Tinseltown Riff by Shelly Frome Page A

to repeat “Hey, there’s no telling, kiddo” with a little more conviction.  

   
    Chapter Eight  
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    As morning came on two days before, Deke found himself in the observation car following the course of the Columbia River. The lean woman in the green jump suit to his right was still carrying on about the fluky wind gusts. The flukiness, the woman declared, was the reason there were no kite-surfers flying backwards or landing nose down, flipping over, re-launching or some such thing. That was also why there were only a few tiny fishing craft wending their way for Deke to enjoy. As if Deke gave a damn about any of this small talk. As if he didn’t have enough on his plate.
    On the other hand, Walt always told him it was good that folks naturally took up with him. It was useful, one of his pluses. Deke had the kind of lantern jaw and all-purpose face anybody could use as a sounding board without fear of response. People would open up and, thirty minutes later, couldn’t recall exactly who it was they’d been talking to. When it came to nosing around and disappearing into the woodwork, Deke’s cool, flat style couldn’t be beat.  
    His shortcomings, as Walt always pointed out, were another matter. He was also a liability, what with his wild side always percolating underneath. Judging from what just happened with the nerdy bookkeeper, that was a topic Deke would have to sidestep. And the thing with his back was only a glitch: what came of hurrying, Walt bugging him and loose terrain high up on the rimrock. Since Deke had no use for fathers in the first place, he’d just shake it off at the noon meeting. Like he’d always shook Walt off as far back as the time Walt was running security for his old man at the sugar plant down in the Glades. And as he’d shook Walt off for the past fifteen years in Vegas. And as he’d keep shaking him off till Deke came up with his own sweet plan.
    In the meantime, he let the lean woman jabber away. He nodded, rested his palm firmly on the attaché case by his side, and tried to ease the tension in his lower back by breathing through it. Like on the TV exercise show he’d seen in a motel room the other night.  
    But the breathing didn’t do diddly. Truth to tell, something was still eating at him. The way things were going, after laying fallow the past month, he had lost a step or two and would have to watch himself.
    Mulling things over, he recalled that the Outfit out of Chicago had its finger in casinos and anything you could name in Vegas. Loose ends were Walt’s lookout and Deke was on standby if something got out of hand in Vegas. So why had the Outfit dispatched Walt to Portland? That and the run-in with the little guy and the funny way Walt was talking meant Deke really had been out of touch. Meant he was going to have to keep a sharp eye and have something up his sleeve just in case.  
    Which was why, first chance he got, he examined the contents of the attaché case real close. He first made double sure he had the key item: the purple memory stick shaped like a thick piece of chewing gum with the word Sony on it and XC 2TB. He’d heard Walt mention about a file transfer which meant the thing was some kind of memory card. A record that proved some phony company was cooking the books, under investigation by the Feds like the little guy said. Then there was the little guy’s tri-fold wallet and his smartphone. At the time Deke wasn’t sure why he swiped them but now it was starting to hit him. The plastic window showed his name was Elton Frick. The driver’s license, CPA and other plastic cards showed he had a lot of connections, and so did the numbers on his speed-dial. In some way, possession of this stuff gave Deke an edge. A bargaining chip, maybe. Especially if Frick survived and was found crawling around miles-long 500-foot-deep Lake McDonald and didn’t fall in. Or