Blue Bear_or the Impossibility of Anonymity

by Joseph Grady

  “But the gun? Why do you have a gun?”

  “Oh, I bought this last week, after Eugenio was murdered.”

  “After the murder, I just bought a thing of pepper spray,” said Lucy. “Maybe I should have gotten a gun.”

  “But you’ve stolen all my bullets, you said? Good on you.” Natasha removed the clip out of the handle. It was empty. She reinserted the clip and started to fidget with the gun, polishing it with the sleeve of her jacket.

  “So I was right. It was unloaded all along.” Lucy smiled.

  “And it’s not like Eugenio or Cristiano were killed with a gun like this anyways.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Oh that’s right, you haven’t seen the video. It was a nail gun.”

  “The thing that killed Eugenio was a nail gun?”

  “Yeah ... quite gruesome to watch, really. Got him seven or eight times in the forehead.”

  “How did you get the video?”

  “Easy. You’ve just got to pay Gambetti to have a look. It was positively expensive, though, and probably not worth it.”

  “Well that explains why my fingerprints were on the murder weapon. You know we spent two weeks building that awning over the terrace before you showed up. Brian and Andrew were always too scared to use the nail gun. Mine must’ve been the only fingerprints on it.”

  Natasha twirled the gun on her finger.

  “Natasha?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Brian knows everything. But yesterday… I don’t know… I couldn’t bring myself to tell Andrew that I was the reason he almost got killed.”

  “What do you mean? That wasn’t your fault.”

  “I know. I mean… I don’t know… I’m going to tell him at some point. I want him to know. I just don’t know how he’ll react. I just couldn’t tell him yesterday. What I’m trying to say is that I would really appreciate it if you didn’t tell Andrew about my whole investigative project. He doesn’t know yet. He will know when things cool down. Andrew and I have been on egg shells before, and I want things to be right with him for a while.”

  “Mum’s the word. But why do you want things to be right with him?” Natasha arched an eyebrow.

  “You know I’m not into him. I’d just like things to be right between us. I guess I’ve kind of been an ass to him lately, and he’s been surprisingly patient with me.”

  “Oh, I know you’re not into him. I can see the way you look at that seminarian.”

  “Is it really that obvious?”

  “Overwhelmingly obvious to everyone but him.”

  “Now be honest,” Lucy turned red and changed the subject. “Were you really going to kill me?”

  Natasha sighed and played with the gun. “I don’t think so. In theory I thought it was possible, but it’s really quite a weird experience pointing a gun at someone. I don’t know. If I was really convinced it was you, I might’ve shot off a toe or something. But I guess there wasn’t any ammo anyways.”

  A loud bang set off. Natasha screamed and dropped the gun. A candle right next to Lucy’s head exploded. After a long second of silence Lucy started to laugh, while Natasha sat frozen with her hands covering her mouth.

  “So I guess I stole all the bullets out of the clip,” Lucy dipped her head underwater, came back up and started picking bits of wax off her neck, shoulders, face, and hair, “but there was one already in the chamber. What kind of person leaves a caulked gun in her nightstand?”

  “Oh my God, I’m so sorry.”

  “Don’t worry, now we’re even.”

  “What do you mean, we’re even?”

  “I was the one who replaced all your cleaning supplies with sugar water last week.”

  Natasha’s jaw dropped. She stood up, moved to the side of the tub and asked very seriously, “Lucy, I know I’ve been kind of a ... well, let’s say, I’ve acted kind of cold towards you, and I can see now why you have been rather mean towards me. But are we going to be friends, now that we no longer suspect one another of murdering each other’s friends?”

  “Wait, so today in the park, when you said ‘Keep it up, Lucy. You’re doing great,’ you were being cold?”

  “Absolutely. It felt wonderful.”

  “I’ve never been so pissed off at anyone in my life.”

  “I’m glad,” Natasha smiled, “Well, what do you say? Are we going to be friends?”

  “I think so,” Lucy looked up and smiled back.

