The Spiked Heel

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?”

Plato’s Republic

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:

JULIEN KAHN

Fashion Shoes

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.”