Louis held his breath, looked to each side and ascertained that no one in view was paying attention to what he did, and he opened the book, a large-type edition by a publisher long part of a conglomerate with several imprints, popular magazines, and over ten major city newspapers.

The coming anti-dollar? he thought.

The author was described as a well-known commentator of the world of ultra-conservative radio broadcasting. Never heard of him, Louis thought.

He began reading the jacket.

“What no one on Wall Street dared reveal until now, out of fear for more than their bank balances and bailout packages. Never before published, documented proofs of the impending financial doom that will be ushered in by the age of the Anti-Dollar, a figure so mystical, so cynical, feared, yet-followed by the powerful elite of most nations other than North Korea and Lichtenstein.

They actually publish this drivel? Louis thought, setting the book down. Then again, if a major publishing house would put this out, maybe the world is in for worse than a little belt-tightening.

He took a deep breath, noticed through the glass windows of the bookstore that Todd was walking with another young man out in the mall, and Louis made his way to the pet book section.

A little bit of relief, he thought.

His eye was immediately caught by the title TWENTY EASY LESSONS TO SPEAK TABBY, on a book jacket with a digitally enhanced photo of a cat sitting on a lavish sofa appearing to nod while a woman in house dress and blouse seated beside the cat is reading aloud from a copy of the book, a CD-player on the coffee table playing the first lesson.

Now this could be fun, Louis thought, opening the cover and finding a CD in vinyl attached to the first page.

The dust cover read in part: …Thought all those meows were mere mumbling by a less-than-scholastic member of the animal kingdom? Or did you once suspect that your kitty was actually saying ‘No!’ when you told her to get down off your expensive chandelier. It sure sounds like ‘no’, doesn’t it?

Are they putting me on? Louis wondered.

He opened the instruction manual and recognized some genuine linguistics resources and symbols and, having been of the opinion since his early teens that animals have minds and thoughts and languages if only humans would try to understand, decided to buy the book as a gift for Larry. He noticed another title by the same author: FIDO TALKS!, with similar claims about providing a CD to help dog owners understand their canine friends’ every utterance and decided to buy that as well.

He browsed a while longer, thinking of what would make good gifts for his family and closest friends.

There were digital photo frames, 7” and 10”, with mail-in rebates, 1.5” digital photo key chains available in silver, red, or blue, digital/analog TV converter boxes, video games, and the latest videos from hit movies.

After making his purchases using a debit card, he walked out into the mall, made his way into the entrance of one of the anchor department stores and immediately noticed Chad, dressed in long-sleeve light blue dress shirt, dark navy blue woolen slacks, black dress belt, designer wrist-watch, behind the counter to the near right in the men’s section.

Chad smiled and called out, “How are you? Can I help you?”

“Good.” Louis came over and asked how Chad was doing.

“Great. Part-time holiday job. The hours are long with the Christmas rush coming on, at least on weekends, but it’s good.”

“Glad to hear it,” Louis said. “I’m looking for some winter things.”

“Over here,” Chad said. “I’ll be glad to show you.”

They walked around elegant displays of upper-end men’s clothing including 90% cotton, 10% cashmere sweaters beginning at $100, 100% cashmere sweaters beginning at $200, and racks of black leather jackets beginning at $400. There were winter gloves beginning at $40 each, round display tables with men’s silk ties beginning at $80 each arranged like the radiating spokes on a wheel, and even some polo shirts on clearance for $50 each.

They talked about the store, which was beginning to fill up with the noon time crowds.

Larry had been told that the interview would include lunch with two of the partners of the law firm, so Louis was beginning to think of where to eat by himself.

He bought a pair of men’s gloves and while Chad was making the sale at the customer service counter which had four registers and another cashier on duty, asked what was a good place for lunch in the mall.

“Right over there,” Chad said, pointing to an pub and deli across the way on the other side of the railings above the ground floor. “Only they’ll be getting crowded any moment now. And I’m about to clock out for lunch.”

“Join me then?” Louis said.

“Glad to,” Chad said, using the computer at the register to record his time-out for his meal.

As they walked across to the deli, a number of people were passing in both directions in front of the department store, including:

several young men - immigrants from Latin America working in construction in the Washington area - wearing shirts they had shoplifted that summer at one of the other major department stores in Maryland, at a location without extensive electronic surveillance; two short slim white teenage girls who had shoplifted the costume bracelets they were wearing from a boutique in Reston; a lone stylishly-dressed white woman age fifty-two who had stolen from the store where Chad worked earlier in the week on another “shopping” excursion; a young mother of two struggling to survive on food stamps and public assistance who had gone into the women’s dressing room of another of the mall department stores Thursday evening carrying two pair of new lady’s panties selected from a display, one of which she had put on, tossing her old pair on the floor before walking out of the dressing room and out into the mall without being detected; and others who had been guilty of shoplifting from various stores earlier that year and who planned similar behavior to complete their Christmas “gift” lists.

Louis and Chad sat down at a table near the back, the soft background music including songs by an American singer dead over fifteen years, and glanced at the menu.

Chad began by mentioning that another department store in the mall was said to be about to fire six employees for theft. “One of our supervisors knows one of their supervisors well; in fact, I think her brother also works there. I’m not sure I was supposed to tell you, if you’ll keep it confidential.”

“Wow,” Louis said.

“The supervisors say that sort of thing gets worse in a recession,” Chad said. “There’s one high school girl who was here just a few weeks.”

“At your store?”

