The Spiked Heel

He had never met the old man, and the old man had been in his grave for a hell of a long time now, but Griff could never look up at the JULIEN KAHN, Fashion Shoes sign without feeling this ungrudging admiration for the man who’d established the organization. Nor could he completely minimize the contributions old Kahn’s three sons — well, really two sons if you discounted Peter Putter — had made to the firm in its early expansion stage. Old Kahn had been a lucky man in that all of his sons, with the exception of Peter, loved the shoe business as much as he did. They’d all started learning it from the bottom, all endowed with the knowledge that the empire would someday be theirs, and all shrewdly businesslike enough to realize you had to know a business in order to run it.

When old Julien Kahn died, his three sons took over. Manny Kahn went in as president of the firm. Isaac Kahn took over as president of the retail chain and general strong-arm man in the bunch. He knew how to sell shoes, and he also knew how to deal with lockouts and other union trouble. The boys made a formidable pair. Peter, whom everyone at the factory took to calling Peter Putter, puttered around here and there, fussing and fidgeting, turning off lights in offices, complaining that too much electricity was being used, or too many staples in the shipping room, a bumbler who contributed nothing but his presence to the firm. Even the Kahn brothers treated him with the disrespect he had rightfully earned.

The business grew. Manny bought the larger New Jersey plant, and then the plant in Boston, and then the brothers opened their Kahnette division in Utica, putting out a slightly less expensive line than Julien Kahn, Fashion Shoes, did. The name of Julien Kahn was slowly but indelibly stamped on the fashion world. It became a name that automatically came to mind whenever anyone mentioned a good shoe. The company took its place among the other leaders in the industry. Julien Kahn was murmured in the same reverent breath with Delman’s, Andrew Geller, I Miller, Palter De Liso. Julien Kahn, Inc., was a vibratingly alive, alert, progressive business run by levelheaded shrewd men who also happened to love the industry.

And then, as will happen, sons begat sons. And daughters.

The wife of Mandel Kahn presented him with a pair of bouncing baby boys, twins who were weaned on the best milk, raised by the best governesses, tutored by the best private tutors, sent to the best prep schools, the best Ivy League colleges, and then absorbed into the Kahn empire. David Kahn stepped into the firm as executive chairman of the Board. Donald Kahn came in as general manager of the Boston Division. Nor were the other sons of Julien Kahn lacking in the progenitive spirit.

Isaac Kahn bred and raised a handsome boy called Theodore. Theodore achieved manhood and prepared to take on the sacred robes of a priest in the Kahn dynasty. He had good intentions, the boy. He decided to learn the business from the bottom up, the way old Julien Kahn had done, the way his father and his uncles had done. He spent a grand total of six months in the newly acquired New Jersey factory, and perhaps he learned how to conserve staples and electricity from his Uncle Peter. At the end of six months, his pathetic apprenticeship came to an abrupt halt. He fled to Boston, where he was installed as comptroller of that factory.

Peter Kahn contributed two daughters and a son to the clan. Adele, his eldest, attended Cooper Union, where she majored in Design and garnered a straight C average. Armed with knowledge, she went into the firm as fashion coordinator. Freida Kahn attended the University of Miami, where she majored in Tennis, and then came north to marry a wealthy Boston socialite, depriving the firm of her talents. She held a strange, unwarranted contempt for Julien Kahn, and was often heard to refer to him as “The Old Cripple.” Peter died when his only son was eighteen years old and still a senior at Birchwood Prep. Most of Peter’s shares in the firm went to this beloved offspring, Peter, Jr. When Peter, Jr., was graduated from Harvard University, he ran to the Chrysler Building and was promptly crowned sales manager of the firm.

The sons and one daughter had been handling the business in their own slipshod manner for as long as Griff could remember. Their fathers separately lapsed into death or bored indifference. Isaac Kahn was still alive, and he had occasionally visited the factory before the deal with Titanic, but he was a man of the past, adjusting his memories to fit the new scheme of things. The final deal with Titanic — a transfer of stock, the details of which had never been explained to Griff — was inevitable. If you want to run a business, you have to know it. The grandchildren of old Julien Kahn didn’t know a shoe from a banana peel.