The Black Jersey

by Jorge Zepeda Patterson

  I got to the finish line exactly 4:58 ahead of Matosas and 2 minutes behind Steve. My friend was now the Tour’s leader. Giraud had managed to meet his Friday goal on Wednesday.

  Steve waited for me at the finish line, ignoring the inspectors who are required to immediately administer a urine test to the winner at each stage.

  “It’s bigger than me, Marc,” he whispered in my ear as he gave me a hug. “I couldn’t hold back. Those miserable assholes don’t deserve it.”

  I deserved it, you imbecile, not them; that was our agreement, I wanted to say to him, but, like always, I didn’t think of it until he’d gone on his way to the inspection pavilion.

  I tried to ride my bike over to our team bus, but a mob of journalists blocked me. Everyone wanted an explanation of what had happened. I searched for an escort among the Fonar assistants, but the only one I saw was Axel, who looked at me helplessly. I responded with monosyllables to the questions machine-gunning at me left and right. Even the Protex bodyguards seemed more interested in my answers than in getting me out of this jam. Lombard finally came to the rescue with two Bimeo guards. Flashing their official badges, they surrounded me, and helped me make it to the bus.

  I was just about to step inside when I realized the reporters had suddenly abandoned me. I looked around and understood why: At the foot of the Lavezza bus, Carlo Benett, the Italians’ DS, was hugging Matosas, who was sobbing and heaving on his shoulder. Even the journalists pulled back and respected the moment. When he realized the press was watching them, Benett urged his racer into the bus.

  The scene lasted only an instant but affected me greatly. Matosas was even more of a veteran than me, a leader on his team, and a cyclist who had gone through everything on the circuit. Seeing him cry like that was heartbreaking. Maybe he’d just been told about Conti’s death, I thought. Or maybe Steve’s slapdown on that last climb sealed the end of his career.

  I forced myself to remember that Matosas had cooked up the attack that had put the Beast in the hospital with multiple fractures. The thought did nothing to improve my mood. All I felt was more sadness on top of my profound fatigue.

  During the long ride back to the hotel in Gap, I had to put up with my team’s party spirit. Giraud was celebrating as if the Tour had already been won and we’d be entering Paris the next day. Maybe he was right: Steve was the leader again, and with Fonar’s superiority on the mountains and the collapse of the rival teams, there was no reason to think anything would change. Although less rowdy than the DS, my teammates were also having a good time. The conquest of the yellow jersey guaranteed them generous bonuses. I was the only one who wore a frozen smile. Steve didn’t come near me the rest of the day.

  “What happened, Mojito?” Fiona asked, halfway between worry and complaint, as soon as she came into the room where Axel was giving me a rigorous massage. She’d never interrupted a massage session before, but she was bewildered by what Steve had done.

  I almost told her about the tense moment Steve and I had shared over breakfast, but I didn’t want to feed her dislike for my teammate. Or maybe I just didn’t want to look like more of an idiot to her. Plus, it wasn’t something that could be discussed in front of Axel.

  “It was a slump, something like that,” I murmured, as if the pressure of the massage barely let me make a sound.

  “That can happen to anybody, any day,” she said, forgivingly. “And, let’s not forget, he also wore you out by making you lead for almost twenty kilometers.”

  “At least we recovered the ground we’d lost, and Steve is in first place again,” I said, more for Axel’s ears than Fiona’s. I trusted him completely, but I still didn’t want to put him to the test. Going against Steve was tantamount to betraying Fonar, his employer.

  “Luckily, there were no incidents on the road,” she said, watching Axel, who was visibly uncomfortable with her presence. Fiona stared, fascinated with the way his hands roamed territory she considered her own. I stretched an arm and stroked her ankle. She said goodbye after thanking Axel, although neither of us understood exactly what for.

  Back in my room, I found several messages from Favre on my cellphone. He told me Conti had survived, although he’d remain hospitalized. They expected him to recover enough to be questioned tomorrow about Ferrara and his role in sabotaging my bicycle. The commissioner hadn’t ruled out that Ferrara might have tried to eliminate his accomplices, sensing the police investigation was getting close. He asked me to let him know about any background information that could help him in his questioning.

