There were three calls waiting to be returned when Griff got back to the office. He got the list from Marge, and then left her with a long report, hearing the busy clatter of her typewriter as he got down to business. Posnansky had called from the Chrysler Building, and he decided that call rated top priority. He made himself comfortable in his chair, and then asked the operator for “Chrysler.” The tie line connected him with the Sales Office in a matter of seconds. He asked for Ed Posnansky, and then waited.
“Hello?” the voice said. It was a gruff masculine voice, a real hairy-chested voice. The voice always surprised Griff, because Posnansky was a short thin man with gold-rimmed glasses.
“Ed?” he said. “This is Griff.”
“Oh, hello, Griff. How are you?”
“Fine, thanks. You?”
“Great, great. Listen, this order you sent back from Stapleton’s in Dallas. You didn’t price it.”
“I know.”
“Well, why not? How can we—”
“We haven’t got a price on that shoe yet, Ed.”
“Why not? We’ve been making that shoe for three years now. Hell, Griff, look at the style number. Thirteen dash seventy forty-two. You know as well as I that—”
“It’s not the same shoe, Ed. Take a look at your order—”
“I don’t have to look at the order blank. It’s a black suede pump, and I damn well—”
“I know the code, Ed, thanks. Now, don’t start shoveling it at me, will you? Take a look at the goddam order blank. If you can read Canotti’s handwriting, you’ll see the account wants a rhinestone crescent on the vamp of that shoe. That means I’ve got to check it with a glitter house after it leaves Prefitting. On an outside job, I can’t possibly estimate what they’re going to charge.”
“Well, why didn’t you hold it there?” Posnansky asked. “Until you could get me a price on it?”
“I’d planned on sending the specifications to the glitter house before we cut the shoe. That way you could relay the price to the account before we go ahead. Look, Ed, this is a single-order shoe. The price on those rhinestones may make it prohibitive. In the meantime, I don’t want the order lying on my desk. I don’t want the account buzzing us in a week or so yelling where the hell’s my acknowledgment? Am I getting the shoes, or not? Then Chrysler will get all excited and start looking for somebody to hang, and then they’ll find the order on my desk, waiting for pricing. No, thanks.”
“So what the hell am I supposed to do?” Posnansky whined.
“Get a letter off and tell the customer we’re working up an estimate on the rhinestones. He knows we’re running a factory here, Ed. Hell, he knows we have to make the goddam shoes for him.”
“Can’t you give me a price on it?” Posnansky pleaded.
“When?”
“Well, this morning was what I had in mind.”
“Kurz is leaving this morning,” Griff said. “We’re going to be busy here.”
“That’s just my beef, Griff. Now, look, man, just between us, there’s a lot of anxiety here at Chrysler. We don’t know Titanic from a hole in the wall, and the place is crawling with goddam rebels from Georgia. Now, don’t misunderstand me. I think Kahn selling out was the best thing that ever happened to this company, but I’m not forgetting that a lot of the big boys are going, and I don’t want my ass in the sling next, do you follow me?”
“So?” Griff said.
“So? So? Oh, come on, Griff, you’re kidding me. Do you know how many people have been tossed into the street since Titanic took over?”
“I’ve got an idea,” Griff said, smiling.
“You’ve got an idea, huh? Well, I’m right here where I can see it all. Kurz is the first man to go on your end, but they’re dropping like flies here at Chrysler. President, vice-presidents, even — did you know David Kahn got the ax?”
“We heard,” Griff said, still smiling.
“Executive Chairman of the Board!” Posnansky almost shouted.
“The Kahns deserve everything they get,” Griff said.
“All right, I’ll grant you that. But what about Mercer? He wasn’t a Kahn, was he? Damn it, they’ve put him on the road with a territory, would you believe it? From sales consultant, they’ve dumped him on the road selling shoes. Now tell me—”
“Mercer was a crook,” Griff said.
“Was our fashion coordinator a crook? All right, Adele was a Kahn. But our publicity director? What about the copy chief? I’m telling you, Titanic Shoe is tightening the screws, Griff. I wouldn’t laugh it off so lightly, if I were you.”
“All right, all right,” Griff said.
“So that’s why I’m raising a fuss over a stupid thing like the goddam price on a black suede pump with a glitter crescent. I need that price, Griff, and I’d like it this morning. I don’t want anybody coming down on my ass.”
“You worry too much,” Griff said.
“Damn right, I worry,” Posnansky said fervently. “I’ve got three hungry mouths to feed. If David Kahn can get fired, anybody can.”
“I say three cheers for Titanic Shoe,” Griff said.
“Sure. Until they make a grab for your job.”
“I’m indispensable,” Griff said.
“Don’t I know it, you bastard? How about a price on that shoe?”
“We’ll work on it,” Griff said. “I’ll call you back this afternoon.”
“Fine. When this afternoon?”
“Some time this afternoon, Ed, I’m busy. Go sell shoes.”
“Okay, so long, Griff. And thanks.”
He hung up and looked at the list of callers again, smiling. Kurz still hadn’t come in, and he began to wonder if he’d ever come in. Was the skunk going to deny them the pleasure of watching his execution? He shrugged, consulted the list again, and then called Fazio in the IBM Room.
Fazio was a highly excitable man, and he was apparently at the end of his rope when he picked up the phone.
“Griff?” he said. “Griff, where the hell have you been? Jesus, boy, you shouldn’t—”
“What is it, Frank?” Griff asked.
“We’re trying to get these commissions straight, Griff. Murphy was taken off the Illinois-Ohio territory on the eighth of… let me see, when the hell…?”
“January,” Griff supplied.
“Yeah. I want to know if he still has any credits coming from Illinois-Ohio or if—”
“It takes us six weeks to straighten out commissions on a transfer, Frank, you know that.”
“Yeah, but—”
“The last of his orders was shipped and billed last week. He’s clean now.”
“Well, okay, that’s all I wanted to know. But what about returns? Hasn’t he had—”
“I sent down a tally on that the other day, Frank. One of your girls probably has it sitting under her manicure kit.”
“Oh.” Fazio paused. “Oh, well, thanks, Griff. I hate to bother you like this, but Chrysler has been putting a lot of pressure on me. I got a hunch… well, never mind.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. I’m just not sure I like what Titanic Shoe is doing, Griff.”
“They haven’t bothered us yet. What are you worrying about?”
“I’m not worrying. It’s just… well, the hell with it. Thanks again.”
“Any time, Frank.”
He hung up and shook his head. He could not understand why Fazio was worried. True, there had been a lot of firings since Titanic Shoe had taken over almost two months ago. But, aside from the closing down of the Boston factory and the suspension today of Kurz here in New Jersey, the axings had been confined to the Chrysler Building. The firings had all been in the higher echelon, and the firings had cleared out only the old regime, and that regime had been as corrupt and decaying as a rotten pomegranate. He had watched the decadence spread, had watched it grow in the eleven years he’d been with the firm until it finally overpowered the entire operation. He had often wondered, during that time, what old Julien Kahn would have thought. In his own mind, he carried a supreme respect for the clubfooted German bootmaker who’d founded the firm, a respect in inverse proportion to the contempt he held for Kahn’s descendants.