Later, after showering on the team bus on the way back to the hotel, I reflected that though Steve had lost the yellow jersey that day, he’d conquered something perhaps more important, something heretofore missing from his career. His victorious image, something à la Cristiano Ronaldo, was frequently confused for arrogance; his impressive physique and elegant style on the bike, that perfect round pedaling, and Fonar’s overwhelming superiority contributed to the idea that there was nothing epic or heroic in his achievements. The jet-set celebrities that surrounded him didn’t help either. All that made both the media and the public apt to ignore the discipline and effort behind his victories. Today, limp and haggard, he’d shown the world what he was made of and the world had liked what it had seen.
But my heart sank at the sight of Steve’s empty seat on the bus. He’d been taken to the hospital for an examination. It was still not clear if he could continue.
Once we got to the hotel, I locked myself in Axel’s room for an hour and a half to get my requisite massage. This time he kept quiet. I would have liked to apologize for being so brusque earlier that day, but I had no energy to talk. Given everything that had happened, this morning seemed like a distant memory. I needed to eat something and, if possible, to visit with Steve at the hospital.
When I left the soigneur’s room, I found a police officer at the door. Even stranger, he followed me down the hall until I got to the room that had been assigned to me. “I’ll be outside all night. Commissioner Favre’s orders,” he said in response to my arched brow. I wanted to protest, but my desire to throw myself in bed was much greater. My eyes closed immediately.
I don’t know how much time passed before I was awakened by an urgent knocking. It was, of course, the commissioner. Something must have been really wrong in my head because I actually felt pleased that this time he would find the room in order: I still hadn’t opened a single suitcase the assistants had brought up hours earlier.
“Steve is better,” said Favre as a greeting and maybe also as a way of waking me up. “He’s beaten up, but there are no fractures and no internal injuries. Your team says he’ll be at the starting line tomorrow, although they would prefer he sleep at the hospital tonight.”
“Good, very good,” I said, grateful; so long as Steve could race, the Tour wasn’t lost. The commissioner had finally brought some good news.
I continued standing, my hand on the door, hoping to signal that the visit was over. I vaguely remembered I had to ask him a question, but before I could figure it out, Favre squashed his good news.
“Your bicycle was sabotaged,” he said abruptly, like somebody who could no longer keep a secret.
“What? How?” I said. Naps don’t make me what could be called brilliant.
“They did something to the tube so it would come off the wheel. We’ll know more tomorrow.”
I recalled the broken wheel at the foot of a tree, the spokes bent like a plate of calamari. Steve’s good fortune had allowed him to walk away from an accident that, as his dented helmet evidenced, could have been deadly. But the commissioner saw it differently.
“You were very lucky, sergeant. That hit was destined for you. You’ve managed to survive twice. I’ve put an officer outside because I don’t want there to be a third time.”
“It’s impossible to know when a tube will come loose from the wheel. Today’s temperatures were excessive,” I insisted, but not too vehemently.
“At the very least, this crosses your DS off the list of suspects,” Favre said, ignoring me. “Giraud would have been the least interested in provoking an incident to kick Panata out of the race.” After a pause, he added thoughtfully: “Although, if the assault was conceived to hit you, he’d have no way of knowing Steve would end up on that bike.”
“Hitting me at this stage of the Tour is the same as hitting Steve; I’m his primary domestique. He needs me. Giraud would have never tried anything like that,” I responded as if making sure he understood two and two equaled four.
“Did he instruct you to give your bike to your teammate or was that of your own initiative? Did he say anything over the earphones when he realized Panata had a puncture?”
So that’s what Favre had really come for: to make sure he could cross Giraud off the list. And what exactly was he asking when he inquired if it had been my idea to give Steve my bike? Was he contemplating the possibility I might have known the tire was tricked up? And even worse, that I had given it to Steve with the intention of having him have an accident?
“Let’s see, commissioner,” I said, going on with my own two plus two, “do you know who would go up to the podium if the race ended today? Maybe we should go back to your own thesis: Who benefits from these sinister acts?”
“Sinister! Very well, sergeant, now you’re talking just like one of us,” he said. If I’d had a razor then, I would have shaved off his goddamn mustache right there.
“Let me rest, all right?” I said, sick of him, sick of myself, sick of the Tour. He seemed to realize I could barely stand up, because he finally turned to leave.
“Very well,” he said, trying to sound conciliatory. “Tomorrow I’ll know the results of the tests on the wheel. I’ll gladly let you know if we find anything…”
“Conclusive,” I said, finishing the phrase for him.
“Just like one of us!” he repeated, although this time he didn’t sound sarcastic at all. He half turned and made a gesture with the index finger of his right hand, as if he were lifting the brim of a hat.
I threw myself down face-first on the bed again, but now I couldn’t get to sleep; I needed to eat, I needed very much to eat. With all the drama of the past few hours, I’d forgotten the cyclist’s main obligation on finishing a stage: to replace calories. If I hurried, I’d still be able to meet up with the team in the dining room. The day’s incidents had disrupted our routines; that was the only thing that explained why no assistant had come to get me. Giraud was probably at the hospital with Steve. I’d have dinner and then ask to be taken to see him.