“Right, at my store. She’s sharp and seemed real nice. I liked her; we got along well. But twice they had seven or eight of us sign variance sheets confirming we had been at a register where twenty and then one hundred dollars was missing. Then it happened a third time but before they found it, a fifty was missing or something, and she had been at that register too; she was at each register the day the money was missing, but she just stopped coming to work and no one’s seen her here since or had a chance to question here about the last…discrepancy.”

“Hmmm.”

“I’ve learned about some strange things working here. One of the salesladies also works at a specialty gift store in the mall. She has two jobs, and some old man has been stalking her, coming into the other place asking where she lives, who she is. Weird. So the other store’s management had to get a restraining order to keep him away from the store.”

“That’s serious.”

They ordered their sandwiches and drinks and Chad continued.

“It’s the small jewelry that gets swiped a lot. We find all kinds of price tags or small empty jewelry boxes set on shelves where they shouldn’t be. They call it shrinkage. It’s mostly cheap jewelry. I never imagined it was so big a deal until I got this job.”

“Yes,” Louis said. “It’s a shame.”

“We get people coming into the store looking rather shady who have a pair of jeans or something and no sack and claim it was a gift from someone else who bought it at our store, but they don’t have a receipt, and can they exchange it. Half the time the supervisor just let’s them exchange it for something they want, but we wonder how many have shoplifted it a few days ago and decided they want something else. Brazen.”

“Yes, it is.”

“There’s a security guard who walks our store, and I’ve seen him follow a suspect out of our store, and then they follow the guy all the way through the mall, and into another department store, and catch them in another store and create a scene, since they’ve got our merchandise and didn’t pay for it. Some of the other department stores around Fairfax and smaller towns have it worse, with gangs coming in when they’re short-staffed and hardly any cashiers out on the floor, and the gangs know which stores have good electronic surveillance and I’ve heard of three or four young men or women walking out into the parking lots with their arms literally piled with clothes they haven’t paid for and they’re into their car and off before anyone can stop them.

“And then there’s the counterfeit bills.”

“What?” Louis said.

“We’re supposed to mark each fifty or hundred dollar bill with a special pen that will turn a certain color if the bill isn’t genuine. ‘Tis the season to pass counterfeit money. They figure we’re too busy to check every bill, but I try. I haven’t found a fake one yet, but a cashier did a few days ago and when she tried to crumple the bill since it looked suspect the customer just took it back and said, ‘If my money’s not good enough for you here, I’ll go elsewhere.’”

“Somewhere they don’t check the bills like you do,” Louis said.

“It’s eye-opening,” Chad said. “Tells you a lot about human nature and how people survive with so many who steal and apparently think nothing of it. Gotta wonder what’s going to happen in the world if there’s a recession like they say, the worst since World War II, the worst since the Great Depression, and how many people will stop at nothing to shoplift or steal anything they can to survive.”

“Yes,” Louis said. “It’s a modern malady. Or rather, a human malady since human beings have been around.”

They finished in about twenty minutes, with Louis going to the men’s room for a few minutes and returning to find Chad talking with a waiter who greeted Louis and said he had read one of Omar’s two published books on Middle Eastern contemporary history.
“How’d you know my father’s name?” Louis asked as he and Chad went to the cashier to pay.

“I’m studying history at Georgetown University,” the waiter said. “I’m a senior. I saw you at a seminar last year, when Doctor Algernon spoke, and someone pointed you out when you went to the podium and said who you are. I really admire your father’s writing. How is he?”

“Well,” Louis said. “Lives in Iraq.”

“Oh,” the young man said, going back to wait on another table. “I sure hope he’ll be okay.”

“Thank you,” Louis said. “So far he’s all in one piece.”

He was driving a 2008 rental car provided by the body shop that he had chosen - not the one of Allison’s preference, to the dismay of Lyeforth and Beltmann - for the repairs to his own car.

The insurance company adjuster had come close to insisting that Louis use their preferred body shop due to a negotiated rate, but Louis had rebutted their claim that he would get the best work done at their shop. After mentioning that his husband was an attorney, the adjuster had backed off and agreed that the repairs by Louis’s garage would be accepted, their bid in fact coming in lower than the shop where Allison had contacts willing to plant illegal listening devices in unsuspecting motorists’ vehicles.

He started the engine, planning to drive straight home, and turned on the radio to a channel that carried the daily broadcasts of Hudson Elsmere Pembroke, whose noon hour monologue was still underway.

“What is the secret then, the cure to this modern malady of the great and mighty - in terms of that ever-lasting inspiration money - acting like the worst of fools, but then it’s not hard to risk someone else’s money. A fool and someone else’s money are soon parted, or so will run the adage henceforth. That is part of the cure, since we learn that even the most sophisticated financial minds of the age were all too willing to participate in one after another tsunami-tempting bet on shaky mortgages, shaky investments in their college buddy’s high-risk ventures, and a ‘free market force mindset’ free for all but the taxpayers who must bail them out.

Louis thought for a time, just a few minutes from the house, of all the taxes he and Larry had been paying, Larry especially, and if in fact they and the American people had been conned.

After a short ad by an environmentally-conscious sponsor with over 100,000 employees in thirty nations, Pembroke returned with his concluding remarks.

“Now it’s like living with a deranged dictator in the house, living with someone who keeps threatening to commit suicide if you don’t do what they want, in this case, big business. So you keep doing what they want so they won’t commit financial suicide - bankruptcy, at its best - and you’ve got the worst development since feudalism. I say let the giants of finance and corporate greed commit suicide. We can’t keep living with that threat over our free house of cards, businesses intent on self-destruction if they do not get their way.