Wheels of Fortune

By J.T. Fisher

Professional cyclist Shamus McDonough suffers the physical agonies of a high speed crash and the emotional trauma of the death of a beloved teammate in a tragic accident at the Tour de France.

He becomes entangled in an international criminal investigation when it becomes apparent this accident may have been intentionally caused by dark figures lurking around the edges of the sport in a well organized syndicate harvesting enormous sums of money selling performance enhancing drugs to athletes.

Amid these dangerous underworld figures, lives and livelihoods of hundreds of nervous athletes hang in the balance between the risks of being caught using these drugs, and of failing to win in a business that demands success.

Shamus navigates dangerously within this netherworld as he confronts his own demons in the pursuit of setting things right, which he feels compelled to do out of loyalty and respect for his fallen colleague, and out of a profound sense of guilt that will continue to haunt him until he finds the truth.

Along the way he encounters the rollercoaster effects of an ill-fated first love, and the bliss of letting go and finding the life-partner to travel with him when he finds the path hed earlier planned no longer accommodates him.

Then there's a really cool ending.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Oct 26, 2010
• ISBN: 9781452039510

Book preview

Prologue

Between the sharp cracking sound Shamus heard and the sickening sensation of falling he felt, the realization occurred that he was going to crash, and this was precisely the wrong time and place for that. Fifty miles per hour on a bicycle was always dodgy at best, but immensely more perilous without the benefit of a front wheel. While a window of rational thought remained ever so slightly ajar, he considered his options, concluding they were limited and all poor. He could execute a forward face-plant ensuring extensive craniofacial damage and perhaps lifelong disabilities, or alternatively a heels-over-head somersault that would spread damage over an array of body parts. Shamus had seen a German rider demonstrate the high-speed face-first dismount on one occasion, and recalled how medical officials had thought the rider dead when they’d found his body slumped in the road. Shamus’ mind processed this even as he shot off the front of his malignant machine. For several moments he hovered above the blacktop until gravity took its toll and the cushion of air separating him from harm dissipated. While the opportunity remained, Shamus wisely decided to protect his head as best he could. He tilted his chin into his chest, pulled his legs up into a ball, and let fate and physics attend the rest.

The next sensation Shamus experienced was the grinding sound of his helmet being eaten away by the road. Despite that it consisted of little more than a thin plastic sheet over a press-formed Styrofoam shell, it performed admirably. Shamus knew that when this episode was done, the small portion of his cranium nestled within the featherweight Bell helmet would likely be the only portion of his body to emerge unscathed. He consoled himself with this thought, fully aware that ninety-eight percent of his body wasn’t inside that protection.

Momentum and friction combined to flip Shamus forward and, to avoid a tumbling, bone breaking, roll down the road, he shot his hands and feet outward, going spread-eagle. Aside from a helmet, second and third most helpful, but only marginally so, in protecting a rider when one dismounted mid-ride, were the leather-palmed gloves and cycling shoes they wore. Shamus hoped to offer these up to the God of road rash as a sacrifice in lieu of his skin. It was wishful thinking, he knew. The tactic succeeded for approximately a millisecond before his knees and thighs and shoulders and elbows and buttocks and countless other parts managed to rub themselves across the coarse blacktop sliding beneath him at highway driving speeds. Quickly his body became a collection of long red streaks as blood found its way to the surface in all those spots where skin had once been.

If there was salvation of any sort, it was how fast things played out. Shamus slid on his back and buttocks barely shielded over most of his body by wafer-thin and quickly evaporating polyester clothes. Drifting, Shamus was able to observe some of the melee unfolding around him. He briefly caught the image of a bicycle just managing to dodge around his head, and was thankful he hadn’t been run over. His luck didn’t hold, though, as shortly another bicycle all but bisected Shamus. On the periphery of his vision, he saw the same rider losing balance and control, fighting as his bicycle careened sharply toward the right side of the road which was bounded by an unwelcoming wall of rough granite. The rider and his bike literally exploded against it, the bike virtually disappearing into a fog of flying bits and parts as the rider bounced and spun off the wall, finally falling limply to the blacktop.