  “Good.” Natasha picked up some of Lucy’s things, and walked over to the door of the Turkish bath. Before leaving, she turned, still smiling, and said, “Now we’re even,” taking Lucy’s towel and bathrobe with her.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  DE FRATRIBUS

  Before going to bed Lucy slipped a piece of paper under Brian’s door:

  The plan is off. A whole lot of new shit has gone down. Let’s talk.

  But Brian was busy with school, two jobs, and his required hours of talking with the residents at the Palazzo. In the meantime, however, Natasha and Lucy had become inseparable. They’d even managed to allow the mean girls to let both of them sit at their table. They started spending every afternoon – after Lucy came back from her run – at the kitchen table studying together, Lucy analyzing long passages of Dante and Buzzati, Natasha conjugating verbs and reading Italian children’s books.

  The following Friday night, Lucy and Natasha sat deeply in the patio furniture behind small glasses out on the terrace after dinner with Andrew, taking in the view and sipping digestivi, the traditional assortment of Italian liqueurs that are often put out on the table at the end of large meals to aid with digestion, or something like that. The conversation had been pleasantly wandering from thing to thing and was about nothing in particular, until, out of the blue, as can happen under the influence of digestivi, Andrew took it in a serious direction.

  “Now what if it was Fr. Damien?” Andrew suggested.

  Natasha and Lucy looked at each other. No response.

  “Well, just think about it,” Andrew’s eyebrows came up. His eyes flickered between Lucy and Natasha.

  Still no response.

  “Oh come on,” he insisted. “You can’t tell me you haven’t been thinking about this.”

  “The first murder was in the afternoon,” said Lucy. “Which means he was at the Greg library. There’s probably footage of him leaving the palazzo and footage of him entering the library. You can go check if you want, but I seriously doubt it was him.”

  “No, no, no,” said Andrew. “I’m not talking about the murderer. I’m talking about the person who received the mysterious bank account, or whatever the threat letter was talking about. Remember? Does anyone still have that letter anyways?”

  Lucy and Natasha remained silent and looked at each other across their digestivi.

  “I think it’s still somewhere in the kitchen,” said Natasha.

  “Well, think of this,” continued Andrew. “The murderer is trying to find out which one of us has the bank account access. What if Eugenio told Fr. Damien in confession? Think about it. He now knows, but he’s not allowed to tell anybody that he knows. Isn’t that how all that works?”

  Lucy rubbed the back of her neck, feeling a sharp pang of annoyance as she remembered Brian’s insulting comment about sin and confession from a few weeks ago. She sipped her sambuca and didn’t respond. Natasha sighed and shrugged her shoulders. Andrew let it go.

  “Well, whatever. You two seem to have become awfully chummy as of late,” Andrew raised his glass of amaro at them.

  “Do you know what Machiavelli once said?” Natasha asked Andrew, pouring herself another glass of limoncello. “Keep your friends close; keep your enemies closer.”

  “Or have you ever had to multiply with negative numbers? Do they teach you that in Architecture?” asked Lucy, watching the two whole coffee beans that she’d put in her sambuca float around as she swirled her glass, “The mean girls taught me a trick the other day to help with multiplic
ation: l’amico di mio amico è mio amico, il nemico di mio amico è mio nemico, e il nemico di mio nemico è mio amico.”160

  Andrew gulped the rest of his amaro and stood up, “And which one of those describes you two?”

  “I don’t know,” said Lucy, “I s’pose we’ll just have to do the math and find out.”

  “You’re not going to bed already, are you?” asked Natasha, “It’s still early. Stay with us.”

  “No, I’m going out. My cousins from Calabria are in town. You guys should meet them sometime ... or actually ... maybe you shouldn’t.”

  “Sounds great.”

  “We’ll see you later.”

  “Ciao ciao.”

