Spokes (22 page)

Paolo swelled all the way to Christopher's chin and stuck his jaw out. "I am
not
giving him sawdust." Grabbing
Christopher's arm and towing him up two flights of stairs, Paolo dragged him past all the narrow doors leading into bedrooms. Some of the doors
were open, and the sound of men's voices carried. Did Luca lounge in one of those rooms, playing cards or backgammon with his teammates, or did
he stand in an ancient cast iron tub shaving his legs for the race? Was he out giving interviews to more established journalists, or donating pre-race
blood samples to the FIC officials? Did Christopher dare yell and find out?

No. Wrong approach. Paolo led him to a cramped bedroom all but impassible for the kitchen equipment he'd shoehorned into it. A microwave perched
atop a mini-fridge, with a rice cooker for the third layer. The hotel was so old Paolo probably blew a dozen fuses per batch.

Paolo thrust a red and white square at Christopher. "See! Not sawdust."

Well, well. Insulting them until they apologize really does work.
Christopher chewed thoughtfully, delaying the moment when he'd have to swallow and let the reasonably tasty morsel join too many companions
already jostling in his stomach. White rice and jam was carb city, just what a cyclist with fifty kilometers yet to go needed. A journalist three blocks
from his own hotel wouldn't need dinner tonight.

"No, it isn't. It's pretty good." Let Paolo wonder if Arnaud's were better. "Do you use this
recipe because a particular rider likes it, or because the team nutritionist advised it?" Just because riders at the pro level needed close to
five thousand calories per race day didn't mean all calories were equal to their needs.

"I change recipes, keep them from getting bored with same thing in a long race. Luca likes rice cakes better, Rolf likes brownies, they both like
spice cake." Paolo made a good argument that he took the best care of his two charges, with much handwaving and samples. Christopher took notes.
"So, you want some more of my sawdust?"

The chocolate brownies were pretty good. Christopher took another square. Had he ridden far enough to earn the calorie deficit required for this? One big
loop around Naples wasn't the 130 km the teams would do. "It's pretty good sawdust."

Paolo grinned at him, like the village idiot had just succeeded in counting to three. Christopher decided to risk counting to four. "Any advice
on a good place to watch the race?" He'd asked the other soigneurs the same, receiving four different answers, and only two he
was confident in being able to find.

"Best place for you--" Paolo led him out of the room and didn't leave his side until they'd reached the
sidewalk. "--on a television in Colorado."

***

Luca's single text later that day didn't refer to Christopher's presence. Did Paolo's protectiveness extend to not
even mentioning his visit? Did Luca think Christopher had been joking about getting to Naples? Or would that look too much like a conversation?

**Stuck in hotel room, can't go anywhere.**

Poor guy. Luca would hate being trapped indoors, especially on such a beautiful day. Even with the traffic. He was probably using his limited floor space
to do his pretzel exercises, and worsening his teammates' stir craziness. Maybe he and Rolf were discussing tactics--how the lead-out
would go, and could they use another team's tempo setter to do the hard work of breaking the air.

Christopher would give him something to think about besides how being sequestered before the race reduced the possibility of being slipped a banned
substance.

**Check with Paolo. He has some really good brownies.**

Would he check? Would he ask his soigneur why Christopher knew this, or would Paolo deny having treats ready? Had Luca and his pals already finished off
the pan? Christopher didn't expect to find out--that would require a second text, which had only happened the once since their big
blow-up.

All the same, it was kind of nice to imagine Luca struggling with the need to find out.

Would Paolo deny that Christopher had been in their hotel at all? Somehow Christopher didn't think Paolo's protectiveness would extend
to outright lies, at least not to Luca. What he'd say to Christopher, though-- Except why lie when he had no trouble at all being blunt?

Opening the Internet window on his smart phone let Christopher bring up coverage of another race that had ended earlier in the day. Good thing he could get
the streaming video on his phone, because finding an unsecured router for his laptop was an iffy proposition. He'd want "as it
happened" coverage from up and down the course, since he'd only be able to see a short section directly. Thank goodness for the cell
phone and Internet coverage in a cosmopolitan city. Some of the other stages would be a lot harder to track.

