The Spy on the Tennessee Walker Read Online Free

“You are good for everything, Jeremiah,” I said. “And if you do not put your mind and heart and body to recovery, then I will never give you a moment’s peace. I will come back to your bedside with Mother and Father. Then I will bring your sweetheart. And then,” I said, warming to my campaign, “I will bring Cannonball, and when he sees you in this reduced state, he will not know the brave master he once had.”
    Jeremiah blinked and raised himself up on one elbow. “My dog? You will not bring my dog here!”
    â€œI will,” I said, “because it is cruel for him to think you are never coming home. So, I say, if you have surrendered to these…these…inconsequential Yankees, then Cannonball should see you in your hour of despair, and…failure!” I got to my feet. “Shall I go fetch them all now? Mother, Father, Elizabeth, and Cannonball, to see how the mightyhave fallen?”
    Jeremiah collapsed back onto the bed and began to laugh. “You are the worst nurse a man must endure. Where is the comfort? Where is the sympathy? Where is the gentle hand upon my brow?”
    I scowled at him. And then I melted, as I always did. No matter what, Jeremiah makes me laugh. “All right, sirrah. I will not threaten you with Mother, Father, and the…spectacularly admirable Miss Elizabeth Townsend.”
    Jeremiah caught my hand. “But you will threaten me with my own dog?”
    â€œOh, yes, I most certainly will.”
    Jeremiah grinned at me. “You have bullied and badgered me into feeling better, Vic. You are a trickster and a witch, but you are the best medicine possible.”
    And so I sat down again, and we began to make a plan for Jeremiah’s recovery.
    Just a few months later, I found myself in the Armory Hospital in Washington, and Walter and I began our friendship. “We have a brother-and-sister bond,” Walter said. “We made journeys to care for our brothers, and in so doing, we made a bond that could not be broken.” I had always considered a promise like that to be sheer hyperbole, but when it mattered, Walter proved me wrong.

CHAPTER 5 CHAPTER 5
    MAGGIE MAGGIE
    OAKLAND
    The great chef Michael Fiori swept into the kitchen and did all the showboat work for the paella. He did kiss his sous chef in gratitude for all the menial chopping I had done, changed Pandora from the Billie Holiday station to the CeeLo Green Fuck You station, and proceeded to report on how brilliantly he had outwitted some poor government tax lawyer in locking up even richer benefits for his philanthropically minded, but still a little greedy, client.
    â€œOkay,” I said. “You’ve now used the word ‘brilliant’ to refer to your IRS-evading machinations not once, not twice, but three times. Does that mean this was brilliance of a whole new world order?”
    â€œIt does,” beamed Michael, “and cut me some slack, cara. How often do the good guys win?”
    â€œWell, my love, when you are running the gunboats, it appears the good guys always win.”
    â€œAin’t it the truth?” he crowed as he dumped fresh clams onto the saffron-infused rice. “Call those boys to dinner, Maggie. It’s time for them to see their dad be brilliant in the kitchen, and those clams are opening in front of our very eyes.”
    â€œHey, what about honor and glory to the lowly chopper and dicer?” I asked, heading for the stairs.
    â€œYou get to sup with the chef. That should be plenty of reward for any kitchen help.”
    I stuck my head back in the kitchen. “You, Michael Fiori, are insufferable.”
    â€œYou’re right. And that’s why you find me so irresistible.”
    In the dining room, Josh was at his most tragic, removing the extra place he’d set for Lexie. “She can’t come,” he said. “Her stupid parents are taking her to some dumb dinner in Berkeley.” He sighed