The Black Jersey

by Jorge Zepeda Patterson

  “Sons of bitches,” I heard a furious Giraud say. “And the Italians? Paniuk?” he asked. I looked ahead and saw a good part of the green team standing on their pedals and trying to gain some distance. When it comes to accidents, the unwritten rules dictate that we should ride at the same speed or even slow down as a matter of respect for our fallen brethren. But Matosas and his group had long abandoned any code of ethics.

  “They got away,” I said, disappointed.

  “I’m okay,” Steve said in my earphone. In the distance I noticed he had stood up. A few other Fonar teammates did the same; the ones who hadn’t fallen floated between my position and Steve, who seemed to be looking for something. I was afraid that, in shock, he had once more lost his sense of where he was. Later I found out he was just trying to find a Fonar bike in good enough condition to ride.

  “Go after them, Marc. Don’t let them get away, even if you have to knock them down,” ordered Giraud. “Guido, get the rest of the guys and organize support for Steve.”

  I didn’t wait a single second. I changed gears and leaped forward. Half a dozen racers—Paniuk and Radek among them—did the same. The three of us rode like madmen, taking turns leading until we saw the Italians. There were six of them, including Matosas and Conti. I was satisfied to see that two Lavezza racers whom I’d always liked weren’t among them. From what I could tell, Matosas hadn’t been able to get all his teammates on board with the dirty trick they’d just pulled.

  The peak of L’Escrinet is only eight kilometers from the base, and the slope has a discreet gradient of six percent, but I still thought I could take maximum advantage. I had no way of knocking them down, like Giraud had ordered me to do, but I could certainly catch up to them. I decided I could also pass them.

  “Will you follow me?” I asked Radek as we reached the Italians. He responded with a strange smile and then positioned himself behind me; a few others followed.

  Most of the time, when a small pack reaches another, both stabilize their speed to recover their strength. When we caught up to the runaways, I felt the cyclists behind me begin to relax. We’d reached our objective, and they were taking a necessary breather. But Radek and I toughened our cadence and, to everyone’s astonishment, kept going. We were able to put Matosas behind us a few meters, and we promptly extended that distance while his teammates organized a chase. I didn’t mind towing Radek the rest of the climb; he’d earned it. He wasn’t a bad climber, but I was stronger. For a moment, I thought maybe Fiona wasn’t so far off in her estimation of my potential. When we got to the summit we learned we were 1:12 ahead of Matosas and Paniuk. The rest was a breeze. We got to the finish line 58 seconds ahead of them. I could’ve won my third stage of the Tour, but I let the Pole go first.

  Unfortunately, Matosas had achieved his primary goal: to hurt Steve. Maybe it wasn’t that I was such a good cyclist, but rather that Matosas hadn’t made much of an effort to go after me; I wasn’t his target. That day he managed to take two minutes from my friend, and also from Medel, his ex-accomplice.

  If I thought I’d seen Giraud furious before, what was happening now was epic. Sitting on the bus on the way to the hotel, the team simply listened to the DS explode, too tired or hurt to respond. Not that he was expecting a dialogue. Giraud is the type who considers a monologue a conversation. Nonetheless, in the end, he came at me.

  “And you? Why didn’t you do something?”

  “Well, at least I kept them from winning.” I didn’t want to argue, but neither did I want to be crushed by the neighborhood bully.

  “Don’t be a fool! The idea was for you to slow them down, not make them go faster.”

  “You’re the fool, Giraud,” muttered Steve in a low, angry voice, although Giraud and a couple of racers heard him. Giraud went speechless, and maybe breathless, because he began to turn blue. Then he half turned and sat down. Our DS could be explosive but he was no fool. One word from Steve to the team owners and Giraud would be unemployed.

  That night, Axel’s hands ended up soothing my muscles and my ego. Although they were painful, his massages always put me in a better mood. When I got up after those sessions, the world always seemed a better place than the one I’d left ninety minutes before. To be fair, ninety minutes earlier I’d just gotten off a bus full of exhausted cyclists dealing with a furious and dissatisfied DS.