  The roof access door swung open before Andrew touched the knob, and a large tired looking Starbucks employee walked out onto the terrace. Andrew went down the stairs and Brian took a seat in the patio chair where Andrew had been seated. He threw down his backpack, unbuttoned his coat, tore off his hat, and placed an empty McDonald’s bag on the table. Over the last couple days even Brian had noticed Lucy and Natasha’s new attitude towards one another, but he was convinced that acting nice to Natasha was Lucy’s latest scheme. Natasha poured a large glass or limoncello, and pushed it in front of Brian.

  Before Brian could say anything, Lucy looked around to make sure it was just the three of them and said, “Brian, Natasha and I have something we need to tell you.”

  Brian sat back and put on an understanding face, “It’s alright. You don’t have to tell me. I already know. You two are… well… y’know.”

  “No, Brian,” Lucy struggled not to laugh, and quieted her voice. “This is serious.”

  “I know it’s serious. I see the way you two look at each other. I mean it’s okay if you are. In fact, good for you! Good for you for not being ashamed. We’re all friends here. There’s no need to hide it.”

  “Brian, come on.”

  “Alright, alright, tell me.”

  “Natasha,” said Lucy, “is not the murderer.”

  Brian sat up and looked around the terrace, and then at Natasha, “Well... um... I don’t know what to say... um... congratulations... I’m glad to hear you’re not a killer.”

  “Thanks. I’m also glad I’m not a killer.” Natasha nodded her head in agreement. “And I think you already knew, but I should also let you know that Lucy is not the killer, either.”

  “Well this is great,” said Brian. “Yeah, this is really great. Nobody here’s a killer.”

  “Unless you’re talking about Lucy’s killer good looks,” Natasha made a face at Lucy, like the models in Italian perfume ads.

  “Are you sure you guys aren’t ... you know ... because it’s okay if you are,” said Brian.

  “No!” shouted Lucy.

  “So, is there a reason, though ... for ... for you know ... all of this sudden good will?” asked Brian. “I’m not a murderer, she’s not a murderer, you’re not a murderer, we’re all not murderers.”

  “I can explain,” said Lucy. “But you have to promise me you’ll never tell anyone about the room I’m about to tell you about, and that you’ll never go there yourself.”

  “Okay.”

  “Alright,” Lucy began. “So in the basement behind the laundry room, through the door with all the electrical warnings – ”

  “Oh yeah, you mean the Turkish bath?”

  “What? You know about the Turkish bath?”

  “Oh sure. Kind of creepy down there. But you’re the one who always sneaks off there in a bathrobe late at night, when you think nobody’s looking.”

  “Does everybody know about the Turkish bath?”

  “Everybody knows.”

  “Cazzo! Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Anyways, so I was there in the Turkish bath the other night...”

  Lucy and Natasha took turns telling the story, which also required them to go back over just about every detail of the case thus far. On previous occasions, Lucy had only ever seen Brian have, at most, two beers. A few hours went by, and as the story got more and more surprising, the bottles of limoncello, amaro, and sambuca grew more and more empty.

  “But, so then,” asked Brian once they’d reached the conclusion of the story, “how did you get back upstairs?”

  “I’ll leave that to your imagination.”

  The door opened, and Fr. Damien came out onto the patio and stood by the ashtray along the railing. They all glanced down at their watches. Over the course of the evening he had come outside, right on schedule, every forty-two minutes for a cigarette. Whenever this happened, the three of them got quiet, and made small talk, until Fr. Damien would put out his cigarette five minutes later and return to his room. This time, however, towards the end of his cigarette, something incredibly unprecedented happened. Fr. Damien came up to the table and took a seat.

  “Brian,” he asked, “how come you not have girlfriend?”

  “What?” Brian responded.

  “Girlfriend, why you not have girlfriend? Fidanzata? You are strong and big. You are single young man. Why you not have girlfriend?”

  “Um ... uh ... I don’t know ... I just ... I just don’t. Why do you ask?”

  “You have always around you two beautiful young girl who have not husband, and you have no wife. I see it in these girls’ eyes. They want husband. Maybe they not think of you first, because you are too fat. But still, they want husband. I think if you insist one of them might be happy with you.”