At one point during Shamus’ passage through the meat-grinder, it occurred that his own damages had been limited to extensive loss of skin. If that were the worst he came away with, he’d consider it cheap rent. Even severely abraded, one could continue to ride, albeit uncomfortably. A spare bike could be obtained from the team car, and the medics would dangle out of a car window to tape up the worst of his wounds while he enjoyed a rare chance to be towed along without being penalized for doing so. Having fallen literally at a point in the race course where all that was left was a long downhill run to the finish, if all he could do was sit on the bike, he’d survive to race again tomorrow.

Just as Shamus allowed himself this glimmer of hope, a massive force crashed into the right side of his body and he could feel ribs and other bones snapping and giving way as he lurched to a sudden stop. Whatever had gotten in his way was large and rigid, and his body had folded around it but it hadn’t moved or given at all. It felt like belly-flopping off the roof of a house onto a brick wall. Right lung punctured by rib fragments, Shamus was unable to breathe and his vision went red and then headed toward black. For reasons he didn’t understand or care to contemplate, he was aware that he smelled of dirt and road tar, and tasted of blood. He was afraid to move, fearing what he’d learn about the physical toll he’d just paid. For the moment, he remained relatively numb, benefitting from some degree of shock and not displeased about it.

His next thought was about his chances of continuing in the race. Maybe if it turned out he wasn’t in as bad of shape as he thought. Maybe if he could just get back on a bike and coast to the finish down in the valley. Then maybe the trainers could massage his muscles and the chiropractor could pop his joints, and his scrapes could be covered and maybe the x-rays would show that his bones hadn’t actually been broken. Then maybe he’d be able to sit in gingerly tomorrow. And maybe he’d be able to recover a bit more each day, and over the course of a race that lasted three weeks, maybe he could still make something worthwhile out of it. Shamus didn’t like the math at all: Too many maybes.

Adding insult to injury, he’d been enjoying a solid ride in the Tour de France. A week into it his tenth place overall standing had been a pleasant surprise to everyone, himself included. But now he’d become immobilized against what he recognized was a metal I-beam jutting from the ground and supporting a guardrail separating a two-lane mountain road from a long drop down an incredibly steep mountainside. At this point, he realized that had he not slammed into it, he would have gone over the edge and likely been far worse off. Fortunately that hadn’t occurred, but with each second that ticked by his consciousness and chances of finishing the race became more tenuous. Hopes of extricating himself and getting on with the race were dashed with the further passage of time during which he hadn’t taken a breath. He’d ordered his body to inhale, notwithstanding how much doing so would hurt, and had been more that a little disappointed when it hadn’t responded. His arms were attached and visible, and aside from scrapes and bruises, appeared functional, but nevertheless weren’t. His legs, he found, would move in small increments, but with exceptional pain, and in no way helpfully. As seconds continued to tick by, he started to genuinely worry.

Looking about for help, Shamus craned his head the small amount his neck would allow and saw bystanders who’d been watching the race now coming his way, their faces stricken with expressions of panic he hoped weren’t reflective of what they saw when they looked at him. He tried to elicit them to hurry, but could omit neither words nor air. As the strangers moved closer he thought he heard the sound of sirens. It was comforting and disconcerting at the same time. He wished it weren’t necessary. Once he got put inside the ambulance his tour would be officially and ingloriously ended. Shamus was puzzled when the first good Samaritans to reach him paused before they moved in to help, and looked past him to where the road ceased and nothing else existed for hundreds of feet downward, and then looked at each other and shook their heads in disbelief, and only then did they turn their attention back to him. By then, Shamus’ consciousness had slipped away.

