Excerpt: Shoe In

It shouldn't be taking this long, only everything was a mess. Guccis in a Juicy box, Kate Spades tangled in Betsey Johnsons leather straps. Marc Jacobs wedges with a Miu Miu stiletto embedded 2 inches deep. It was havoc in shoe heaven. The angels were wailing, begging me to free them from darkness, urging for a foot to cover with their luxurious fabrics and embellishments. I set aside a pair of Kate spade ballet flats, classic little shoes tended to be more our business, but these high-end designer wares were what you were in it for. The gleam in Veronkia's green eyes, the pride as she lifted the shoes most women only dream about and caress their suede nubuck, petting it gently like one would a Persian cat. "Beautiful" she'd murmur before they were whisked away to cataloging, preservation, and eventually sales.

We ran it like a business because mixing business and pleasure was a bad combination. Girls got greedy, they "borrowed" a pair from the closet for a night, they picked up a Cavalli from Bergdorfs for themselves on company time and company dime or moonlighted for a competitor, but girls canned for less then that. Veronika never hid that fact. She told you day one - you break the rules you loose your black card and privileges, you'd be blacklisted from Prada, from Armani, from Versace, from all the stores you spent day in and day out memorizing their goods. Veronkia was lordess of the fashion underworld, you didn't want to cross her, otherwise the closest you'd come to your favorite designers would be watching the fall fashion shoes in E! entertainment recaps in a third story walkup in Brooklyn eating ramen noodles. Most girls wouldn't risk it, but for touching Manolos with greasy fingers was punishable by death.

Veronika said you wouldn't go into a pyramid looking for treasure without gear, you wouldn't unearth a skeleton with a jackhammer. You'd gingerly dig and dust, you'd treat it with respect, appreciate its value, preserve it, and so we did. Rummaging through the box of soon to be marked down shoes I had amassed a pile of Stuart Weitzman peeptoe heels in neon yellow, the kate spade flats a few other finds. It was a good collection, full retail value several thousand at least, but the holy grail of the shoe collection just wasn't there. I had worn my hospital issue latex gloves for nothing. I look up at Sarah.

"Nothing else?" I ask as I start to get up. I have several pairs of high-end shoes wrapped in a cloth in my arms, like a baby. My baby.

Sarah digs her heel into the cement, twirls a long strawberry blonde hair extension in between her slender fingers, "well..." she starts. Dammit she was holding out on me. "We just got a box from Hermes that hasn't been opened, and..."

I look at her expectantly. I didn't come all the way out here for something I could have picked up at DSW, this was supposed to be the mother load, that's what Veronika texted me an hour earlier. That's why I left my best friends birthday party, why I chugged the rest of my cosmo and grabbed a cab to 5th Ave. I nod, she leans in closer to me, "You're not... not wired...are you?" she stutters. G-d a newbie, Veronika sent me to raid a job under a newbie. I sigh deeply.