  During the session with Axel, I tried to steer the topic toward the interrogation. Perhaps he had found out something useful that I could take to the meeting that night with Fiona and Ray, my new fellow detectives. But, though the soigneur’s hands had not lost their magic, his gift of gab had been left behind at the local police station. The poor man was devastated, and all that tension and fatigue had not done much for the scarce beauty of his features. I decided to respect his silence. I didn’t even know if he knew about my efforts to get him released, but that didn’t seem very important.

  I went to dinner a little before the scheduled time with the hope of finishing before Giraud showed up. I didn’t want another harangue from our terrible manager. Apparently, a few others thought the same thing because most of the team members, including Steve, were already serving themselves from the buffet the chef had set up for Fonar.

  “Don’t be a fool, Guido, and serve yourself some salad,” said Steve, in an exaggerated tone. Everyone laughed and that made me feel better. His sense of humor didn’t take European sensibilities into account, and he didn’t always understand what was funny to us. But this time he’d hit the target. Making fun of Giraud’s insult robbed it of its sting.

  We spent half the meal deploying the line whenever we asked for salt or Nutella, stopping only when Giraud showed up.

  Luckily, that night we were sharing the dining room with the Dutch team, which imposed limits on what our DS could and would say. From what we could tell, it would have been stinging; he was furiously swallowing enormous bits of barely chewed food.

  Fiona, Ray, and I agreed to meet after dinner in the room Fiona had taken that night in our hotel, a privilege afforded to only the highest level of UCI officials. I would have liked to spend a few moments alone with her, but we decided Ray should arrive first so the bodyguards Steve had put on me wouldn’t see him. I had once again suggested that Lombard join us, but judging by the old man’s absence, I’d been overruled.

  As soon as I sat down, Ray began. “Given what happened today, it looks more and more like it’s Matosas and his crew,” he said. “He must be feeling desperate, to start playing gladiator in the middle of the race like that. I just got back from the hospital where the Beast and Alonzo are being treated. They’d put them in adjoining beds. Thank God, a nurse spotted the Beast dragging himself on the floor, trying to get to Alonzo. They changed their rooms before he could beat him to a pulp.”

  “Too bad that nurse showed up,” I said. “Did the judges see what happened on the video?” I looked to Fiona when I said that; her UCI clearance kept her in the know. “Have they reviewed it yet?”

  “I just got out of the meeting. They asked me to attend so I could explain what happens to a bike when the spokes are destroyed.”

  “And what did they decide?” Ray asked.

  “Nothing. Alonzo chose the perfect moment. The helicopter that films them had just gone ahead, and all the video we have is from the motorcycles. The attack was in the very middle of the peloton. No matter how many witnesses say it was an act of aggression, there’s no way to prove it, much less any reason to sanction Alonzo.”

  “Well, then, we’re fucked,” I said in frustration.

  “Not entirely. At least you took that stage from them,” said Ray, appreciatively.

  My heart glowed. If only the journalist could be my DS.

  “But there was something else of interest,” said Fiona. “In the last of the footage from the helicopter, you can see the Italian team moving up front, because they know what’s goi
ng to happen, but not Medel’s or Paniuk’s teams. Matosas screwed them over too.”

  “That makes sense; both of them are very close to the Italian in the rankings. I imagine they created the alliance to neutralize Steve with the idea that they would figure out the yellow jersey later, but Matosas got ahead of them,” said Ray.

  “Maybe that feud will take over, and they won’t continue to join forces against us.”

  “That’s what I think,” said Fiona. “Which means the Alps are a golden opportunity for you. Those three are no competition for you there.”

  “Seven minutes behind and a killer on the loose,” I said to Fiona. “That’s a dangerous combination.”