Chapter 1

Cerveza para Diablo, kidded the diminutive bartender as he placed a sweating brown bottle in front of the patron who looked like quite a collection of possible things, though certainly not a devil. The patron smiled back without enthusiasm. It was a joke told once too often, and not a particularly clever one, the man mused to himself. The customer nevertheless picked up the bottle and gingerly moved its lips to his own, took a quick drink of the chocolaty beer and placed it back on the counter. His eyes were cast far away, beyond the bar and oblivious to other patrons, of which a good few were already staking claims to stools set along wooden countertops beneath the palm-frond roof that substantially comprised the simple but nevertheless popular drinking establishment. The day was hot but the sun was moving down from its perch, tiring of long hours radiating the beach to the point that neither man nor wind stirred. Finally, cool breezes began to flow off the water, and Shamus felt them now and they were welcomed. He continued to watch the distant surf as he’d done daily since his arrival. This time of year it changed little from day to day, and less from hour to hour, yet somehow there was no limit to his interest. Waves formed and rolled in an endless ballet, one that distracted from matters deep within his mind awaiting inquiry, should he summon the courage.

So they call you the Devil, said the woman claiming the stool beside him. Should I be worried? He heard the question even as his mind rode one of the liquid tubes all the way to the beach, and then wandered leisurely up the sand until finally it rejoined his corporeal self.

He says that every time, Shamus responded with little energy.

Is that your reputation then? She countered.

Only at night, and really only with children, but I don’t suppose that sounds any better.

Quite the contrary, she said, appearing completely unconcerned. There has to be a story. How does it go?

Not so well, actually, Shamus said, turning to face the inquisitive stranger. After a moment he began to explain.

In case it wasn’t obvious, Shamus started, and then dropped his chin ever so slightly downward, as if to guide her stare toward the peculiar clothing he wore, I race bicycles for a living. Sometimes things don’t go right, and you crash. When you fall, you get up again and go. That’s what they pay you for. You don’t have any idea whether you’re hurt, or how badly, until the adrenaline stops pumping. So you just ride. Maybe you figure out what caused you to go down; often you never do. You’re forever at the mercy of a blown tire, a busted chain, a pothole, or just plain bad luck. But it’s a different matter altogether when you’re flying down steep mountain roads. You’re supposed to relax; tensing-up wastes energy. But between your legs are two tires no wider than your thumb, held together by plastic tubes you can pinch between your fingers. Your nerves tingle from the buzz of the tires flying over asphalt, and your eyes water as you barrel through the air. All the while, you nervously watch the other bikes and hope nobody screws up. Last time I raced, that’s what happened, though. There was a hell of a crash and lots of guys went down. All because of one guy everybody was following and trusting to do his job. That guy was me, and I screwed up as badly as one can do it.

Shamus reached again for whatever measure of solace might be summoned from the Negra Modela he found a reasonable surrogate for his preferred Guinness, which wasn’t easily found in these latitudes. He’d inquired. The soothing effect of its sour coolness flowed down inside him, easing memories of innumerable crashes that had shredded his body and left it bleeding and oozing through the night, defiling bed linens, and making it nearly impossible to sleep for the pain that coursed through him. Its medicinal qualities fell woefully short, though, from erasing the haunting knowledge that there were far worse things than broken bones. Once in a while, the damage was so bad that healing would never come, and sleep would never be easy again, and one’s mind would be stained by it for a long time, perhaps forever.

He continued his story, "That day the stage ran across northern Spain and we were riding ninety miles over five mountain summits. At the base of the Col de Peyresourde I sensed the group was worn out, but I still felt better than the other riders looked. We had ten miles of climbing ahead, and I figured everybody would expect the climbers would attack when we got nearer to the top. So most likely everybody would ride calmly for the first few miles, and I sensed an opportunity to give it a shot. The key was to make sure my teammate Gerard knew I was about to make a move so he could follow. He was the team leader and it was my job to help him win. I thought we could pick up a couple minutes’ time on everybody else if we could break away.

