“Don’t call Favre. Not yet,” said Ray. “I’ve stayed in the Blue Galleon three or four times in my thirty years covering the Tour. I like it for the same reason the murderer probably chose it. It’s quiet and out of the way. The owner is a cagey, grouchy old man whom I’ve grown fond of. I can get more information out of him than any cop.” He checked his watch. “Give me until ten A.M. before letting your friend the commissioner know.”
My friend? I thought. I would have liked to tell him that Favre had been as friendly as a blister on my ass throughout the Tour, but I didn’t want to keep Ray any longer. I needed to talk to Fiona. I wanted to let her know about my final decision in private. She wasn’t going to like it.
When we were alone, I explained Steve’s plan to create a team with Snatch, his proposal to make me leader in all races other than the Tour, my chance to finally stop being a domestique and take advantage of the potential she saw in me. I spoke while leaning back against the headboard, between the pillows, and she listened in silence, sitting on the edge of the bed. At one point, she stood up, turned off the room lights, and lay down beside me.
I talked for a long time, unhurriedly, with more confidence and conviction now that we were in the dark. Finally, I told her that tomorrow, I’d protect Steve against whatever came at him, and I would make sure he got his fifth yellow jersey. Without intending to, I said the last few phrases as if they were a challenge.
My words floated in the silence of the room until they took on a physical, ominous weight. Fiona’s head was barely brushing against the left side of my chest, but all my senses were piling up in the patch of skin touched by the threads of her hair, awaiting a response as if the rest of my life depended on it.
After a few long moments, Fiona spoke.
“I don’t have many memories of my mother, except that she used to read me stories at night. She went to the hospital when I was four and never came back. My favorite story was about Saint George, who saves the princess from the dragon, but I felt sorry for the poor animal. The scene on the cover was terrifying; it showed the fierce face of Saint George as he thrust his lance into the dragon’s belly and it writhed in pain. My father was named George too; I guess you didn’t know that, because everyone on the Tour called him Koky. He was a hard man and I thought the face he made when he got angry was the same as Saint George’s.”
I listened to her without moving.
“You probably don’t remember, but one day in your first year as a professional you visited the bus my dad used as a workshop when he decided to go freelance. He thought that because of his prestige, cyclists and other mechanics would flock to him as if he were some kind of oracle. The experiment was a failure, but on that day, you came to ask a question. You explained you had gone through all sorts of seats but none of them quite worked, and at the end of a ride you felt torn up. Then you saw me and suddenly blushed when you realized you were talking about the state of your ass in front of a twenty-year-old girl. You lowered your head, and I could see the little dragon on your neck, just at your hairline.”
I made an encouraging sound, although I didn’t have the slightest idea of what she was getting at.
“My dad suggested it wasn’t a matter of seats but rather the padding of your shorts and that you’d have to find a pair that fit you better. I’d been taking courses on sports anatomy and physiotherapy, and I suggested that one of your legs might be slightly longer than the other. My father insulted me in an ugly, terrible way, angry that I’d presumed to disagree with him, especially in front of you. You blushed again, but agreed that might also be it. Two weeks later you came back with the results of an anatomical exam that said your left leg was five millimeters shorter than your right. You said so right in front of my father, with an innocent smile. I felt that, finally, the dragon had reversed the roles and put the terrible Saint George in his place, saving the princess.”
“So that’s why you call me Dragon sometimes,” I said finally, vaguely remembering the scene she described. “I didn’t know; I thought it was just because of the tattoo. Why are you telling me this now?”
“I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about us for a few days; I miss that dragon.”
“If you’re saying so because of Steve and the jersey—” I began, but she put a finger on my lips. After a moment she started to run her hand up and down my chest.
We made love for a long time. Fiona guided me from frenzies to intense pauses in which she held my face and examined it attentively, as if seeing it for the first time, or as if she never wanted to forget it. A couple of times I felt her tears on my neck.
Somewhere in my head, an alarm went off: It was madness to make love on the eve of the mother of all stages, the ascent of the terrible Alpe d’Huez. It broke every single professional rule by which and for which I lived. I understood something important was happening, without quite knowing what.
When we finished, Fiona once again fell silent. She seemed to still be awake, but I preferred not to interrupt whatever she was thinking. After a while, I tried to get to sleep with a review of the rankings, but on that occasion, and for the first time in many years, I thought it didn’t make sense.
GENERAL CLASSIFICATION: STAGE 19
RANK
RIDER
TIME
NOTES
1 STEVE PANATA (USA/FONAR) 78:37:34 The yellow jersey is his.
2 MARC MOREAU (FRANCE/FONAR) +1:33 Second place! Why am I not celebrating?
3
MILENKO PANIUK (CZECH/RABONET)
1:40
I can’t let him get away tomorrow.
4
ALESSIO MATOSAS (ITALY/LAVEZZA)
5:42
In the end, I feel kind of sorry for him.
