The Spiked Heel

Kahnettes are going to be the big thing, Kahnettes and more Kahnettes, new and exciting at a price to fit milady’s purse, and…

SALES NOTICE #594–B

We’ve just seen some of our Fall samples! If we are permitted to enthuse just a very little bit, they are positively terrific! We’ve got the freshest, newest, most complete line of women’s fashion shoes that have ever been offered, and we predict one of our best seasons to date. And what does all this mean to you? It means you’re getting new lasts, new silhouettes, new heels and trimmings. It means you’ve got a refreshing, terrific line to start pushing once Guild Week proves our prediction to be valid. It means…

He got the idea during Memo Week, when everyone and his brother was memo-happy. He went to see Manelli often during that week, trying to work out an increased production plan with him, and each time he went to Manelli’s office he lingered longer to chat with Cara Knowles. There was something very appealing about the girl’s quiet good looks, and Griff finally decided he should get to know her a little better than Manelli’s office permitted.

He went into the office on Wednesday of Memo Week and walked directly to Cara’s desk.

“Hi,” he said. “How are you?”

“Fine, Griff,” she answered. “Was Mr. Manelli expecting you?”

“Nope,” he said. “But this memo got sent to me by error. It’s addressed to you.”

“Oh?” Cara seemed confused. She bit her lip and said, “Who’d want to send me…”

“Why don’t you open it?”

“All right.” She hesitated a moment, and then lifted the flap of the OFFICE COMMUNICATIONS SERVICE envelope. The memo read:

TO: Miss Cara Knowles

FROM: Raymond Griffin

Apropos of nothing, and not concerning any previous memo or telephone conversation, it has occurred to me that you and I might enjoy an evening of dancing and combined revelry this Saturday night, provided you do not have a previous engagement. What do you think of this suggestion?

R. Griffin, Social Director

Cara looked up, and for an instant he saw the same look he had first seen on her face the day he’d met her. And then she smiled, and her face softened.

“Well?” he said.

“I think so,” she said.

“Fine. What time?”

“Eight o’clock?”

“Fine. Where?”

“Here’s the address.” She scrawled it for him on a slip of paper. “This is the nicest memo I ever got,” she said. She paused and her smile widened and there was something coquettish in her eyes when she added, “In fact, it’s the only memo I ever got.”

“At eight Saturday, and dancing it is.”

He left her office feeling happy as hell, humming to himself all the way down the corridor. When he passed the open Credit Department doorway, he peeked in. Magruder and Danny were at the windows, wrangling over a pair of binoculars. He laughed aloud and then went to his own office.

A shoe was waiting on his desk.

Aaron Reis was standing alongside the desk, sniffing the air, his eyes sparkling.

“What do you think of it?” he asked.

Griff walked to the desk and studied the shoe. He backed away then, looking at it from a distance, and then he circled the desk, his eyes never once leaving the shoe. It was a simple shell pump in a tan reptile, cut extremely low in the vamp, starkly bare in its beauty. There was not a bit of trim or piping on the shoe. It carried a very high heel, at least a 24/8, and the arch of the shoe was a delicately scooped-out open area, giving the entire shoe a look of lightness and airiness. The lizard used had obviously been a damned good skin. The grain was uniform and small, and the lack of ornaments intensified the dignified bare beauty of the shoe.

“Well?” Aaron asked.

“Naked Flesh?”

“Naked Flesh.”

“I like it,” Griff said.

“Doesn’t it strike you as being a little strange?”

“The fact that it’s a shell pump, you mean?”

“Yes. Now who the hell wants to invest in a reptile shoe and get a shell pump? The most important thing in a reptile shoe is the skin, am I right? So a woman is willing to plunk down fifty bucks if she can get that skin. But we’re giving her a shell pump with a damned narrow heel. Just look at that low throat, Griff! Where’s the reptile? Why does she have to pay fifty bucks for this job?”

“Why indeed?” Griff asked.

“She doesn’t,” Aaron said. “Look at that beautiful bitch, Griff, just look at her. What woman wouldn’t hock her eye-teeth to stick her feet into that shoe? That would flatter the foot of a washerwoman. And it’s reptile, and I’ll be Goddamned if I’m not going to ask you to sell it to milady for as low as thirty-seven fifty.”

“Retail?” Griff said. “You’re joking.”