She felt Jonas’s fingers tighten and reached up to them as she spoke. “Using him?”

“I contacted Jerry Sharpe in New Orleans. He was someone else we knew everything about. He was a con, an operator, but he had style.” He took another swig of coffee as he studied Jonas. “We made him a deal. If he could get on the inside, feed us information, we’d forget about a few…indiscretions. I liked your brother,” Scott said to Jonas. “Really liked him. If he’d been able to settle a bit, he’d have made a hell of a cop. ‘Conning the bad guys,’ he called it.”

“Are you saying Jerry was working for you?” Jonas felt his emotions race toward the surface. The portrait he’d barely been able to force himself to accept was changing.

“That’s right.” Scott took out a cigarette and watched the match flare as he struck it. “I liked him—I mean that. He had a way of looking at things that made you forget they were so lousy.”

That was Jerry, Jonas thought. To give himself a moment, he walked to the window. He could see the water lapping calmly against the hulls of boats. He could see the sun dancing down on it and children walking along the sea wall. The scene had been almost the same the day he’d arrived on Cozumel. Some things remained the same; others altered constantly. “What happened?”

“He had a hard time following orders. He wanted to push them too fast too far. He told me once he had something to prove, to himself and to the other part of him. The better part of him.”

Jonas turned slowly. The pain came again, an ache. Liz saw it in his eyes and went to stand with him. “Go on.”

“He got the idea into his head to rip off the money from a shipment. I didn’t know about it until he called me from Acapulco. He figured he’d put the head man in a position where he’d have to deal personally. I told him to stay put, that we were scrubbing him. He’d have been taken back to the States and put somewhere safe until the job was over.” He tossed the match he’d been holding into an ashtray on Moralas’s desk. “He didn’t listen. He came back to Cozumel and tried to deal with Manchez himself. It was over before I knew. Even if I’d have known, I can’t be sure I could’ve stopped it. We don’t like to lose civilians, Mr. Sharpe. I don’t like to lose friends.”

The anger drained from him degree by degree. It would have been so like Jerry, Jonas thought. An adventure, the excitement, the impulsiveness. “Go on.”