The girl stood sobbing before the desk, unmoving.
“You may go, I said.”
She nodded her head, and then shook it, and then nodded it again. She turned then and walked out of the office, and Griff watched her go, watched the defeated slump of her shoulders, the battered droop of her head.
The office was very silent for several moments. Griff could hear Manelli breathing harshly beside him. McQuade walked from behind the desk and stood staring at the closed door.
“When she brings those shoes back, Joe,” he said, “fire her. And then I think it would be a good idea to get a memo off to every floor in the factory, telling them of the incident. Of course, that’s up to you.”
He was changing again. Right before Griff’s eyes, he was changing back to the smiling gentleman from Georgia. He was removing his mask and his blood-smeared gloves, and he was picking up his walking stick and donning his high felt hat. The smile mushroomed onto his face, illuminating his good looks, full of beneficence and warmth, full of humble clay, full of good-guyness. It took him less than ten seconds to complete the change, and once he’d managed it, it was almost impossible to remember the persecuting bastard who had raged at the frail girl before Manelli’s desk. This was the real McQuade, this smiling, genial fellow. The other man had never existed.
“Well now, Griff, what were you saying about increasing our pairage?” McQuade asked, smiling.
“I… I…”
“Or would you rather get it clear with Joe before you ring me in on it? Is that it?”
A man with a fire hose in his hands popped into Griff’s mind. The man unleashed a torrent of water, and the water turned to a torrent of words, and then the water and the words vanished, leaving only a smile like sunshine in a godlike figure, a golden glow of sunshine around a blond smiling face, a golden glow that wiped away the mist of confusion, smiling, smiling…
Smiling, McQuade walked toward the door. “You two talk it over,” he said. “I’ll see you later, okay?”
He was gone then, and Griff squeezed his eyes shut tightly, remembering the panic of Martha Goldstein, remembering the silent sobbing terror of Maria Theresa Diaz.
Beside him, Joseph Manelli cleared his throat. Griff looked up, his eyes meeting Manelli’s.
“He… he gets things done, doesn’t he?” Manelli said. His voice was a little sad, and it lacked conviction.
Griff did not answer him. Griff was struggling with the curious trembling that had suddenly attacked his body.
8
It was quiet and lonely in the office with both Aaron and Griff gone. She had never realized before just how much life they added to her working day. She knew, of course, that with Guild Week less than a month off both men had a hell of a lot of work to do in preparation, but it still seemed unfair of them to leave her alone up here on the ninth floor. Oh, there were diversions, true enough, but somehow they weren’t the same. Danny Quinn was a nice enough fellow, and she appreciated his stopping in to chat every now and then, but he always talked of his coming baby, and a girl can get sort of fed up with that sort of thing after a while.
And Magruder came in often, too, but he only came to look at her legs, and he looked at her legs differently, in a way that made her want to pull her skirt down to her ankles. It was one thing to appreciate, and another to drool. Aaron and Griff were sincere appreciators. They made her feel good, but they didn’t make her feel naked. There was a difference.
Unless a girl were an out-and-out-flirt.
She did not consider herself that. She had begun showing her legs when she was fifteen, when she first realized she had something to show. She had abhorred the New Look when it popped onto the fashion scene, despising the long skirts that showed little more than her ankle. She’d cheated a little even then, wearing her skirts higher than most, but still not too high to be called unfashionable. And, oh, she had flirted, and she still flirted, and her legs were certainly her most valuable persuaders, but there was a vast difference between a girl who flirted occasionally and a girl who made it a profession. She showed her legs because they were good to look at, the way a girl with a thirty-eight bust favors low-cut blouses.
Well, in any case, there was no one to look at her legs now, not even Magruder. It was annoying, Aaron and Griff running around the factory costing samples like that. Of course, the samples were stunning, and, oh, that alligator lizard shoe had been a dream. In her mind, she formed a vague picture of herself modeling that shoe at the Guild Week showings, wearing a trim suit perhaps, a good Engish tweed maybe, or something with a man-tailored cut; those should go well with the reptile. She burst the bubble almost instantly, a little miffed because she knew her legs were a lot better than those of half the models Kahn used.
She took her purse from the desk drawer and reached for her lipstick, lipstick brush, and mirror. She touched up her lips idly, not feeling like working in an empty office. Working in an empty office was too much like work. She put the stuff back into her purse and then rummaged around among the items inside, as if she were seeing them for the first time. She fished out the identification card that had been issued to her just the day before. It had never occurred to her, before the card was issued, that anyone but a Julien Kahn employee would want to get into the factory. Besides, didn’t the watchmen know everyone who worked here?
And why would anyone want to sneak in? He certainly couldn’t sneak out again, not carrying stolen shoes or anything. Abruptly, she remembered the memo that had come around concerning the girl in Packing. That had been something, all right; why hadn’t the silly thing simply gone to Mauro in Wholesale Adjustment? He’d have fixed her with a pair of slightly damaged shoes at cost, and really the damage was usually so slight that no one could even notice it unless you pointed it out specifically. Well, perhaps the girl was an inborn crook; there were people like that, she supposed.
Perhaps that’s why the identification cards had been issued. Oh, not to prevent anyone from walking out with anything, because that was almost impossible anyway, although she had heard of girls walking out with shoes under their armpits, wearing heavy boxcoats, in the wintertime. But those were isolated examples, and she was sure the identification cards couldn’t stop something like that anyway. But supposing an I. Miller spy sneaked into the factory and stole all our patterns? Or someone from Andrew Geller’s. Now, that was something to contend with. Now that every employee had an identification card, it would be a little difficult for any unauthorized person to get in.
She looked at the celluloid card. The front of the card was printed with a very colorful design, and she studied that now. The card was mostly red, except for a white disk in its center. The red was a bright cheerful scarlet, and the white glistened like snow. In the center of the white disk, the artist had placed the bold black silhouette of a fashion shoe. It was really quite effective, and certainly distinctive. She turned the card over and read the back with her name and description, together with the department in which she worked. Of course, the watchmen never looked at the back of the card. During the past few days, she had only flashed it at the gate. Still, there was something very nice about having the card in her purse, like belonging to a sorority or something; oh, that was silly, but it made her feel that way nonetheless, sort of proud that she worked for Julien Kahn. She shrugged and put the card back into her purse.
When she looked up, McQuade was standing there. He gave her a start, and she sucked in an involuntary gasp.
“I’m sorry,” he said, smiling. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”