The Spiked Heel

“Sure, you can do that. Sure, why not? But it’ll still be nonsensical. This happens to be a fashion house. Suppose the fashion genuises decide that sandals are going to be the big thing next year? We’ll be cutting sandals until our eyes fall out. All right, the labor is higher on a sandal, but the cost of material is practically nil. What makes you think last year’s cost would apply in a year big with sandals?”

“It will,” McQuade said. “It’s worked in our other factories.”

“But what are you cutting in your other factories? Men’s shoes! What the hell ever changes on a man’s shoe? From year to year you’ve got the same damned thing, oh, a few extra gimmicks here and there, but basically the same. So, sure, you can figure so much for your leather, and so much for each operation, and aside from minor rises and drops in pay scale or material prices, that figure will apply year after year. Your average cost will be a working thing. The same damn thing with casuals.

“But this is fashion, fashion! Who knows what’s going to happen next year, or the year after? With women, you never know. They may take to walking in the street barefooted! God damn it, surely you know this for a fact! Who expected skirts to drop in forty-six or forty-seven or whenever the hell it was? Who can predict anything that will happen in the fashion world? I’m telling you that running a fashion house on an average-cost system is pure suicide. You’d be losing money left and right. You’d be losing so much—”

“I don’t think so,” McQuade said.

“It doesn’t matter what you think,” Griff said recklessly. He was talking about shoes now, and he was talking about Julien Kahn, and he knew and loved both. “I can go back in our books and show you. We’ve gone back one year already. All right, go back two years and three years, if you like, and you’ll see how the average cost for last year differs from the average cost for the years preceding it, and differs enough to make a big—”

He stopped short, realizing he was about to say “difference” and hating himself for getting tangled up in his own heated discussion.

“You can show me that from your books?” McQuade asked.

“Damn right, I can.”

“Then show it to me.”

“Show…?”

“That sounds like a good idea,” Manelli said. “Why don’t you show it to him, Griff?”

Griff glanced sourly at his comptroller.

“Go back to your cost cards,” McQuade said. “You’ve already given me the figures for last year. All right, go back two years, and then go back three years, listing your costs without profit for every pattern we made. Let me have average costs for two and three years ago, costs which we can then compare with the average cost for last year. If there is any appreciable difference…” McQuade shrugged. “I will then send the figures to Georgia, and let them decide.”

“That seems like a lot of work for nothing,” Griff said, beginning to suspect another invented work project, beginning to feel like something of a fool for having stepped into it so easily. “You can take my word for it that—”

“I take no one’s word where it comes to possible loss,” McQuade said quickly.

Manelli smiled. “Can’t condemn a man for that attitude, can you Griff?”

“I’ll tell you frankly what I have recommended, Griff,” McQuade said. “I’ve recommended that the Cost Department be disbanded, its employees transferred to other departments of our operation. I’ve recommended the establishment of an average cost, the addition of Factory’s six per cent profit to that cost, and the sale of shoes on completion to the Sales Division, the transfer to take place on paper. I’ve recommended that Sales be allowed to establish its own selling price, with full responsibility for them.” He paused. “You can see, I’m sure, that if we no longer find it necessary to either cost or price a shoe here at the factory, well, there’s no longer any need for the Cost Department.”

Griff shook his head. “No,” he said. “I tried to explain to you before that our costs are all estimated. In actual production, the cost comes all the way down. If you’re figuring an average cost based on estimated cost, you’re going to have a top-heavy budget. You’ll overprice yourself right out of the competition.”

“You’ll have to prove that to me, too.”

“You mean that actual cost is lower than estimated cost? Oh, hell, that’s a simple production fact. Everyone knows that.”

“Certainly, but how much lower?”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re not interested in a difference of ten cents or so per pair. That wouldn’t strain us, budget-wise.”

“It would come to a hell of a lot more than that, I can tell you,” Griff said.

“How can you tell me?”