But, once more, a knock on the door ruined my intentions. Fiona whirled into the room like a hurricane. She hugged me and gave me a long kiss. She hadn’t been able to come earlier because one of her duties was to coordinate the technical team that evaluated the state of the bikes at the end of each stage.
“Why is there a cop at the door, Mojito? What, are they pissed because it wasn’t you who got banged up on the bike?”
“Favre thinks someone sabotaged my Pinarello,” I began but stopped. I realized I had never talked to her about the Frenchman. “He’s a police commissioner who…”
“I know all about Favre,” she said, putting a finger over my mouth. “And he’s right. I just came from checking the tire myself. Someone used the wrong glue on the tube. Do you remember Beloki?” The image of Lance Armstrong came to mind, descending a hill while zigzagging around Beloki, who had fallen because of an imperfection in his wheel. It was later discovered one of the mechanics had mistakenly used a glue from when we still used aluminum wheels. The old adhesives look the same as today’s, but they have no effect on carbon. It almost cost Beloki his life. In the end, it cost him his career. He had won second and third place on earlier Tours, but that fall caused femur, elbow, and wrist fractures. He was never able to distinguish himself as a cyclist again.
“If the wheel had come loose on one of the two descents, I wouldn’t be here to talk about it,” I said, remembering speeding down the second climb at more than 70 kilometers per hour.
“Honestly, I don’t understand how the tube lasted as long as it did,” she said, and I felt her shudder. She hugged me again, and in that moment I believed that, in spite of everything, she’d go on loving me even if I never made it up to the podium.
“The question is: Who did it?” I said, playing up my role of detective. Of course, she was the chief mechanic.
&nb
sp; “It’s very hard to imagine they could have done it without the complicity of a Fonar mechanic. Someone on the outside could have changed the jar of glue, but they wouldn’t have had control of the bike once sabotaged. If they wanted to hit you, they needed to manipulate one of your tires. And only somebody on the inside can do that.”
“How often do you use glue on the tubes?”
“It depends on how much wear there is per stage. It’s not daily, maybe every two or three days. More frequently if it’s hot or if you’re racing on cobblestones.”
“So it would have had to have been done today, right? Otherwise I suppose I would have fallen yesterday.”
“Yes, it must have been today. On a stage like this, the bikes need to be lubricated and ready to go at ten in the morning before any of the cyclists do their stretches. That means the mechanics would have been working since seven o’clock at the very least. But it’s really hard for me to believe this could be the work of a Fonar mechanic. They’ve been with the team for years. I know them all so well,” said Fiona, shaking her head in distress.
I’d reviewed each of the five assistants in charge of getting the bikes ready, and like her, could find no reasons to doubt them. And yet, the facts didn’t seem to allow any other possibility. It was hard to believe a colleague would have been willing to kill me, and even harder for Fiona to swallow that a mechanic would betray their trade like that. The devotion they have toward the machines they work on is practically religious. Now it was me who comforted her with a hug.
A call from Steve interrupted our embrace. In less than half an hour, my need to sleep, to eat, and whatever it was Fiona and I were about to do had been interrupted. We’re talking three basic needs for any human, goddamnit. Hearing Steve’s tinny voice, she untangled herself from my arms, and left before I could stop her.
I chatted with Steve, who was still at the hospital, as I walked to the dining room and served myself some fish, rice, and a thick chocolate shake. Neither of us brought up the statements Lombard had made to the press. We talked like two schoolboys making ambitious and improbable plans for the next summer. We promised we would physically recover in the five days we had before we got to the Alps and that, once on the high mountains, we’d make those three assholes pay. We didn’t say a thing about the killer and his obvious goal of keeping us from arriving safe and sound in Paris.
I finished the call and devoured what was on my plate, fulfilling at least one of my three physiological needs. An hour later, I surrendered to the second, in spite of the fact that the mantra that night was not at all calming.
GENERAL CLASSIFICATION: STAGE 12
RANK
RIDER
TIME
NOTES
1
ALESSIO MATOSAS (ITALY/LAVEZZA)
46:50:32
The tire accident helped him. Coincidence?
2
MILENKO PANIUK (CZECH/RABONET)
0:22
How complicit is he with Matosas?
3
PABLO MEDEL (SPAIN/BALEARES)
0:26
I can’t believe the Spaniard is a killer but…
4 STEVE PANATA (USA/FONAR) +4:49 Will my bro be able to continue the Tour?
5 MARC MOREAU (FRANCE/FONAR) +8:26 This is the end of Fiona’s and Lombard’s hopes.
6
ÓSCAR CUADRADO (COLOMBIA/MOVISTAR)
8:42
Gotta give him props. I don’t know how he can go on without a team.