His questions weren't really answered when his phone chimed again. Christopher shrank the window and grew the text.

**How do you know?**

Two could play at this game, and time for him to score one. Luca could go ask Paolo and find out more than could fit into a text. Christopher put his phone
in his pocket.

Chapter 21

The race wouldn't start until 11:00, but taking Arnaud's suggestion of watching the first three loops on the lower route from the steps
of the cathedral and then scurrying up to the press area at the finish meant getting there not long after sunrise.

No sense in crowding the riders before the race, Arnaud had advised. "The cyclists will mostly snap at you before the start of this first stage.
By Tuesday they settle and will talk to stranger."

Christopher had plenty of being snapped at already just picking up his press pass. If he was going to do this, he'd need a thicker hide, but
he'd rather start with friendlier people. The soigneurs wouldn't have their names in print for a week or three, though he'd
already emailed the "treats in the musette bag" article. He'd refrained from ranking their cooking, since their spirit of
competition might not remain friendly if someone was
rouge lanterne
, the tail end of the treat list.

Shivering slightly, because the cathedral's shadow extended over the steps, Christopher wished for a T-shirt under his turquoise jersey.
He'd arrived before the crews putting up barricades to block off the streets. Traffic would be diverted around the race course, but for as short
a time as possible. A busy city couldn't stay blocked all day. He bided his time, waiting for the crew.

Once the cops wielding whistles and light batons shooed the last of the traffic off the street, Christopher dashed out to the roadway. Other fans would be
adding their favorites' names just as soon as it was safe, but he wanted a big chunk of pavement. Scrawling "Biondi" across
the center lanes wasn't as good as a hug and a kiss for moral support, but Luca might see it and be encouraged, and heh, the others might see it
and waver. There'd be plenty of "Wiggins," "Spartacus," and "Nibali" on the pavement
up and down the course. Christopher took another lane to add "Go" in blue chalk.

The advertising caravan came along a half an hour ahead of the riders. Crazily bedecked vehicles sported inflatable cartoon figures or giant packages of
snack foods. A triple-life-size inflatable cyclist rode atop a tiny car, chasing a motorized mineral water bottle. Busy staring at the horses-and-jockeys
float advertising a racetrack, Christopher forgot to be wary of the swag being thrown to the crowds. A shower of chocolates bounced off his head and chest,
and the spectators around him were faster than he to catch the small cans of Red Bull and T-shirts emblazoned with Fiats. He ate one of the candy missiles
he'd captured and shared the other two with the small boy and his father who'd taken up spots on the cathedral steps.

The child plucked at Christopher's turquoise jersey. "
Ale
, Biondi!" he piped, his mouth smeared with the
chocolate. "Go Biondi!" The father echoed the child perched on his shoulders.

"
Ale
, Biondi," Christopher agreed with Luca's smallest fan. Was Biondi still going? The earbud feeding him
news through the streaming service stopped his heart.

"Seven cyclists down, looks like a manhole cover caught--was it a Cannondale or a Lampre rider? The two went down at the same time and
fouled the rest. The peloton has split; half the riders are trapped behind the crash. The fallen are sorting themselves out. Dinesen of Kastibank has his
front wheel off. He's at the side of the road, waiting for the team car to come along with a replacement...."

Oh shit, not even one full lap on the first circuit and riders were hitting the dirt. Christopher strained to hear names, but Biondi wasn't in
that list. And oh, there he was in brilliant turquoise, flying past the spectators who screamed his name and crowded the roadway against the barricade of
Army men in blue and green T-shirts. Not pushing on this first lap, and he'd gained two minutes on half the peloton already.

Oh fuck, this race was made of crashes: thirty men went down when an over-exuberant white mop-dog bounced into the roadway. Once again the needed beating
for the owner failed to materialize: if Christopher were dictator, or at least an FIC official, there'd be a ten second bonus for every rider who
landed a blow. What was so hard about leashing animals? Every stage race featured at least one loose beast and sometimes enormous bloodshed in its wake.

