The Spiked Heel

The girl began shaking her head. She still could not speak, but she began shaking her head mutely, and tears welled up in her eyes and then trickled down onto her cheeks while she shook her head.

McQuade rose, huge and wrathful behind Manelli’s desk.

“You stole these shoes!” he shouted, and the girl flinched before his voice, as if he had struck her in the mouth with his fist. “You stole them, you thieving, sniveling little cheat. Admit it! Admit it!”

The girl began to blubber. She put her hands to her face and sobbed into them. “I… I deed not want… only to try them on… only to try them on… Meester Gar’ner, he come back… I wass only try them on… I wass—”

“You took them home?” McQuade roared.

The girl nodded, sobbing, her breast heaving.

“Bring those shoes back,” McQuade said, “do you hear? Bring them back with you tomorrow morning, do you understand? You may go now.”

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.