  While I was thinking of an answer, a message from Steve came in: “Look at what’s waiting for us at the lake”—the text served as a caption to an image of a spectacular sailboat. “Tell Fiona to get her swimsuit ready,” he added in a second message. Steve must have been desperate to iron out our differences, because it was the first time he’d included Fiona in any of his plans. I held back the urge to respond. This time, I would not be so accommodating with my friend. We’d work together so that he could win his fifth Tour, but today, at least, I didn’t want him to think things were okay.

  My cell buzzed again; I had several messages from Lombard’s son, Bernard. He asked me to call him as soon as possible. I assumed he’d already analyzed today’s data and would have noticed that my revolutions per minute and the power of my pedaling were more than enough to have followed Steve during his getaway. No doubt he wanted to discuss it with me.

  Instead of responding to him, I did something impulsive, inexplicable. I sent Matosas a text: “I’m glad Conti is out of danger.” Then I turned off the phone.

  That night I went down to dinner as late as possible, in order to avoid Steve and the rest of my teammates. There were only two mechanics left at the tables, and they told me Steve had left instructions to take me to a lounge in the hotel where Giraud had arranged a small celebration in honor of the day’s triumph. I excused myself by saying I had a pulled muscle in my back and needed to rest, and returned to my room.

  Fiona, to whom I’d given my room key, and Ray were already waiting for me. The reporter had news.

  “I was talking to Havel, who published a biography of Paniuk some time ago,” he said. Johanes Havel was the Ray Lumiere of Eastern Europe, a veteran journalist for whom cycling held no secrets. “The Czech is not as innocent as he seems. It’s not clear if he’s an orphan or if he was abandoned, but he went through several orphanages between the ages of fourteen and sixteen and was in and out of juvenile detention centers for gang crimes. Cycling was how his mentors got him off the streets.”

  I considered that my own youth might not have been very different if a bicycle hadn’t crossed my path when I was thirteen. Far from being a reason to suspect him, I thought his conversion into a professional athlete was laudable, and that’s what I told the journalist.

  “There’s one piece of information that particularly caught my attention,” Ray went on. “It’s from when he did time as a minor. He and another boy blew up the gas tanks in a cafeteria owned by some guy who they were having problems with. The explosion started a fire that razed the place.”

  With a shudder, I remembered a gust of boiling air on my back and the slight smell of ashes hitting my nose.

  “But how would Paniuk have access to military-grade explosives like those used on the trailer?” I asked, trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.

  “And where would he get the accomplices for the other ten or twelve attacks? He might be a squad leader, but the guy is a loner,” added Fiona.

  “I’m only passing on the information,” said Ray, shrugging. “But Paniuk and his team are the only ones who haven’t been attacked; one of them has to be responsible.”

  “Well, what about Medel?” said Fiona.

  “Forget about Medel.” I told them what Steve had shared with me about the Spaniard’s phone calls.

  “Let’s suppose
for a moment that it’s Paniuk,” Fiona said in a schoolmaster’s tone. “That would mean his strategy has been a resounding failure. He’s in third place, one minute behind Steve Panata, with the police breathing down his neck. Right now he has a better chance of wearing orange than yellow.” I tried to remember the color of the prison uniform worn in France, but, like Fiona, I could only think of American movies.

  “Paniuk’s plan wasn’t absurd,” said Ray. “He’ll beat Matosas and Medel, who are falling apart. If the gas tank or the sabotaged bicycle had worked, Fonar would be down too”—and I’d be in a coffin, I thought.

  “And Paniuk would be the champion,” Fiona finished, although she didn’t sound entirely convinced. “Let’s eliminate the Czech for a moment and look for another possibility that might fit the facts.” Her proposition opened up the possibility of reinserting Giraud to the list of suspects, but I restrained myself.

