But Macy's was fully manned. There was a guard at every door and a walking patrol along the block-front between the entrances to make sure nobody broke in through the windows. They all wore green armbands and uniforms--well, lots of people wore uniforms. I walked over. "Afternoon," I said affably to the guard. "I want to pick up some stuff. Typewriter, maybe a gun, you know. How do you work it here? Flat rate for all you can carry, prices marked on everything, or what is it?" He stared at me suspiciously. He was a monster; six inches taller than I, he must have weighed two hundred and fifty pounds. He didn't look very smart, which might explain why he was working for somebody else these days. But he was smart enough for what he had to do. He demanded: "You new in town?" I nodded. He thought for a minute. "All right, buddy. Go on in. You pick out what you want, see? We'll straighten out the price when you come out." "Fair enough." I started past him. He grabbed me by the arm. "No tricks," he ordered. "You come out the same door you went in, understand?" "Sure," I said, "if that's the way you want it." That figured--one way or another: either they got a commission, or, like everybody else, they lived on what they could knock down. I filed that for further consideration. Inside, the store smelled pretty bad. It wasn't just rot, though there was plenty of that; it was musty and stale and old. It was dark, or nearly. About one light in twenty was turned on, in order to conserve power. Naturally the escalators and so on weren't running at all. * * * * * I passed a counter with pencils and ball-point pens in a case. Most of them were gone--somebody hadn't bothered to go around in back and had simply knocked the glass out--but I found one that worked and an old order pad to write on. Over by the elevators there was a store directory, so I went over and checked it, making a list of the departments worth visiting. Office Supplies would be the typewriter. Garden & Home was a good bet--maybe I could find a little wheelbarrow to save carrying the typewriter in my arms. What I wanted was one of the big ones where all the keys are solenoid-operated instead of the cam-and-roller arrangement--that was all Arthur could operate. And those things were heavy, as I knew. That was why we had ditched the old one in the Bronx. Sporting Goods--that would be for a gun, if there were any left. Naturally, they were about the first to go after it happened, when _everybody_ wanted a gun. I mean everybody who lived through it. I thought about clothes--it was pretty hot in New York--and decided I might as well take a look. Typewriter, clothes, gun, wheelbarrow. I made one more note on the pad--try the tobacco counter, but I didn't have much hope for that. They had used cigarettes for currency around this area for a while, until they got enough bank vaults open to supply big bills. It made cigarettes scarce.