"So I signaled to Gerard; just a subtle head-nod. He knew what I meant, nodded back, and then moved in behind me. I waited a few seconds longer, then stomped the pedals as hard as I could. I steered my bike to the far left side of the road hoping the maneuver would shake any riders that tried to jump into our slipstream. The roads were so steep I could only go at it like that for maybe thirty seconds. My heart rate soared to 210 and my monitor started chiming at me, and that’s when I had to sit down to recover. I kept pedaling as strong a pace as I could and after a few seconds I looked back, hoping we’d separated from everybody, but it hadn’t gone quite that well. Several riders had managed to jump in behind us. What I hadn’t noticed, though, was that none of them were meaningful to the overall race. It was just a bunch of little skinny guys - climbers - plus Gerard and me, and once I did realize it, I knew we’d done well. Now we’d have a group of guys who could climb like mountain goats all taking turns setting the tempo and sharing the work.

Maybe fifty yards back down the road was this huge hoard of racers watching us. Some would be figuring out if they could try to bridge up to us, others would be mad they let us go in the first place. At the summit we’d gained five minutes’ advantage, and all we had to do was get safely down the mountain to the finish line.

Shamus recalled vibrant images of this small band of exhausted riders bouncing atop their pedals, a splash of colorful jerseys bobbing as they fought their bikes, hoping to squeeze out enough energy to get over the top without being left behind. The roadside that day had been packed with exuberant cycling fans squeezed together until all that was left was a narrow human tunnel for the riders to traverse until they summitted the climb. Spectators’ screamed and celebrated the arrival of racers, and Shamus and the others carefully plowed through the narrow rabbit-hole being drilled opened momentarily in front of them by their motorcycle escort. Shamus wasn’t always thrilled encountering rambunctious crowds, but recognized that many of them had camped for days just for the chance to snatch thirty seconds’ view of the racers going by.

The feisty bartender silently placed a fresh bottle on the counter in front of Shamus. Shamus nodded thanks in return, and the short and deeply bronzed man in his white service shirt and well-worn cotton pants nodded back and began his slow recirculation around the bar. Shamus slid his empty out of the way and brought the new one closer, seemed to consider it for a moment, then rejoined his tale.

"When we crested the Col we were almost dead from the effort, but it was a huge relief knowing all we had left was a long downhill dash to the finish. We knew the main group would work hard to catch us, so we rode aggressively, sometimes sliding sideways through the turns just inches from the edge of the road. Around us was the most stunning setting for a bike race, with crystal clear blue skies above and rugged brown mountainside climbing from the edge of roadside on our right, and a massive green valley spread out below us to the left.

Being one of the bigger guys in the group, when it was my turn at the front, I gave everything I had. When we came around a sweeping bend just ahead of a long, straight stretch of road, I pushed the pedals even harder. That was when I heard a loud crack and suddenly the asphalt was coming up at me, and just like that, I was fucked. My body slammed into the pavement, and I felt the bike come unattached from my shoes as I tumbled and slid over the asphalt toward the edge of the road. I remember hoping I would stop in time. If I did, maybe I’d get away with a bad case of road rash and finish the race on one of the spare bikes. Even before I stopped sliding, though, it became obvious things were only going to get worse. Shamus’ eyes welled as he recounted the experience. It was the first time he’d spoken about it. He knew it would be therapeutic, but for now it felt like a return trip to hell.

"Once a rider up front crashes, it completely shreds the group. I’d just hit the pavement when one rider rolled over me. He kept going, but that didn’t turn out well for him. Another bike rolled partially over mine, which was sliding down the road more or less in the same direction I was, and that rider went down hard. I heard his collarbone snap as he hit the pavement, and when he finally came to rest he was slumped in the road and not moving. Of course, as more bikes went down, that made for more obstacles, and pretty much damned the entire group. In rapid succession one rider after another fell, some tumbling through the air, others flying over handlebars, all of them landing badly, breaking ribs and collarbones, ripping skin from bodies and smearing blood on the road. Bikes were mangled and bent like paperclips. Carbon frames snapped like brittle sticks; from ten grand to totally worthless, just like that.

