Acosta went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “You have been scheduled for a hearing. The date and time is in the injunction. If you do not appear at the hearing, you can expect the restraining order to be continued in force, indefinitely. You may attend the hearing with your legal counsel, or you may be a dumb-ass, it’s up to you. Now, you’ve been eating frozen dinners ever since your wife moved out, and you may be getting tired of them. Let me tell you, they’re better than what’s on the menu in the county jail. Take my advice and don’t put eyes on your ex until you see her at the hearing, got me?”
He felt sick. He felt like taking his chrome-handled flashlight to her fat, dykey face. She had a dyke haircut—could’ve been in the marines with a haircut like that.
“That it? We done?”
“Nope.”
He didn’t like the way she said it, didn’t like how happy she sounded.
“What else?”
“Do you have any guns here or in your car?”
“The fuck that matter?”
“You are instructed by order of the State of Florida to turn in your firearms to the sheriff’s department until a judge concludes it is safe for you to possess them.”
“I am a security guard,” he said.
“Do mall cops pack? Your co-worker wasn’t carrying when he walked in.” When Kellaway didn’t answer, Acosta looked through the window at Joanie and Ed. “Are you required to carry while you’re on the job?”
A strained quiet settled upon the room. The vending machine kicked on, a soft whump and a hum.
“No, ma’am,” Eddie Dowling said at last, grimacing and glancing apologetically at Kellaway.
“Are you even allowed to carry a gun?” she asked.
“Not in your first year, ma’am,” said Ed. “But after that, if you wear it discreetly, it’s not prohibited, ma’am.”
“Right,” she said, and looked back at Kellaway. “Are you packing now?”
Kellaway could feel a vein throbbing in the center of his forehead. She inspected him then, glanced at his belt—nothing attached to it except his walkie-talkie and his flashlight—then down along the length of his body and back up.
“What’s that on your ankle?” she asked. “That the Colt Python or the SIG?”
“How do you—” he started, then clenched his teeth together. Holly. The silly, fragile bitch had given the sheriff’s department a list of all his guns.
“Mr. Kellaway, would you please surrender your weapon? I’ll be glad to give you a receipt for it.”
For a long time, he just glared at her, and she smiled pleasantly back at him. Finally he put his foot up on the mustard-colored love seat against the wall, the one with the patched cushions, and yanked up his pant leg.
“Like anyone could carry a fucking Colt Python in an ankle holster. You ever seen a Colt Python?” he said, unbuckling the entire holster and wiggling it loose and pulling it off.
“It would be a pain in the ass with a full-size Python, but it’s doable if it’s the snub. Your ex wasn’t sure which you owned.”
He gave her the SIG. She briskly removed the mag, pumped the slide, and squinted into the chamber to make sure it was unloaded. When she was sure it was safe, she zipped it into a big clear plastic bag and put it aside on the Formica counter. She rummaged in her leather satchel, came up with a slip of paper, and squinted down at it.
“So is the Colt in your locker?”
“You got a warrant to find out?”
“I don’t need one. Not for that. I have permission from Russ Dorr, the CEO of Sunbelt Marketplace, the firm that owns this mall. You can call him yourself and ask if you’re wondering. Your locker isn’t your locker. It’s his.”
“What are you going to do if it’s not there? Follow me to my house? Better have a warrant for that.”
“We don’t need to go to your house, Mr. Kellaway. We’ve already been there. Your wife gave us a key and granted us permission to enter the premises, as is her right. She’s co-listed on the mortgage. But we didn’t find the Colt or the SIG”—she scanned the sheet of paper—“or the Uzi. Really? An Uzi? That’s some real Rambo shit, Mr. Kellaway. For your sake, I hope that hasn’t been converted.”
“It’s a legacy piece,” he said. “From 1984, grandfathered in. If your boys looked in my file cabinet, they would’ve found all the paperwork on it. It’s legal.”
“That must’ve cost some money. I guess patrolling the mall pays good. That right? You get top dollar making sure no one snatches a Cinnabon and runs for the doors?”
He opened his locker and got the Colt and handed it to her butt-first, the cylinder open. She shook the bullets out into the cup of her palm, spun the cylinder, and snapped it back into the frame with an agile flick of her wrist. It went into the plastic bag with the SIG. Acosta wrote him a receipt in a notepad that resembled what a waitress would use to take an order. That was what Acosta should’ve been doing, copying down orders in a Waffle House somewhere.
“The Uzi in the car?” she asked.
He was going to ask if she had a warrant, but as he opened his mouth, her gaze swept up and met his, and she looked at him with a benign calm he could hardly stand. Of course she had one. She was waiting for him to ask so she could show him up, humiliate him again.
She followed him down the long corridor, out the metal door, and into the parking lot. The late-afternoon sunshine always surprised him after he’d spent a day in the mall: the sharp-edged clarity of the world and the taste of the ocean in the air. Sheaves of palm leaves moved with a dry rustle. The sun was deep in the west, and the sky was shot with a smoggy golden light.
Acosta followed him across the blacktop. When she saw the car, she laughed.
“Really?” she asked. “I didn’t see that one coming.”
He didn’t look at her. His car was a bright red Prius. He’d bought it for the kid, because George was worried about the penguins. They went to see the penguins almost every weekend at the aquarium. George could watch them swim all day.
He opened the hatchback. The Uzi was in a black hard case. He entered the code, popped the locks, and stood back so she could have a look at it, placed neatly in its black foam cutouts. He loathed the Spanish woman and her butch haircut, and he was surprised to feel a certain pleasure anyway, letting her look it over, every piece of it oiled and black and so clean it might’ve been brand-new.
She wasn’t impressed, though. When she spoke, her voice was flat, almost disbelieving. “You leave a fully automatic Uzi in your car?”
“The firing pin is in my locker. You want it? I’ll have to go back and get it.”
She slammed the plastic case shut, got out her waitress check pad, and began to write once more.
“Read that restraining order, Mr. Kellaway,” she said, tearing off his receipt and handing it to him. “And if you don’t understand any of it, have a lawyer explain it to you.”
“I want to talk to my son.”
“The judge will make a provision for that, I’m sure, in fifteen days.”
“I want to call my boy and tell him I’m fine. I don’t want him to be afraid.”
“Neither do we. That’s why you’re holding a restraining order. Good afternoon, Mr. Kellaway.”