
“Requiescat,” Griff said.
“Huh?” Max said, and then as an afterthought, “Nine.” He threw open the doors, and Griff thanked him and stepped out of the car. He waved at the closing doors and then walked to the time clock.
5741.
He reached for the card automatically, inserted it into the IN slot, and heard the familiar clicking whir as the card was punched. He looked at the stamped time. Eight fifty-one. He put the card back in the rack, and then walked left down the corridor, passing the huge Payroll Department and then Credit. He doubled back and peeked into the open door, wondering if Danny was in yet. Magruder was sitting at his desk with a container of coffee in front of him. He looked up and waved and then went back to reading his morning newspaper. Griff went down the hallway, toward the partitioning at the end of the wing. A sign over the doorway at the end of the hall read COST. To the right of the doorway, one over the other, two small placards announced the names of the office’s inhabitants:
He walked through the doorway and directly to Aaron’s desk.
“Good morn-ing, Mr. Reis,” he said pompously.
“Ah, good morning, Mr. Griffin,” Aaron replied, using his phony big-business voice. He was a thin man with curling black hair and wide, soulful brown eyes. His nose and mouth seemed to be constantly on the alert for alien smells and tastes, giving him the appearance of a perpetually sniffing cocker spaniel.
“You’re early today, A.R.,” Griff said, expanding his voice in imitation of a tycoon, taking off his coat at the same time.
“Well, R.G.,” Aaron said big-businessly, “I didn’t want to miss the gala festivities.”
“Did you come prepared?”
“How so, R.G.?”
“Rice, confetti, things to throw?”
Aaron snapped his fingers in disappointment. “Damn,” he said. “Only thing I brought to throw was an old monkey wrench. Now, do you suppose the son of a bitch will mind a monkey wrench at the back of his bald dome?”
“Now, now, A.R.,” Griff warned, “you mustn’t speak disrespectfully of the departing comptroller. Remember, my young friend,” and here he looped one thumb through an imaginary suspender, spreading his legs wide and assuming an oldtimer-to-newcomer pose, “that the likes of George Kurz are the foundation, the very foundation stone, of Julien Kahn, Fashion Shoes. Remember, my young friend, that without this bulwark of intelligence and imagination…”