5
PABLO MEDEL (SPAIN/BALEARES)
14:26
6
ÓSCAR CUADRADO (COLOMBIA/MOVISTAR)
17:59
7
LUIS DURÁN (SPAIN/IMAGINE)
20:31
8
SERGEI TALANCÓN (ROMANIA/ROCCA)
21:12
9
ROL CHARPENELLE (FRANCE/TOURGAZ)
27:59
10
RICHARD MUELLER (GERMANY/THIELEMANN)
32:43
Stage 20
Modane Valfréjus—Alpe d´Huez, 110.5 km.
When I woke up, Fiona wasn’t there, which wasn’t unusual. But even in my sleepy state, I could feel this absence was different: The thick silence that had followed our revelations, the way she’d clung to my body, the absence of a kiss on my shoulder before going out the door. A note on the keyboard and some paragraphs on the screen of my laptop confirmed just how different. I started with the handwritten note.
My beloved Dragon,
This afternoon while you climb the Alpe, I’ll be flying to Dublin. I already spoke with the organization and I told Ray everything I know. I have matters to deal with there and many things to think about. I simply couldn’t bear to see you come behind Steve again of your own volition; it breaks my heart to imagine the scene in Paris, with you raising his arm on the podium; the Dragon I treasured all these years would shatter. I thought I could live with this but I can’t. I need to be alone.
Lombard is ill, he doesn’t have long to live. Don’t be too hard on him. We
were going to tell you after the Tour—we didn’t want to distract you—but the end may come sooner than anticipated. I’ve already said goodbye; that’s what he wanted, to say goodbye to me while he’s still standing.
I’m sure you’ve never seen the emails Steve sent me back when he wanted to rip me out of your arms at any cost. And if you have, then you’re not the man I thought I was in love with. I never showed them to you, because I didn’t want to make you suffer. It doesn’t make sense anymore to hide them from you.
I love you, Fiona
The world darkened, and something in my belly struggled to make its way to my throat. The room began to revolve around the small table. Lombard at death’s door, Fiona saying goodbye to me—was it over? Steve stuck in some unforgivable infamy, at least in the eyes of my girlfriend. The first two were devastating: Losing my old mentor and Fiona condemned me to orphanhood again, to loneliness. Like so many other times, Steve’s friendship would be the only thing I had to hold on to.
I considered the possibility of erasing what Fiona had left on the screen without reading it. Steve wasn’t perfect, but who was? He’d been a brother in good and bad times.
I was terrified to find something irreversible, something that could make me lose him too. What would I have left? But, slowly, as if I were in a horror movie, my eyes ignored my will and shifted to the screen. I started reading.
December 3, 2012
Marc, I’ve been to the hospital many times in these months. A few weeks ago the doctors told me I’m full of cancer and there is nothing to be done. As a nurse, I know what awaits me. The family I thought I had left me lying on a bed, abandoned. I know I deserve it because I was a bad mother. I can never forgive myself for what I did to you. And I don’t expect you to forgive me either, but I thought I should tell you your mother is dying. I wanted to tell you a long time ago, but I was ashamed after ignoring you for so long. I’m sending this to Steve’s email, which is the only one I have.
Beatriz Restrepo
December 9, 2012
Marc, dear son. The pains are terrible, they don’t want to give me morphine but my friends sometimes get me something. I want to die but I can’t do it without first talking to you, without you forgiving me. All these days I’ve spent torturing myself with the memory of the many times I left you crying, of the caresses I never gave you. I hated your father because he ruined my youth and I took my revenge on you. I don’t ask you to understand me, only that you consider you are flesh of my flesh and let me go in peace.
Beatriz Restrepo
December 13, 2012
I haven’t slept for two nights and I think the end is near. It’ll be a relief to leave but, without your forgiveness, I feel dirty. Steve says he’s passed on my messages to you and you don’t want to talk to me. Don’t forgive me then, but just say something to me. Don’t let me go like this, I beg you.
Your mother
December 14, 2012
Marc, my child, please.
Underneath the series of emails, there was a note in a different typeface. My heart sank even lower upon reading it.
Fiona—I later learned Mrs. Beatriz died the night of December 14, shortly after sending this last email. Marc never wanted to answer. When I told him about his mother’s death, he shrugged. I’m asking you: Do you still prefer that man, now that you truly know him? Or this one, who adores you?
Steve
When I finished I was drenched in tears. I cried for Beatriz, agonizing and tormented in her bed, for Steve and his inconceivable double betrayal, for Fiona and the loyalty that made her able to hide this from me. And I cried for myself and the impossibility of running to a hospital in Medellín to hug my mom and tell her I’d never stopped loving her.
I thought of Lombard. I’d been denied a chance to say goodbye to my mother, but I had the opportunity now, in his time of need, to be with the man who had been like a father to me.
