What the Feds Say the Tax Lady Spent at Neiman's: $1.4 million

"That's nothing," says Helen Moody, a well-known Washington stylist and shopping consultant. "Two hundred thousand dollars is really easy."

You could do that with a single season of Chado Ralph Rucci. The dollar -- even your tax dollar -- is not at work the way it used to be. Good bags are $5,000. Even the spring shoes are $900, $1,200 now. And don't just think about clothes. Think accessories. Think home furnishings. Think Horchow. The journey into the inner circle of doting salesclerks and special invites begins the minute you walk in and drop, say, $10,000 on a skirt and jacket. Soon there are phone calls from sales associates, asking not who you are but how you are, inviting you to a personal lunch or to special previews. Your shoe size is now known; you will never have to tell them again. The room is ready for you. In another $15,000 or $20,000, even "the guys who take your parking-garage ticket know who you are," Moody says.

As the tax refund scandal unfolds, a certain kind of criminal species has again captured the local imagination: The public servant or official or organization president who sees the money flowing to and fro, helps himself or herself to what he or she imagines is an insignificant cut of it, and makes a beeline for the high-end department stores.

When the alleged perp shows up in court, heads crane to figure out, "Who are you wearing?" (Gustus appeared yesterday in a heavy denim jacket, with white socks. Walters wore black slacks under a jacket of cardinal red wool, which set off her blond braids.)

As the Washington Teachers' Union prepares to auction this weekend some $800,000 worth of designer handbags, furs and other luxury items bought by its former president, Barbara Bullock, with union funds (she's now doing nine years in prison togs), only the boring, rational-minded ask why the crooks don't spend it less conspicuously. What sort of thief opens mutual funds?

"If I was stealing that kind of money," Moody says, it wouldn't be on clothes, not right away. "It would be on attorney fees, getting a plan lined up." She's thought about this. You need property, real estate that can't be seized, that you can rent out while you serve your term. There's so much to do before the retail binges.

"Could you spend $1.4 million at Neiman Marcus in seven years? Absolutely," says Susan Rolontz, executive vice president of Tobé, a retail consultant group in New York. "Neiman Marcus has fabulous, fabulous luxury merchandise. I don't think there's any question you could spend it in a short period of time, while giving everybody you know gifts and dressing yourself amazingly. First of all, it's a place you like to spend it. And I think that's important -- that's where you want to spend that kind of money."

No matter how you got it.

Rolontz yells out to a co-worker: "This guy wants to know if you can spend $1.4 million at Neiman Marcus in seven years."

"Seven years?" the woman asks.

"Yes, seven years."

"I could spend that in a week," she answers.