I slid toward the edge of the road, watching the unfolding mayhem, until I hit something hard and came to an abrupt stop. It knocked the air out of me. At some point I heard sirens. Then I blacked out. Shamus coughed to clear his throat. Someone peeled me from a guardrail and I started breathing again, and became aware of where I was, and some of what had happened. I knew my body was heavily damaged. The last memory I have was how eerily quiet everything got. Riders weren’t shouting or crying anymore, and even the fans were hushed. Everybody was stunned. The road was a drenched in red and bodies were scattered like a rag-dolls tossed out a car window. We kept the medics and ambulances busy that afternoon, for sure. Shamus glanced shyly at the lady sitting next to him who appeared spellbound and unaware her mouth had gone agape.

All I can say is you’ve got to be crazy, she offered.

Yeah, but fortunately they can’t detect that from a urine sample, he replied.

And you’re still racing? she pondered aloud, glancing again over the team-issued lycra jersey and shorts he wore, resplendent in fancy blue and orange colors with sponsor logos splashed about as if NASCAR were his clothier.

Further evidence, I’m afraid. He’d donned the kit, as cycling clothes were referred to, for a training ride he’d just completed before reclaiming his preferred seat at the little water hole. Racing is all I ever wanted to do, Shamus added tentatively, as if hearing it aloud might convince him that it still mattered so much.

So you’re here to recover and think it over? she asked.

Yeah, it was an inspired decision. I awoke wired up and stitched together in some dreary hospital in France. When the walls closed in on me, I’d play Jimmy Buffett and picture myself waking up in Mexico with my problems behind me. So when I finally got out, I came here straightaway.

Cabo had seemed just the ticket. Tucked at the southern tip of Baja California at the end of a rugged, brown peninsula, it sat just across the Sea of Cortez from Mazatlan. Twenty years earlier it had been an uninhabited spot, devoid of modern amenities. When the Mexican government decided another world-class outdoors destination would do wonders for their economy, they’d pumped in billions of pesos to lay electric lines and water pipes and a highway and a small airport. Private investors took their cue, and bags of foreign money arrived to pay for places for tourists to eat and sleep. Almost overnight three thousand hotel rooms had sprouted along twenty miles of pristine beaches where year-round warm waters attracted whale migrations, marlin and men who like to fish for them, and young couples looking for a trendy spot to in which to drink and sun themselves. To Shamus, it had sounded like heaven on earth; a place to roll copious miles on the bike, sparring only with warm ocean breezes and his own thoughts.

How long will you stay? she asked.

A few weeks, I suppose. When winter training opens I’ll head back to Europe, if I haven’t lost my nerve, Shamus answered honestly. In which case you’ll find me on the other side of the counter, helping Luis serve drinks. To which Luis, hearing his name from Shamus’ end of the bar, turned toward them and put his two index fingers to his head, as if horns, and pointed at Shamus and laughed to himself. If I don’t kill him first.

Well, it would certainly be a safer way to earn a living, the lady said. Not that it’s any of my business, of course.

Shamus sensed the lady was asking diplomatically whether he’d prefer to be left alone. He thought about it, and, to the contrary, it occurred that he enjoyed having someone to talk to. He’d rarely spoken to anyone in recent weeks, keeping his unhealed thoughts and feelings to himself. It wasn’t lost on him that precious little had been sorted out as a result.

As a professional racer, Shamus spent nine months traveling. Surrounded by team and staff, it was never lonely. Anything but, actually. One needed a thick skin about the lack of privacy, or to find another way to make a living. Such an itinerant life made it difficult to start or maintain a social one. Now, separated from the team, he had even fewer people to connect with, and hardly knew what to do. So far, he’d nearly talked his own head off. Thus he didn’t chase off the inquisitive woman who’d taken up residence on the barstool next to him, and he found it pleasing to converse with someone from outside of his world, even if the topic invariably wound itself back to it.

Honestly, I don’t mind, he responded. I’m Shamus McDonough. Native of Belfast, Northern Ireland, if I hadn’t given it away already. But that was long ago.

Belfast. You really are a man of danger.