  Fr. Damien’s face became a statue. He leaned forward and stared at Brian. His intense gaze demanded an answer. Brian was more exposed and vulnerable than Lucy had ever seen him. He mustered all of his energy to try and think up a response. But he couldn’t come up with anything and Fr. Damien was still staring. At a certain point, it seemed like he gave in and responded like a man who finally breaks under interrogation, saying as quickly as possible what had to be said, “I’m just not attracted to white girls, okay?”

  Lucy, unfortunately, happened to be taking a generous sip of Sambuca at that same moment. On hearing Brian’s admission, for just a second, she forgot how to swallow, and spent the next minute trying to breathe while laughing, crying, and coughing sambuca out of her lungs. In the meantime, Fr. Damien had heard Brian’s response, considered it for a second, and then seemed to agree that it was reasonable. He put out his cigarette and returned to his room. Natasha was laughing at Lucy, but seemed to be completely fine with Brian’s statement. Brian slouched in his chair, defeated and horrified.

  Natasha emptied the bottle of limoncello, filling everyone’s glasses. She pushed Brian’s glass toward him. With a calm voice and curious eyes she said, “Tell us about white girls, Brian.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Vell zen,” Lucy pretended to be holding a notepad and paper, and put on a German accent, “Tell me about yohr relayshunnship viss yohr muzzer.”

  “I said I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Brian,” Lucy came back to her American self, “you can’t not be attracted to an entire race. There’s beautiful and ugly people in every race.”

  “Oh, I suppose it’s possible,” Natasha piped in. “I’m sorry. I know what you’re thinking. Here’s the stereotypical Afrikaner speaking up. I promise you, I’m not like my grandparents. I mean, it’s not really something I experience personally, so maybe I shouldn’t talk. But it’s not something I haven’t heard people say before.”

  “But didn’t you have white girlfriends in college?” Lucy asked Brian.

  “I had a white girlfriend in college.”

  “And she was attractive?”

  “Yes ... very ... I mean ... no ... circumstances can change. Things can happen that can make you no longer attracted to certain races.”

  “Such as?” asked Lucy.

  Brian finished his limoncello in one gulp. “I need both of you to swear you’ll never bring this up again.”

  The hybrid slowed and made a right turn off the dese
rt highway onto a small dirt side road and Lisa, fidgeting with her hair, told Brian, “Okay, let's go over the rules one more time again.”

  Brian smirked about the strange rules, but, noticing the stern look on Lisa's face, he solemnly began: “Rule number one: no questions until after the weekend is over. Rule number two: do as you're told without questions. Rule number three: if you don't do as you're told, we're going back and you don't get to meet my parents.”

  Over the past hour, Lisa had grown more and more agitated and nervous. She had started muttering things like, “Oh God, why are we doing this?” and, “It's not too late to go back. Isn't this a little early? There's the turn for Moab. Why don't we just go camping and call it a weekend?”

  Brian tried to console her with things like, “Well last weekend went relatively okay, didn't it?” or, “Oh, come on, there's no reason to be nervous, I'm sure your parents will love me, once they get to know me.”

  “Yeah, but your mom is a little more mainstream than my parents.”

  “Actually, Lisa, you might be surprised. My mom had her wild years too.”

  They had spent the previous weekend at the townhouse of Brian's mom. Overall it went off without a hitch, except for long dinners permeated with forced conversation, and the time Lisa vehemently objected when Brian’s mom wanted to give him a haircut.

  “Really, Lisa, just tell me. What are you so worried about? I'm sure it'll be just like last weekend. I mean, at least you know both your parents. I don’t even know who my dad is. There can't be as many awkward silences as last weekend if we have two parents to deal with, right?”

  Rather than answer, Lisa brought the car to an abrupt halt. “Okay, get out and put on your running shoes.”

  “My running shoes?”

  “Do you remember rule number two?”

  Brian's mouth hung open in defiance. Lisa was already outside, opening the trunk and pulling out her own running shoes. He protested, sitting in the passenger seat for a few minutes, before curiosity won over. They spent the next half hour running through the spring desert –