7
LUIS DURÁN (SPAIN/IMAGINE)
9:25
Has no chance but now he’ll try for my fifth slot.
8
SERGEI TALANCÓN (ROMANIA/ROCCA)
11:03
He needs a good domestique to be a threat.
9
ANSELMO CONTI (ITALY/LAVEZZA)
13:21
And now it turns out the boy psychopath is in the top ten.
10
ROL CHARPENELLE (FRANCE/TOURGAZ)
13:27
You’re too far down, Rol.
Stage 13
Muret—Rodez, 198.5 km.
Today was supposed to be easy, one of the so-called transitional stages, but it was anything but. Especially off the road. If yesterday’s headlines rattled my world, today’s rattled the rest of the universe, at least the cycling universe. “A Killer in the Tourmalet” read The Daily Sun’s sensational front page. The story quoted the police speculating about the sabotage of my bike. Another three or four papers also wrote about the theory. There was no question one of Favre’s colleagues had talked too much.
The representatives from the cycling union released a statement demanding “a thorough investigation” and considered the possibility of ceasing all activities if they judged that the integrity of the racers was at risk. The cyclists were the least interested in suspending the competition—except for those who were so tired they were at the point of throwing in the towel anyway.
“How’s my Forrest Gump?” said Steve as he entered the hotel dining room where the rest of the team was finishing breakfast. When he talked, he twisted his mouth slightly, as if he’d just come from the dentist. He kept a folded arm close to his chest, which only looks natural on Napoleon.
“Forrest Gump?” I answered, happy to see him standing there. I would have hugged him if it hadn’t seemed so ridiculous in a dining room full of cyclists—there were two other teams staying at that hotel—and, anyway, I wasn’t sure if it was possible to hug Steve without hurting him.
“Three days ago no one could stop talking about the gas-tank explosion that almost killed you; yesterday you were France’s salvation; and today you’re the preferred victim of the Tourmalet killer. In other words, you’re the center of everything on the Tour. The Forrest Gump of cycling!” said Steve.
“The hospital did not cure you of assholery,” I said, moving my chair so he could pass.
“Asshole, me? It was you who gave me the tricked-up bike,” he complained, laughing and pointing at me as he addressed the entire dining room. “Don’t ever accept a bike from Marc Moreau unless you want to spend the night in the hospital: He sells the tires and exchanges them for secondhand ones.”
The general laughter helped ease some of the tension, but I was not in the least bit amused. The pained face Steve made when he sat down belied the effort he was making to hide his injuries. Sometimes, self-denial is the only way you can complete the Tour.
For Favre, Steve’s accident was a turning point. The commissioner finally had a list of probable suspects with which to work. He and his men had submitted the Fonar mechanics to severe interrogation all night long. He believed one of them had sabotaged my bike; sooner or later he’d confess and that would lead to the arrest of his accomplices. At this point, the police assumed the incidents couldn’t be the work of just one person. At least that’s what Favre told me as I boarded the bus taking us to the starting line in Muret, in the vicinity of Toulouse.
“We’ve decided to pause the interrogation for a few hours while the race is running; that will help the mechanics think.” The truth was the commissioner had set them free against his will: Fonar had pressured the authorities to let the mechanics do their work, threatening to pull the entire
team from competition. Favre’s bosses agreed because they didn’t want a scandal, but only on the condition that, as soon as the race was over, the suspects would be once more at the disposition of the police. “In the meantime, it would be very helpful if you could remember anything in particular about any of them. An embarrassing past, a deeply guarded secret. Those are the fissures that allow us to break a criminal during an interrogation.”
“If it was a secret, I wouldn’t know it, would I?” I said defensively. Favre was probably just doing his job, although I thought there were more subtle ways of asking me to be a snitch. What happens on a team stays with the team. Of course I knew things about a couple of the guys but I had no intention of making innocent people suffer.
“These are not your friends, sergeant. One of them tried to kill you.” You had to give it to Favre: His lack of subtlety could certainly put things in perspective. I remembered my bike against that tree, the wheel still spinning ominously.
“Are you sure that tire was sabotaged? You told me yesterday you didn’t have conclusive evidence.” My question was genuine, but I couldn’t help but exaggerate that last word. He looked at me like he wasn’t sure if I was making fun of him or not.
“We know for a fact”—and now he pushed his jaw out defiantly, probably proud of being able to use that phrase—“that the adhesive used did not come from the jars Fonar had on its shelves. So it was no innocent mistake.”
I knew that already, thanks to Fiona. But I got a strange pleasure from perplexing the meticulous commissioner. Right now, the rash of unshaven stubble intruding upon the sharp line of his mustache gave me tremendous satisfaction. Like the mechanics, Favre must not have slept the night before.
I told him I would let him know if I remembered anything in particular, and I rid myself of the cop as quickly as I could—it had started to become a habit. Like every other time, I was left feeling a little guilty: After all, this was not a joking matter; Favre was trying to arrest someone who had already caused tremendous damage.
The Black Jersey Page 13