Her point wasn’t lost on him. To Shamus, Ireland hadn’t ever lived up to being a lovely land of shamrocks and clover and feisty leprechauns concealing pots of gold. And Belfast in his day had been an absolute nightmare, replete with car-bombings and knee-cappings and the repelling sights and evil odors of house-to-house warfare, of eye-for-an-eye justice, and of killing and being killed in the name of God. Bicycle racing had extricated Shamus from all that. His sport had skirted him off the cold, rain-drenched, and all-too-often explosive little rock in his teens, and then he’d hop scotched the U.S. with a series of second-tier bicycle racing teams, and eventually returned to Europe to race with prestigious ones. Shamus knew all too well that some of the friends he’d left behind there hadn’t made it to adulthood. Too often, the almost indiscernible differences between Catholicism and Protestantism had merited the violent deaths of people who had otherwise committed no crime, but were damned nevertheless. So he’d ridden faster than the rain and the winds, and the clouds and the darkness, and somehow he’d escaped the thugs and their truncheons and guns and bombs, and now he sat astride a stool undeniably perched in the midst of paradise. And yet for all the miles traveled, senseless death was back in his company, and once again he was profoundly shaken by it. Only now he had no idea how to outrun it or where he might go to hide from it.

Sheila Ives, the lady said, extending her hand. My husband has important business on the golf course, she said, glancing into the distance where Shamus assumed such course must exist. He caught her sarcasm. His boss brings a group here every year. Spouses are supposed to be off getting slathered in mud at the day spa, but I prefer doing my own thing, thank you very much. I sell real estate, by the way, she said. She handed him a business card with her picture embossed. Shamus scanned it casually; Ten Million Dollar Club was stamped prominently in gold lettering, suggesting she was reasonably successful at doing her own thing. He noted her address was in Denver, Colorado.

And don’t worry about me hitting on you. I’ve got a live-in son almost your age, and the last thing I’m looking for is another young man to wait on, she said with a hearty laugh. Shamus noted that Sheila appeared fifty-ish with a pleasant face and wavy strawberry hair lacking discipline. She wore a patterned orange sleeveless blouse and white knee-length shorts, both freshly pressed.

He offered a smile in response.

If you don’t mind my saying so, you sound disillusioned, she said.

Shamus didn’t hurry responding. Coming to Mexico he realized, or perhaps had known all along, rather than being a chance for solitude and reflection and finding answers to tough questions, was nothing more than a quest for distraction, a means of procrastination. Accordingly, he’d not escaped torment. Day after day, he’d ridden long hours in sweltering heat, as if his demons could be sweated out. Failing that, he’d attempted barstool meditation, sipping beer from the same perch each afternoon, studying nature’s splendid tranquility, but failing to find his own.

Retirement has crossed my mind, notwithstanding that I can’t afford it. And I still like racing bicycles. But I’ve seen some ugly things, and I’d be happy not to see such things again. Shamus deliberated whether to go further. There were reasons not to, but he didn’t care anymore. Maybe the beer was going to his head. He weighed only a hundred and fifty pounds; it didn’t take much to dull his senses and, yes, loosen his lips. The crash had changed his body, but most of these wounds were healing and the physical damage would fade until old age set in and reminded him of the abuses he’d withstood in the pursuit of his passions. But this wasn’t the source of his melancholy. The season’s premature end had left him with abundant time to contemplate the impact his actions had on others. More than ever, he felt responsibility for his mistakes, but profound impotence to do anything about it.

Finally, his lips parted and words spilled forth. We race bikes like little boys, and we act as if doing so is somehow important. Really, it’s just entertainment. We’re like carnival clowns, if you like, rolling into town for a big show, then moving on. But that’s not bad. We know what pays the bills, and that’s to win races, and have fans care about the team and associate that with the sponsors. To that point, it’s harmless, really. But the longer you’re in the business, the more jaded you become. When I was younger I cared about nothing beyond where I would be racing today or tomorrow. I was ignorant of certain aspects of the business. But every day it gets harder to overlook what goes on that isn’t healthy for the sport, and certainly not for the athletes. Everybody thinks about it, even if they don’t talk about it so much.