Luca's lead on the group had grown to two and a half minutes, and he'd taken four of his domestiques with him. They kept him sheltered
from the wind and from the crowds that pushed into the street to touch and offer benediction to their idols. "Biondi!" they screamed,
and Christopher screamed himself to hoarseness with them. The Olympian at Luca's side got screams too, for his riding and his reputation, but
fewer--he wasn't one of their own.

"
Ale
, Biondi!" Christopher high-fived the child and his Papa, and shot off through the crowd. The news
that joined him while he pedaled wasn't good. Five riders had fallen here, another fifteen had gone down there. The announcers blamed everything
from uneven roads to the riders having been kept indoors too long, but what mattered most to Christopher was not hearing Luca's name.

Racking his bike and running to the press area with his pass in hand let him make it to the stands before the leaders finished their fourth loop and began
the eight smaller circuits that would end the race. A jumbo screen showed the peloton, strung out like peacock beads with a five minute gap from front to
back.

"Two minutes behind the leaders," someone commented in English.

"Go, Biondi!" wasn't journalistic impartiality, but then, neither was his jersey. Keeping the cheering inside his own head
might just pop his eardrums.

The leaders whipped under the arch for the first of eight passes. Rolf and another Antano-Clark climber contested the hill with the other specialists in
the breakaway group. Christopher counted fourteen: huh, there'd be a King of the Mountain point left over for someone two and a half minutes
back.

Luca's head was down though his legs pumped smoothly. He looked--tired. No, he couldn't be, even after a brief 9% grade. Not
so soon, not when another sixty kilometers separated him from victory. The Olympian on the Sky team sniffed sideways at him.
Don
'
t be so contemptuous, buddy, Luca wiped up the road with you in three big races last month.

Done with the climb, the group shuffled around. A Garmin rider led tempo, matched with an Antano-Clark rider who hadn't fought for King of the
Mountain. The breakaway disappeared around the bend, motos and team cars swarming after them.

In the third short lap the finish stretch became the feed zone. The relatively straight section following the climb was safe enough to risk handing out
musettes. Soigneurs in team colors dotted the side of the road, long-handled bags in their outstretched hands.

Antano-Clark, the black and blue clump of Team Sky, and the blue/white/black of Garmin-Sharp and a smattering of other colors moved briskly, though not to
extend their lead while the riders chewed their soigneurs' offerings and recovered enough for the next forty kilometers.

The promotional chocolate was a misty memory; Christopher dug an energy bar out of his jersey pocket. Every one of those musettes had energy bars as well
as the team treats, but maximal nutrition shoved into one's mouth didn't always feed the soul. Christopher's soul and belly
both growled when Markus filled the screen, handing over a feed bag to the first of his Kastibank riders to crest the hill.

"Whoa, but that
apfelkuchen
was good," he muttered.

"There's
apfelkuchen?
" Another journo turned to him, hunger in his eyes. "Where?"

"In the Kastibank musettes." The tip of Christopher's tongue reached out to remember the chunk of fruit that had clung to his
lip. "The soigneur gave me a taste yesterday."

"Did he?" The other journo went speculative. "Hmm, they'll be crazy busy until the next rest
day...."

Horse-trading time. Was this how the riders did it? With a little false promise here and there, and some real help, often followed by a real drubbing?
"His name is Markus, and you might want to wait until before the Tour, because my article's already on line and will hit print next
week. Give the readers time to forget." Christopher grinned lopsidedly and offered a hand. "Christopher Nye from
CycloWorld
."

"Bob Rasmussen from
Gear Up
. Good thought." They chatted a bit, each with an eye on the big screen. "They're
running a special ferry out to Ischia tomorrow--use the gate marked with pink banners."

Had he just picked up a real tip or some misdirection? "Thanks. Hate to miss a time trial." Hate to miss Luca kicking ass, eighteen
teams at a time.

"Pedal, pedal, pedal, pedal. Nothing exciting except the clock." His companion yawned. "Not like a mountain stage."

How'd he get to write for
a magazine with eight times
CycloWorld
'
s
subscribers without
understanding time trials? "Depends on how you look at it."