  Ray watched us, amused. He could probably tell this was an old argument.

  “Could be less than seven minutes.” Fiona smiled. “I have good news for you. After the meeting, the members of the appellate commission stayed behind. They’re trying to find a way to give you back the two minutes you were penalized for using Radek’s bike.”

  “Why would they do that?” asked Ray, surprised.

  “This is off the record, okay?” said Fiona.

  “Yes, of course,” he said after a painful pause. To ask that of a journalist is like asking a politician to pay his own expenses.

  “Lombard has been hammering one of the Tour’s administrators, complaining that you can’t be punished, because your bike was sabotaged. Saying you can’t apply a conventional penalty to an extraordinary case. They began to get worried when the colonel insinuated he could go to the press with his complaint, so they all turned to Jitrik. Now it seems he’s pressuring the judges to come up with an elegant out.”

  “The rule doesn’t allow for exceptions,” said Ray skeptically.

  “That doesn’t matter to Jitrik. It seems they’re considering saying they can’t penalize Marc because he gave up his bike in a noble act of sportsmanship. But what’s most interesting to me in all this is the lengths the Tour’s leadership is going to in order to keep people from knowing there’s a criminal taking out racers.”

  The old reporter shook his head in silence. He deplored that the judges would violate a rule, even if it was for a good reason. I certainly wouldn’t put up an objection. I had already done the calculations. If they took away the penalty, I’d be five minutes behind the leader and in third place, ahead of Steve.

  Fiona saw my expression and knew exactly what I was thinking. We couldn’t avoid tiny smiles, and my hip imperceptibly moved a centimeter closer to hers. Suddenly, we had one reporter too many in the room. Then I remembered I had to leave first, so I could take the bodyguards with me and Ray could discreetly make his exit. But being in the same hotel meant nothing could keep me from coming back to her room later that night. I looked over at Fiona and it was clear she’d read my mind again, because she gave me one of those Don’t even think about it looks. She was probably right, because if we made any missteps, those five minutes could become fifty.

  I went back to my room and checked out the official Tour website. They still hadn’t taken back the two-minute penalty, but I adjusted the positions in my head and I loved what I saw. I was ahead of Steve by a little more than a minute, something that hadn’t happened since…ever.

  GENERAL CLASSIFICATION: STAGE 15

  RANK

  RIDER

  TIME

  NOTES

  1

  ALESSIO MATOSAS (ITALY/LAVEZZA)

  59:58:54

  At least he’s shown his true face. A killer. Everyone’s enemy.

  2

  MILENKO PANIUK (CZECH/RABONET)

  0:22

  Apparently, he was never a part of the criminal conspiracy.

  3 MARC MOREAU (FRANCE/FONAR) +5:12 It’s not official yet but…Steve’s behind me.

  4 STEVE PANATA (USA/FONAR) +6:30 How will my bro deal with this? Will he still be my bro?

  5

  PABLO MEDEL (SPAIN/BALEARES)

  7:05

  You couldn’t get to the podium even using dirty tricks, buddy.

  6

  ÓSCAR CUADRADO (COLOMBIA/MOVISTAR)

  11:55

  7

  LUIS DURÁN (SPAIN/IMAGINE)

  12:24

  8

  SERGEI TALANCÓN (ROMANIA/ROCCA)

  13:48

  9

  ANSELMO CONTI (ITALY/LAVEZZA)

  16:37

  What’s this guy doing in the top ten?

  10

  ROL CHARPENELLE (FRANCE/TOURGAZ)

  16:57

  Stage 16

  Bourg-de-Péage—Gap, 201 km.

  I woke up indecisive, which is a very unpleasant way to start the day. I tossed and turned in bed, uncertain whether to surrender to the exquisite feeling of knowing I was ahead of Steve in the Tour de France—the Tour de France!—or concern myself with the terrible consequences that could bring. I was in third place, and better yet, I knew I could beat the two ahead of me on the mountain. I thought about the yellow jersey, and my heart responded with trumpet calls and palpitations.

