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“You rock, buddy. You absolutely rock.”
“You too, man,” Pidge said.
They locked arms in the Roman forearm handshake, like Charlton Heston and Stephen Boyd in Ben-Hur.
“Ubi fumus,” said Hawk.
“Ibi ignis,” Pidge answered.
Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.
Pidge twisted the gold foil tight around the bottle of Cointreau, and then the two boys advanced side by side up the long stone walkway toward the front porch. There was a card taped to a glass panel on the front door. “To the members of the Press: Please, leave us alone.”
Hawk rang the bell.
Bing-bong.
He could see the gray-haired man through the small-paned living room windows, followed his silhouette as the famous figure walked through the house, turning on the lights in each room, making his way to the front door.
And then the door opened.
“Are you the boys who called?” Connor Campion asked.
“Yes, sir,” Pidge said.
“And what are your names?”
“Why don’t you call me Pidge for now, and he’s Hawk. We have to be careful. What we know could get us killed.”
“You’ve got to trust us,” Hawk said. “We were friends of Michael’s, and we have some information. Like I said on the phone. We can’t keep quiet any longer.”
Connor Campion looked the two boys up and down, decided either they were full of crap or maybe, just maybe, they’d tell him something he needed to know. They’d want money, of course.
He swung the door open wide and invited them inside.
Chapter 101
THE SIXTY-FIVE-YEAR-OLD MAN led the two boys through the vestibule and living room, into his private library. He switched on some lights: the stained-glass Tiffany lamp on the desk he’d used in the governor’s mansion, the down-lighting above the floor-to-ceiling bookcases of law books.
“Is your wife at home?” the one called Hawk asked him.
“She’s had a very stressful day,” Campion said. “She couldn’t wait up. Can I get you boys something to drink?”
“Actually, we brought you this,” Pidge said, handing over the bottle of Cointreau. Connor thanked the boy, slid down the foil bag, and looked at the label.
“Thanks for this. I’ll open this for you if you like, or maybe you’d like something else. I’m having scotch.”
“We’re good, sir,” said Pidge.
Campion put the bottle next to Michael’s picture on the ornately carved mantelpiece, then bent to open the bowed glass doors of the vitrine he used as a liquor cabinet. He took out a bottle of Chivas and a glass. When he turned, he saw the gun in Hawk’s hand.
Campion’s muscles clenched as he stared at the revolver; then he looked up at the smirk on Pidge’s face.
“Are you crazy? You’re holding me up?”
Behind Pidge, Hawk’s eyes were bright, smiling with anticipation, as he took a reel of fishing line out of his back pocket. Horror came over Campion as suspicion bloomed in his mind. He turned his back to the boys, said neutrally, “I guess I won’t be having this.” He made a show of putting the Chivas back inside the cabinet, while feeling around the shelf with the flat of his hand.
“We have to tie you up, sir, make it look like a robbery. It’s for our own protection,” Pidge said.
