Risky Business

back.” Jonas signaled for the check. “Business.”
    “Yeah, I know what you mean.” He nodded toward the restaurant’s entrance. “Here’s my customer now. Next time you drop down, give a call.”
    “Sure.”
    “And give my best to old Clancy.” With another laugh, David gave them each a quick salute. They watched him stride across the room and shake hands with a dark-suited man.
    “Don’t say anything here,” Jonas murmured as he signed the breakfast check. “Let’s go.”
    Liz’s crumpled napkin slid to the floor as she rose to walk out with him. He didn’t speak again until they had the door of the villa closed behind them.
    “You had no business telling him we were partners.”
    Because she’d been ready for the attack, she shrugged it off. “He said more once I did.”
    “He’d have said just as much if you’d made an excuse and left the table.”
    She folded her arms. “We have the same problem, remember?”
    He didn’t care to have his own words tossed back at him. “The least you could have done was to give him another name.”
    “Why? They know who I am. Sooner or later he’s going to talk to whoever’s in charge and get the whole story.”
    She was right. He didn’t care for that either. “Are you packed?”
    “Yes.”
    “Then let’s check out. We’ll go to the airport.”
    “And then?”
    “And then we go straight to Moralas.”
     
    “You’ve been very busy.” Moralas held on to his temper as he rocked back in his chair. “Two of my men wasted their valuable time looking for you in Acapulco. You might have told me, Mr. Sharpe, that you planned to take Miss Palmer on a trip.”
    “I thought a police tail in Acapulco might be inconvenient.”
    “And now that you have finished your own investigation, you bring me this.” He held up the key and examined it. “This which Miss Palmer discovered several days ago. As a lawyer, you must understand the phrase ‘withholding evidence.’”
    “Of course.” Jonas nodded coolly. “But neither Miss Palmer nor myself could know the key was evidence. We speculated, naturally, that it might have belonged to my brother. Withholding a speculation is hardly a crime.”
    “Perhaps not, but it is poor judgment. Poor judgment often translates into an offense.”
    Jonas leaned back in his chair. If Moralas wanted to argue law, they’d argue law. “If the key belonged to my brother, asexecutor of his estate, it became mine. In any case, once it was proved to me that the key did indeed belong to Jerry, and that the contents of the safe-deposit box were evidence, I brought both the key and a description of the contents to you.”
    “Indeed. And do you also speculate as to how your brother came to possess those particular items?”
    “Yes.”
    Moralas waited a beat, then turned to Liz. “And you, Miss Palmer—you also have your speculations?”
    She had her hands gripped tightly in her lap, but her voice was matter-of-fact and reasonable. “I know that whoever attacked me wanted money, obviously a great deal of money. We found a great deal.”
    “And a bag of what Mr. Sharpe…speculates is cocaine.” Moralas folded his hands on the desk with the key under them. “Miss Palmer, did you at any time see Mr. Jeremiah Sharpe in possession of cocaine?”
    “No.”
    “Did he at any time speak to you of cocaine or drug-trafficking?”
    “No, of course not. I would have told you.”
    “As you told me about the key?” When Jonas started to protest, Moralas waved him off. “I will need a list of your customers for the past six weeks, Miss Palmer. Names and, wherever possible, addresses.”
    “My customers? Why?”
    “It’s more than possible that Mr. Sharpe used your shop for his contacts.”
    “My shop.” Outraged, she stood up. “My boats? Do you think he could have passed drugs under my nose without me being aware?”
    Moralas took out a cigar and studied it. “I very much hopeyou were unaware, Miss Palmer. You will bring me the list of clients by the end of the week.” He glanced at Jonas. “Of course, you are within your rights to demand a warrant. It will simply slow down the process. And I, of course, am within my rights to hold Miss Palmer as a material witness.”
    Jonas watched the pale blue smoke circle toward the ceiling. It was tempting to call Moralas’s bluff simply as an exercise in testing two ends of the law. And in doing so, he and the captain could play tug-of-war with Liz for hours. “There are