Spokes (21 page)

At the top of Gold Hill lay a microscopic town, a last remnant of the gold rush that had populated this entire region. Christopher pedaled in, looking for
the only gold he'd strike around here, which was some sports drink at the tiny mercantile. He chugged the cold liquid, feeling the chill coursing
down behind his breastbone, and everything was pretty all right with the world.

Until he looked at his phone. **Little crash on training ride. Bruises but ok**

Luca's definition of "not okay" required body parts strewn over the landscape. **Prove it**

He got a picture back about fifteen minutes later, long after the drink was history and the old guy ambled in for his own cool beverage. Clearly the
picture had been taken by someone else, because both of Luca's forearms took up the screen, obscuring his chest, and his face had been cut off at
the top. A few wet curls straggled across his collarbone. Some bruising, some scrapes, but no casts, stitches, or splints.

**Ok, I believe you now** His disbelief had gotten an answer.

That once.

***

The display in the caller ID window startled Christopher almost as badly as if Luca was calling. He'd never seen the number, but "
CycloWorld
" was clear enough. Had he done something wrong? Violated a copyright or stepped on an established reporter's toes? He
managed to answer while heading to the stock room.

"Christopher Nye, hello." He tried to project confidence, but his knees wobbled him onto a pallet of cycling shoes.

"Hey, Christopher, it's Ron Kittel from
CycloWorld
. How are you doing?" Ron always emailed: Christopher had never
heard his editor's voice, and didn't know how to assess the combination of strain and good-will in his words.

"Fine. What's up?" If it was bad, Christopher needed to know,
now.
Did they not want any more of his articles and were
cutting off the funds he needed to get to Europe? At the rate he was going, he'd make the Vuelta in the fall, or the Tour de France in June if
getting back didn't matter.

"A little bad news, a little good news. Maybe. That part depends."

"Depends on what?" Get. To. The. Point.

"On whether you have a passport. Do you?" Was that hope? Fear? Both?

"Sure do." Would he end up in Australia with it? "Am I going somewhere?"

"Possibly. Can you shake loose and be in Italy for the Giro?"

"Maybe: the Giro starts next week." YESYESYESYESYES!!! All practical matters receded to nothingness. Forget rent, forget his job,
forget everything else, just give him that plane ticket! "Why so sudden?"

Ron sighed deeply. "That's the bad news. Dave Pauwels was checking out part of the race route ahead of time, and he crashed. Crazy
Italian driver knocked him right down an embankment."

Just like Stu...
Christopher's blood ran cold. "Is he--"

"He broke his pelvis and a couple of other bones. He's already out of surgery, and he should be okay, but he's not going to
be covering the Giro or anything else for a while."

"That's good." Christopher warmed slightly, enough to realize how that sounded. "I lost a friend in a similar
accident recently. I'm glad Dave will be okay."

"Sorry about your friend. You're out in Boulder, so... Was that Stuart Fallon?"

How did he know? "Yes, that was Stu. Uh--"

"Amy has a desk full of clippings and police reports. She's doing a story on car/bike accidents. She said there was another cyclist
involved in that one."

"That was me."

"If you want to talk to her about it, she'd like the input." Damn, how could Ron just flip from casual sympathy to
"ooh, data, shiny" without thinking of the real cost?

"Stu was my best friend. I'd--have to think about it." He'd think so long the magazine that story
published in would have its covers ripped off, but he wouldn't say no outright without a plane ticket in hand. "It's still
pretty fresh."

"Hmm, there is that. How badly were you hurt?"

"I landed upside down in a barbwire fence and needed seventy-two stitches, but it's just scars now." Bright red scars on his
soul, paler scars on his skin.

"Are you riding again? It's essential to covering the Giro. Where you can't go on a train with your bike, you need to go on
your bike. Driving over there is hell, parking is worse in race towns, and we can't afford a rental car anyway."

Even if he wasn't riding, with opportunity getting dumped in his lap, he'd be riding. "Not a problem. I just did thirty miles
on a mountain route this morning." All the way to Ward, too, if not as fast as Luca and the team.

"Good. So, can you do it?"