  “Let’s suppose it was Ferrara and his accomplices from the beginning, and that when they sensed the police on their tails, they decided to get rid of Conti and Leandro. That way they eliminated two potential witnesses and freed the Italian team of suspicion,” I hypothesized.

  “That makes more sense to me than poor Paniuk,” said Fiona.

  “But we can’t rule out Giraud either,” I said, encouraged by the success of my speech. “Using the same logic, we could assume he orchestrated the initial attacks to leave Steve alone at the top. He never believed Matosas and Paniuk would be serious rivals, because he didn’t anticipate that the three teams would work as one.”

  “But how to explain the attack against you at the trailer?” asked Ray.

  “He tried to get rid of Marc because without Cuadrado or Stark in the way, Giraud knew he was the only one who could beat Steve.” Fiona spoke as if it were a revelation. “That does make sense: You’re the only one who doesn’t realize you’re ready for the yellow jersey. Giraud is more afraid of you, Mojito, than anyone.”

  “There are less bloody ways to neutralize me, don’t you think? I mean, a directeur sportif has many ways to influence and manipulate what his racers do.”

  “He tried that after the attacks on the trailer and the tire sabotage failed,” Ray said. “Remember how he made you the water boy, trying to exhaust you before you reached the mountain?”

  “The attack on the trailer came the night before the time trials, when you surprised everyone by coming in very close to Steve,” said Fiona. “I think that’s when Giraud realized you were a real threat.”

  “That would also explain why it failed: It was a hasty decision,” said Ray. “They didn’t know the gas tank was almost empty.”

  “ ‘They’?” Fiona said, almost to herself. “Who could ‘they’ be?”

  The three of us reflected in silence, trying to identify Giraud’s allies. I realized who “they” were immediately, but I hesitated to mention them aloud.

  “What’s the name of the security company that protects Steve?” asked Fiona, arriving at the same conclusion as me.

  “Protex,” I answered, resigned.

  “They seem vicious enough to do all that,” Ray said in a low voice, suddenly aware one of their thugs was out in the hallway. I tried to remember what they might have overheard the night before.

  “Could there be microphones in here?” Fiona asked in a barely audible voice. The three of us moved closer together, as if the night breeze were drawing us toward an imaginary campfire.

  “Giraud would have the motive and Protex would have the muscle. Everything to guarantee Steve’s win,” said Ray.

  “The question is whether Steve knows anything about this,” said Fiona.

  Something in the way she said it made me think she wanted an affirmative answer. It couldn’t have been much different from the pleasure I felt just a few minutes before when we all came to the conclusion Giraud was our main suspect.

  “In conclusion,” said Ray, “it’s Giraud or Ferrara.”

  “Ferrara is already being investigated by the police. Unfortunately, I don’t think Favre is considering Giraud. Since I’ve been the object of attacks, it takes suspicion off Fonar.”

  “Even worse,” said Fiona, “if Ferrara is the criminal, then you’re no longer in danger because it’s obvious that, by attacking Conti, he decided to cover his tracks and lay low. But if it’s Giraud, then you’re still in his sights, maybe more than ever, because he knows if you decide to, you can beat Steve in the Alpe d’Huez.”

  “Exactly,” said Ray. They both looked at me: him with curiosity, her with urgency. They were waiting for my response.

  “I’ll look for Favre; maybe I can get him to reconsider investigating Giraud,” I said, but I didn’t have much hope.

  “In the meantime, I don’t think it’s such a good idea to spend the night with a Protex goon at the door,” said Fiona.

  “Yeah,” I said. “That’s the same guy who stomped on Lombard’s foot. But I have no way of getting rid of him; he’s here on Steve’s orders.”

  “I’ll ask the colonel to send somebody,” she said. “At least that way there will be eyes on Protex, protection against protection.” She pulled her cell out to call Lombard. “I’ll arrange it. And I’ll stay with you tonight. It’ll be much harder for them to come up with some sort of accident if we’re together.”

  “And sleep with the window open, in case they decide to repeat the same little sleeping gas trick,” said Ray. “Good luck, Monsieur Moreau. In and out of the race.”

