"Are you cold?" She nodded. "We must find something to put around you."
There was no one in sight. This part of the store had an air of neglect, as though it had been used for storage, shut up and forgotten. The showcases looked as though they had been discarded from more enterprising sections; they were of odd sizes, with dull glass, in some cases cracked and repaired. Many were empty, others contained pearls, loose toothpicks, used cartridge cases, false teeth, celluloid collars, oil cans, rare stamps.
They came to an escalator powered by two ponies working a treadmill, and rode to the floor above. A floorwalker in morning clothes, binoculars dangling on his chest from a leather strap, hastened to them. "Customers only, customers only," he barked.
"We're looking for a coat or a cloak," the Governor informed him.
"Nothing but mink or sables here," said the floorwalker coldly, surveying them through the binoculars.
"We'll take either," said Lampley.
The floorwalker knelt and kissed the Governor's shoe. He reached behind him and took the tails of his frockcoat in his fingers and tore it up the back, placing the two halves before their feet. A saleswoman with a diamond collar sparkling on her neck rolled up in a motor scooter. "This way, if you please."
Two grapnels emerged from the scooter and hooked on to the pieces of coat; Lampley and the girl rode them like water skis to a small, shallow auditorium. An old-fashioned carrier system hummed overhead, its wire baskets moving briskly back and forth, disappearing above the proscenium arch of a cramped stage on which models pranced and postured in furs. When they turned rapidly, flirting the cloaks, Lampley saw they wore nothing beneath and that they were all gravid.
"I'll take that one," said the girl, pointing.
The curtain thumped down. The saleswoman pulled a cord on the carrier system. "Madam has excellent taste, for a slut," she complimented the girl. An oversized basket brought the model clutching the cloak tightly about her. She was cowering in terror. The saleswoman pulled the cord again and the basket tipped, tumbling the model out. "Rip it off her back," she ordered.