Could he do it? Could he get past everything: the lack of preparation, his total ignorance of Italian, his dependence on other racing coverage? Could he do
it well enough that anyone at the magazine would still talk to him after Dave was back on his feet?

Could he walk through fire and escape from straightjackets underwater if it meant being close enough to talk to Luca?

Hell, yes. But could he find a hotel room?

"What about travel arrangements? Everything's booked up by now, isn't it?" If he were stopped by stupid practical
matters--!

"We'll FedEx you all of Dave's reservations and tickets, and you'll have a
CycloWorld
credit card for your
food per diem. Pick up your press packet at the journo booth. It will be in Dave's name but we'll notify them to give it to you. You
have a good-quality camera, right?"

Under a heavy layer of dust, yeah. "I do."

That heaving sigh had to be relief for the budget. "Your plane ticket will show up in your email, so just print it out. Did I miss
anything?"

The language implant, the universal translator, a native guide.... "What you're paying."

"Think you can live with--" Ron named a number high enough to make Christopher happy to be sitting. It wasn't
"get rich" money, but it was "survive while looking for another job after the Giro" money, since he
didn't have any illusions about his boss holding his position, nor about keeping this one once Dave could move again. "We'll
need tweets during the stage for the web site, written stage by stage accounts, and local color pieces and rider profiles if you can wangle
interviews."

Christopher'd get interviews all right. Luca would talk to him if it was official, even if he cut and ran after every personal message.
Wouldn't he? "I can do that."

Ron barked a short laugh. "I'm sure you can. By the way, there are more teams in this race than Antano-Clark. Spread the love,
okay?"

Not hardly, but Christopher could spread the publicity. "I'll keep it balanced."

"Good. Dave said he thought you could."

That brought Christopher up short. "He did?"

"Yeah. I was going to hire a freelancer on the ground in Italy, but Dave said you loved the sport and would do a good job. Prove him right,
okay?"

Not exactly the sport, or not entirely.
Almost too stunned to reply, he nodded, only finding words when he realized Ron couldn't hear his head rattling. "I will. Thank you.
Thank Dave."

Christopher emerged from the stock room to search for his manager, making three complete circuits around the store and into the back rooms. Italy! On
CycloWorld
'
s
business! Where Luca would be!

"Looking for something?" startled Christopher into noticing Brendan was standing at the register. How many times had he walked right
by?

"Uh, yeah." Christopher reached past the blue and white tops and the black ones with sky blue rectangles to grab a turquoise promo
jersey off the rack, and made a quick dash for the helmet rack, where he found a white Vuelta Asturias. "Ring these up for me, okay?"

"Why?" Brendan laughed. "Are you going to play dress-up while you're watching the Giro?" He tapped the
keys and rang in Christopher's discount. "Or fantasize taking your rightful place on Team Antano-Clark?"

"Actually--" No better time to drop his bombshell. Christopher signed the credit card slip and handed back the pen and paper.
"I'm covering the Giro for
CycloWorld
. I leave next week."

"You?
CycloWorld
?" Brendan dropped the pen, letting it clatter at his feet. "When are you coming back? Are you coming
back?"

Christopher shrugged. "Don't know. And don't know."
Only if neither
CycloWorld
nor Luca will keep me.

***

The next several days were a whirl of planning, biting nails, and packing. Christopher shoved two sets of Allen wrenches between the foam sheets protecting
his disassembled bike and no electrical converters. The huge chunk of blue sidewalk chalk was the fourth item into his bag, but he didn't
remember he'd need to plug his laptop and phone into round-pronged outlets until he'd gotten off the bus at the Denver airport.

A chance passage by a kiosk alerted him to his error. While he was shelling out twice the retail value for the converter, his phone summoned him.

**On bus to Napoli**

Luca could either sweat out Christopher's meaning or text back for clarification, and at this point Christopher didn't care which: he
had to navigate the international gates.

**See you there**

Chapter 20

Okay, this wasn't as bad as he feared: Christopher was able to get from the airport to his
pensione
without any mishap. While his
cardboard bicycle box had survived the attentions of baggage handlers in two nations, it almost didn't fit into the taxi. The bike rode in the
back seat of the tiny cab, and he sat next to the driver. They had a pleasant, handwavy conversation, and Christopher was able to work one of his few words
of non-bedroom Italian into the conversation.
Ciao
covered a lot of ground.