But I couldn’t move. I felt drained, paralyzed by these revelations. I wanted to find Fiona and tell her nothing in my life was more important than her, and if I had to win the yellow jersey to convince her of that, no human power would stop me. I wanted to beat Steve to a pulp, right there in the dining room, and shout out the list of his sins for everyone to hear. If he could do that to his brother, what would keep him from killing, running over, or poisoning others in order to enter the list of cycling immortals? I wanted to talk to the commissioner. I’d suddenly realized it was not Giraud but Steve who had been behind the attacks the whole time. He was the one who had sent Schrader to watch over me, who had intimidated Lombard so he wouldn’t come near me, and who had the phones tapped. Protex worked for Steve, not for Giraud.
I didn’t do any of that, though. When I calmed down, I realized the only possible answer was to snatch the yellow jersey. It would be the best and most terrible revenge. And if I wanted to beat Steve I couldn’t say anything to anyone. The police had been infiltrated by Protex; all my communications were surely under surveillance. If Steve found out about my decision, he’d probably have a contingency plan to neutralize or liquidate me. He’d only kept me around because he needed me on the mountain and because he took my subordination for granted, especially after offering me Snatch. As Fiona had once told me, he was buying my submission.
On the bike, I’m all about the game plan, a chess player who anticipates his rivals’ movements before they even conceive of them, an artist who can detect the precise moment to feint an attack, or give a final thrust. But off the road, I let life happen to me, without strategy, calculation, or design, simply adjusting to whatever comes along. From now on, it’d have to be different.
I lingered in my room before going down for breakfast. I wanted to spend as little time as possible with Steve for fear of revealing the demons churning in my stomach. I could barely eat in the state I was in anyway, even though today, more than any other day of my life as a cyclist, I’d need all the energy possible for the sacrilege I was about to commit.
I went down to the dining room flanked by my two companions. Lombard’s orders had them shadowing me every second I spent off the road. Their boss, Bimeo, had even arranged for a couple more motorcyclists to ride around the peloton; their real purpose was to protect me and, once on the summit, to open the way for me. The most vulnerable moments during a race are usually the last kilometers on a hill, when the crowd overflows onto the road to encourage and touch the cyclists, but ends up engulfing them like a boa constrictor.
Like many successful people, Steve is perfectly capable of floating above everything that doesn’t concern him, but when his interests are involved, he has the critical eye of a fashion designer. It was enough for him to see me to realize something was up. He greeted me solicitously, brushed the crumbs from my place at the table, and patted my back, asking how I was doing. I could tell it wasn’t a rhetorical question. He wanted to know my mood and, above all, to determine if I was still willing to take him to the finish line.
“It’s Lombard, he’s dying, I just found out,” I muttered, my head down. I wasn’t lying, although a part of me regretted using the painful news to rid myself of Steve’s suspicions.
“How? Where is he? What’s wrong with him?” he asked, seeming genuinely surprised and alarmed. Although he had no love for the colonel, he knew how much Lombard meant to me. For a moment, his gesture of solidarity moved me, and I began to ease the resentment I’d built up in the past hour. Then I remembered how Steve had mourned after we learned of my mother’s death and my anger returned. At the moment my “bro” was crying, that selfish bastard knew he had made the last days of Beatriz Restrepo’s life a living hell in a half-assed attempt to steal my girlfriend.
But, locked in my grief over Lombard, I didn’t have to say much more, especially since the call to the starting line was early that day.
Once back in my room, I got dressed, then
sent Lombard a message urging him to see me, and he replied that he would look for me at the signature ceremony at Modane. Then I tried to call Fiona. I couldn’t get through, but I did receive a text from Ray that left me cold: “I spoke with the folks at the Blue Galleon, the Madelaine, and with the woman who requested the hotel change for the organization, and I think I know who’s behind this. If something comes to pass, open the envelope I sent to Dublin. Don’t talk to Favre for any reason. I repeat, don’t talk to Favre for any reason.” The journalist’s message left me with more questions than answers. In fact, no answers at all. Had he confirmed a Tour official was working for Protex? Would they make an attempt on Ray’s life? Had they intercepted this message? Could Fiona be in danger now that an envelope with the answers was on its way to Dublin?
Before I could throw more questions up in the air, another text from the journalist flashed on my screen: “Win this damn Tour, Moreau. That’s the only thing that will reveal the guilty parties.”
I didn’t know what to make of that either. Beating Steve was, until a few days ago, the most terrible thing I could think of doing; today, it was the way to keep Fiona’s love, a patriotic act for the glory of France, and, according to the journalist, a way to solve the case of the Tourmalet killer.
I looked at my lacerated and scraped-up legs, my tired thighs, my face etched with worry, and I wondered if I was ready to live up to all those responsibilities. I also had the demons of resentment working against me, consuming me, and clouding my ability to come up with a strategy. I feared the internalized reflexes of the domestique and, at the same time, the way the well-oiled Fonar machine could neutralize any challenge on my part.
The Black Jersey Page 28