Hmmm, she uttered in response. Would you be referring to cheating? she asked.

He nodded almost imperceptibly.

Not everybody does it, but everybody knows how. All you need is money. In exchange for a pinprick and the possibility of getting caught, you improve your chances to win and earn a lot more money. There’s quite a lot of it going on, to tell the truth, but tremendous pressure not to speak out.

Sheila didn’t respond immediately, but appeared to give careful thought to the matter. She sipped her own drink, a frozen Margarita distinctly suffering from the heat and humidity.

Isn’t that pretty common? She asked. I mean, in baseball there was the whole Barry Bonds thing, and track had Ben Johnson and Florence Joyner, they were probably before your time, I guess, and God knows what pro football and basketball players must be taking to get so big. And baseball players practically boast about all the drugs they take. So cycling has the same problem, more or less, right?

Shamus mulled this over. No doubt she was, to some degree.

"Actually, in the early years the organizers considered the Tour so physically demanding that it was necessary to be on drugs. Racers ate amphetamines, drank wine, and experimented with anything that might make them stronger, or deaden the pain. Times changed, and maybe it’s become unfashionable lately, but it’s not easy to change habits. Many athletes believe they stand no chance of winning if they quit, so they just get more creative about how to avoid getting caught. It’s expensive and these chemicals aren’t good for your health, but most riders barely get by financially. Your contract is good for one season, maybe two, so if you don’t deliver results, you’re sent packing. And if you can’t keep up, the coach is telling you to show more ‘dedication.’ The message is plain enough. My contract is up presently and usually by this point I’d have an offer. Some of my mates already have theirs. I’ve been hoping to cement my spot on the team, you know, for the long term, and I’d been off to a great start, to the moment I fell," Shamus explained.

And they hold it against you? Sheila asked.

Sure. It’s about performance, not excuses. In my case it’s more damning because of what happened to Gerard, he said. "Gerard Jouyet, a Frenchman, I would emphasize, was our team leader and a top bet to win the Tour. Our whole squad was there to help him win. Until that day, he’d been doing quite well. Every day his face was on the front page of Le Monde, and all of France was cheering him on. Then I went and ruined everything."

I don’t follow, Sheila stated, a quizzical look on her face.

All we needed to do was get to the finish line uneventfully. He was riding inches from my back tire, drafting, as we call it, to stay out of the wind. He was counting on me to keep us safe. But when I fell, he had to swerve around me. Everything occurred so fast I didn’t even see him go by. But he was going too fast. When he hit the guardrail he cartwheeled over it and there was nothing on the other side. He died down the mountainside. It was a national tragedy, and I’d caused it.

Shamus paused and returned his attention to the bottle he slowly spun between his fingers, as if it were a model of his universe and his universe had similarly been set in motion and also was not in control of itself. In no hurry to pick up where the story had left off, he watched the sun set into the ocean, fading from yellow to orange as it melted into the water, as if cooling the hot orb changed its hue. Night was settling in comfortably around them. Soon, Tiki torches were lit to improve visibility around the bar and to fend off mosquitoes.

You never told me about the little devil comment, she reminded him after a bit, artfully diverting the conversation.

Right, he said, fighting a lump in his throat. Since you asked, the short version is that I arrived at the local airport and there wasn’t a taxi in sight. There was, however, a haggard man with one eye and a rusty motorbike who offered to deliver me to town. I might risk my luggage with him, but not my skin, which was still in poor shape, so I unboxed my bike and set out. I promptly got lost and spent hours riding in the wrong direction. By the time I finally rode into town here it was pitch dark, and a spectacular thunderstorm had kicked up. Rain pelted me and I fought a whipping wind, rolling though streams of murky rainwater hiding monstrous potholes. Anyway, all I could do was stand on the pedals and ride through them. It was miserable, Shamus said