Once he'd reassembled his transportation, Christopher shoved a notebook, pen, every map he owned and a few he'd acquired at the airport
into his jersey pockets. He'd check out the race route.

Dodging murderous traffic mostly by hiding in the peloton of local riders on their way to work or school or wherever, Christopher managed to get around the
first circuit of the route without incident.

What a mess of surfaces! So far, he'd enjoyed the asphalt, cringed on cobbles, and wondered at the huge basalt slabs that made up the coastal
road. A storm grate came within an inch, okay, here it was 2.54 centimeters, of putting him on the ground, and manholes provided unexpected deep drops. The
unleashed, territorial dog quotient was a lot higher than he was used to. Whatever the word for "dog" was in Italian, it was probably
the same as "pain in the ass" or "hazard." They'd better be tied up come race day.

The racers would ride the lightly hilly first circuit four times, but Christopher did one loop and turned his attention to the second loop. If the roads
were blocked off for his recon ride, he'd feel a lot safer, but they swarmed with Fiats and Opels, all of them honking madly. Maybe the horn was
mounted on a pedal next to, and mistaken for, the brake.

He found the finish line, which looked like the rest of the commercial streets here, but would be packed with screaming fans in two days' time.
Where could he watch the race?

Wherever it was, he wanted to be here, in the last kilometer of the race, and he'd need to be here early. Crack of dawn early. But okay.

Pedaling back to his
pensione
, he passed a charcoal and burgundy striped Golf with a roof rack and an open trunk. A forty-ish man unloaded
groceries. Christopher nearly went by before opportunity slapped him to a stop. "Hey, Kastibank! Need some help?" Please let the man
speak some English.

"I trust you why?" His arms were full and his face suspicious.

"Because you have the key to my bike." Christopher wound his cable lock through the Golf's door handle and his bike frame,
and stuck the key between the man's fingers. "I'm just a rookie journalist and I'm trying to get to know people. I
write for
CycloWorld
, I'm brand new, and I need all the help I can get." He dug another couple of bags out of the
car's open trunk and shut it. "Where are we taking this?"

"Upstairs."

Christopher followed the Kastibank soigneur--he had to be a soigneur--to a postage stamp of a bedroom. The toaster oven and mini-fridge
didn't look like they were part of the normal furnishings, the way they stuck out into the very narrow passage between the wall and the bed.
"What are you making?"

"My riders like
apfelkuchen
in their musettes," the man told him, and warmed rapidly under Christopher's interest.
"I make fresh every night and wrap in foil for them." A cut cake graced the top of the toaster oven. "Here, taste. My test
cake."

Nibbling at first and then taking a big bite, Christopher's universally translated
Mmmm
broke down the rest of the barriers, and he had
lots of notes and pictures before his new buddy Markus unlocked his bike from the car. "You talk to Sylvain with Lampre, okay? Twenty years in
cycling and no journo ever talked with him."

With his pal to make a phone call, Christopher rode three streets over to speak to Sylvain, who had stories, banana bread for his riders' feed
bags, and an introduction to Karl with Duclos-Wurth. Karl made muffins with raisins for his riders, and had a smile for his former domestique who was now a
star. Karl sent him to Arnaud, who fed him rice cakes made with apricot jam.

Arnaud sent him to Paolo. "He makes his rice cakes with strawberry jam."

Paolo met Christopher on the street and wouldn't bring the conversation into the small hotel. "You haven't made Luca
miserable enough? You have to chase him to the place he should triumph?"

"Hello to you too, Paolo. I'm here because I'm covering the race for
CycloWorld
, and I'm doing an article on
the tastiest carbs in the feed zone. Arnaud from Mondiale sent me to you, but if your rice cakes are like your attitude...." Kicking
himself for his big mouth on the inside and refusing to back down on the outside, Christopher stared Paolo into submission. "Luca knows where I am and if he
wants to talk to me, he'd say so. I showed up to talk to you, but if you don't want to be quoted, okay. I just hope you're
not giving him sawdust held together with chain grease."