  A text from Steve cut short the festivities: “I have to see you before you talk to Giraud.” I assumed my friend wanted to prep me for bad news. I imagined the worst: a warning of a positive report from the anti-doping agency, or Fonar’s decision to cut me from the team because of my insubordination. After a moment, I rejected both possibilities. Fiona would have heard before my DS if there’d been any kind of anti-doping disqualification, and Giraud knew Steve had no chance of diminishing Matosas’s lead on the mountain without my help.

  Up until this point, I’d been attacked in order to harm my partner. Now that I could be crowned in Paris, there were double the reasons to eliminate me. Anything the DS was plotting against me seemed silly in the face of being killed. Armed with this precarious comfort, I knocked on Steve’s door.

  “He wants to teach you a lesson,” he informed me as he let me in, “but it’ll be symbolic, don’t worry. Something that lets him show you he’s still the boss, but harmless.”

  “And what’s the lesson?” I asked, distrustful.

  “To hand out supplies during today’s stage,” he said, lowering his eyes.

  I can’t say it took me by surprise. It was a humiliating task for a world-class domestique, forcing a chef to wash the restaurant’s dishes.

  Giraud must have been truly offended because, in strategic terms, he was playing with fire. Today’s course wasn’t transitional: Although we wouldn’t be hitting any important summits, it was a journey of 201 kilometers, of which only 30 would be downhill. The rest would be a very long ramp—not too much of an incline but always uphill. Five hours of pure wear and tear that would leave us crying out for the next day’s break. Going up and down the peloton’s route would be an enormous additional strain if I wanted to finish at the same time as the leaders. It would be like running a marathon with metal weights on my ankles.

  “Bastard.”

  “Don’t worry, I convinced him to spread the task out among several people. Hopefully, he’ll just ask you a couple of times. I told him I needed you fresh from Wednesday on so you were ready to help me whip Matosas.” He said this in a conspiratorial tone, but in the end, his eyes fixed on mine expectantly.

  In other circumstances, this would have been unneces
sary to state; my role was taken for granted. But now Steve was looking at me as if his life depended on it. Suddenly the reason for his apprehension became clear to me. He knew the two-minute penalty was to be lifted and I’d start the stage officially ahead of him. He wanted to confirm my willingness to sacrifice myself for him. He wanted to make sure my third place in the standings hadn’t changed the agreement between us: to make him champion.

  “Thanks,” I said, expressionless. I knew I would probably end up doing what all domestiques do, but for the moment I had that wonderful drug—power—flowing through my veins. I felt for my partner, but it was nice having things reversed for once in our lives. “Well, let’s go get breakfast.” I turned my back and left the room, leaving him to deal with his dilemma.

  Not even Giraud’s orders two hours later diminished my spirits. I nodded when he told me my task for the day, as if he’d asked me not to forget to adjust my helmet, refusing to give it importance. I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me enraged or humiliated.

  When the riders grouped together to wait for the signal to leave Bourg-de-Péage, my bike was to Matosas’s side. I took the position unconsciously, so used to seeing myself next to the yellow jersey. The leader ignored my presence.

  I wondered if Lavezza would try something as outrageous as yesterday. They’d sacrificed one of their best domestiques in exchange for our leader, but Steve was still riding. On balance, they’d suffered the greater loss. And to top things off, their standing with the union couldn’t be worse, even if they would never be officially sanctioned.

  Once again, Radek spoke for our collective indignation. While Matosas avoided my gaze, checking his calf as if he’d found an inexplicably resilient hair after waxing, the Pole stuck his bicycle between us.

  “If you do anything like yesterday,” he told the Lavezza leader, “I’ll kill you.” Matosas shook his head and gave him a wry smile, as if he considered this just one more of Radek’s amusing eccentricities. Then he turned around and murmured something to one of his teammates.