Free Full Measure: A Novel by T. Jefferson Parker Page A

published online. Patrick looked at the pictures of the bearded, turbaned, smiling men who published the magazine and they looked pretty much like the skinnies he’d spent thirteen months in Sangin trying to kill.
    “You missed a couple,” said Ted.
    *   *   *
    It was a relief to get away from all of them, to walk into the Domino’s kitchen, get his blue, black, and red work shirt on, pack the deliveries into soft-sided warmers and insulated pizza sleeves while he talked to Firooz. Firooz and his wife Simone were Iranian refugees who had come here decades ago, after the fall of the shah. He had been a veterinarian and she a schoolteacher. They were humble people, willing to be of service, and now they owned the franchise. Firooz kept touching Patrick—on the arm, the shoulder, patting his hand. He and Simone helped Patrick carry out the warmers and set them securely in the cab of his truck. Patrick attached the Domino’s sign to the roof of the polished black Ford F-150—used but low mileage, a graduation gift from his mother and father—then climbed in. He hit Mission and gunned it for Stage Coach. He’d never known, before deployment, what a pleasure it was to drive a good vehicle on wide safe streets and feel those V8 horses stretching out with no IEDs to blow him to smithereens.
    Three short hours later his work was done and Patrick sat outside in folding chairs with Firooz and Simone. The night air was damp and in the spray of the parking-lot lights Patrick could see mist and ash settling. They talked about town and business and the big election coming up and the several federal and state agents, not to mention local sheriff deputies, who had come around to talk with Firooz and his wife lately. Something about an online terrorist site they’d never heard of. Inspire.
    “We can live through these suspicions,” said Simone. “They are unfounded and ridiculous. And nothing, compared to what we have been through. This is our country.”
    Patrick counted his tips—eighteen dollars—and a few minutes later, Simone and Firooz sent him home with a large, three-item pizza.

 
    CHAPTER EIGHT
     
    Three days later, after ten hours of field labor, Patrick took the night off from delivery work. He showered and shaved and tried on clothes he’d left at home before deployment, which were too large for him after thirteen months of combat and meager rations. Zero hot meals a day. One cold shower a week. Some of his older high school clothes fit.
    He met Iris Cash at Salerno’s. The dining room and bar had few customers on this weeknight, even with several Fallbrook restaurants having recently folded. Iris took a bar stool facing Patrick across a small round table. She launched straight into the arson evidence and the reward and who would do such a thing to this peaceful little town? Then she was off on Cruzela Storm and Georgie’s brave friends and lighted crosswalks, and how she’d already gotten the school district to lock in a date for Warrior Stadium, and a pledge of deeply discounted food and drinks from Major Market; and she’d been promised page one, an above-the-fold placement for an article and pictures in The Village View next Thursday, which would trigger the North County News and the San Diego Union-Tribune and the networks to follow and kiss my exhaust! Iris wore a frayed and faded denim jacket over a lacy blouse, and jeans tucked into boots. She had a quirky smile and smelled floral. Patrick earnestly faced this blizzard of words and expressions and sensations, easily the most pleasant minutes of his life for well over a year.
    The waitress brought their drinks and Patrick told Iris about the irrigation and painting and how it took a long outdoor shower just to get the soot off him before showering inside. He tried to match her emotional energy, but since coming home, he was having trouble staying interested in himself. It was hard to stay focused on things that couldn’t kill you. Even when they