  Ten minutes after Ray left, there was a knock on the door. I opened it. Two guys stood there who looked like anything but bodyguards.

  “Bimeo sent us,” said one of them. “We’re going to be watching over you tonight.” He said this so tenaciously, it sounded like he was talking about climbing Mount Everest. He was tall, slender, and gawky; I decided to call him Quixote in my mind. That meant the second man would be Sancho Panza. He’d clearly never turned down a meal in his life; without the mustache, he could pass for a woman in her eighth month of pregnancy.

  “Thank you, I’m flattered,” I said, somewhat amused. In case of any kind of assault, they’d be more useful as witnesses than as defenders, and only if they happened to turn around as they ran away. They settled in the hallway in front of the hulking Protex guy, sitting on a pair of high stools probably confiscated from the small hotel bar. The Sarcophagus, as I’d dubbed him, looked at Quixote and Sancho with disdain and not a little indignation; their presence brought his occupation several levels down in terms of professionalism.

  “At the very least the rumor will spread that I’m now also protected by Bimeo,” I told Fiona when we closed the door. “Everybody’s afraid of him.”

  “Bimeo’s a bit of a bastard, although I suppose an organization as complex as the Tour needs somebody who will raise their voice and step on some toes,” she said.

  “But I’m not sure who those two out there could possibly keep in line.”

  “Bimeo recruits based on loyalty, not appearances. Protex’s gorilla is a mercenary, but those two would kill for their boss.”

  We froze on those last few words.

  “I suppose it’s an advantage that they’re on our side then, or at least on Lombard’s side. How did he and Bimeo become such good friends anyway?”

  “I think they’ve exchanged mutual favors over the years. Lombard spent more than two decades in charge of military provisions on the Alps and the Pyrenees. He knows all the local chiefs of police, and many of the politicians and the bureaucrats in the region are friends of his. Those relationships are golden when it comes to Tour logistics.”

  I thought about the old man with affection. Once more, I realized I’d been ungrateful to him in the past few days. It was thanks to Lombard that my two-minute penalty had been dropped. And now I had Quixote and Sancho outside my door protecting me from the beefy flunky who might be
working on orders from Giraud. I decided to find Lombard in the morning and offer him a kind word. That made me remember the messages his son had left me. I searched for my phone and saw there were two new texts.

  One was from Favre: “We detained Ferrara. Interrogating. I’ll keep you posted.” The commissioner’s digital conciseness was getting worse; at this rate, he’d end up writing in shorthand. But I took it as good news. If the Italian turned out to be the killer and the detective managed to get a confession, everything would be over and I could focus on the race. Although, if Ferrara wasn’t the killer, Giraud would have gained time to organize another assault against me. I decided not to think about that for the moment.

  The other message didn’t identify the sender, although I recognized the country code for Andorra, where Matosas lived: “Let’s stop this, I need to talk to you. Tomorrow night at the hotel?” The text was in Italian, and I assumed Matosas’s ego was big enough that he thought he didn’t need to sign his texts. I shared it with Fiona.

  “He must be scared if he’s using a second phone. He doesn’t identify himself because he probably thinks that would incriminate him. As if texting doesn’t already do that.”

  “It’s because they’re interrogating Ferrara. Axel did the same thing when they detained the Dandy: He wanted me to intervene for him with the commissioner.”

  “You’re probably right,” she said. “Meet him. That way we can find out what he knows.”

  “Should I say something to the commissioner?” Before she responded, I already knew it was a bad idea.

  “I think it’s better to wait and see what Matosas has to say. First, though, we have to deal with things between us,” she said, but I was no longer paying attention to her words. She’d started to undress, almost robotically, throwing her clothes over a chair without a hint of flirtation. She had a body that didn’t need to employ tools of seduction. Her broad hips, her swaying breasts, her smooth belly, and that patch of red hair would have aroused me even if the Tourmalet killer, as the press had dubbed him, burst into the room.