The Highway (A Benny Steel and Marisa Tulli Novel - Book 1)

by Steven Grosso

  What am I doing? Why? he thought. Must’ve been the candles, or Sinatra’s love songs, or wine he hadn’t even sipped yet, but something had swept over him. His mind was telling him to shut the fuck up before he rushed things, but his heart silenced it.

  Marisa smiled awkwardly but didn’t answer. Silence occurred, along with a tense moment as the candle provided the only movement at the table.

  The waiter reappeared and saved the day, placing a salad with red onions and croutons in front of each of them. They dug their chilled forks in, ate, and didn’t say a word for a good five minutes.

  Marisa wanted to tell Steel how she felt about him, but Mario’s face kept surfacing. She found the pain hard to let go of—worried that history and heartache were doomed to repeat themselves. Mario was a thing of the past, but the hurt and the shock were hard for her to overcome. If only she knew that Steel had similar feelings in that regard. The perfect man would also have to be the perfect doctor, capable of repairing her wounded soul. She knew Steel had the tools, but something made her refrain. The wine hit her lips, and she chose to remain silent.

  Five more tense moments passed, and each sat and listened to forks tapping on plates, low chatter throughout the restaurant, and the music playing through the speakers.

  A tray jack was placed next to their table just as the busboy cleared their salad dishes. The waiter carried another tray filled with steaming plates and laid it on top of the jack. They leaned back, and he called out “Chicken Parm” and “Chicken Piccata” as clouds of steam rose from the dishes. He asked if they needed anything else and then left.

  Steel and Marisa caught each other’s eyes over flickering candlelight and through the steam rising from the table. Both knew the words they wanted to say but couldn’t bring them to fruition—two wounded and apprehensive souls. But words weren’t needed because their eyes did the talking. Each knew what the other was thinking.

  33

  The night was still young, and Marisa and Steel walked past City Hall. The old buildings that housed the city’s courts and administrative offices were closed for the weekend. She grabbed his hand as they strolled, and he was relieved that the tenseness between them was over, as the conversation had picked back up after dinner.

  He clasped her hand.

  “Dinner was great. Thanks again. You didn’t have to pay,” she said.

  “Stop. No worries at all,” he said and smiled, wrapped his arm around her shoulders.

  A homeless man sat on the sidewalk and said a little louder than a whisper, “Please, gimme some change—anything. I’m hungry.”

  Steel dug into his pockets, couldn’t find a bill, but kept fidgeting around for one. “I think I’m just as broke as you here, my man.”

  The homeless man bit a fingernail and thought, then locked eyes with Steel. “Really? Are you homeless?”

  Steel laughed out loud, snatched a five from his pocket he’d finally found, and tossed it into the guy’s outstretched hands. “Here you are, take care.”

  The man smiled wildly, and his grayish-brown beard expanded. “God bless you, sir.”

  “You too, take care.”

  Marisa ran a hand up his arm and across his bicep and gently rubbed it. He tightened the muscle as much as possible but squeezed so hard he thought he’d popped something.

  “That was one of the funniest replies I’ve ever heard. Genius,” he said.

  “It was pretty funny. Clever,” she said.

  They continued walking the block or so back to her building until they reached it.

  She rattled her doorknob. “Come on…open.” After some tugging, it finally clicked. “Come up for a drink, if you want?”

  “All right.”

  The elevator was on the right, and they waited. She jabbed a finger at the UP button and tossed her keys into her handbag, which dangled from her forearm, and darted her eyes up and down from Steel and back to the bag, smiling. He stared ahead and waited in silence until the doors split in the center and sprung open. They stepped in, and the two metal doors, which they saw their reflection in, rumbled shut, took off with a ding. A man stood next to them as they rose between floors, so they didn’t talk. When the doors opened, Marisa led the way through the hallway. Steel followed like a puppy dog as they entered.

  Her apartment was pitch-black, so she hurried over to a light switch and hit it on. Her high heels tapped the hardwood floors, and she waved her arms toward the sofa. “Go, sit down.”

  He wandered over to it, sat down, and took a look at her as she slid each high heel off while bending her leg behind herself, holding onto her kitchen counter, grimacing.

  “I’ll be right out, gotta run in my room for a minute,” she said.

  “All right. I guess I’ll stay here?” he said, laughing a bit.

  She smiled. “How many glasses of wine did you have?”

  “Kidding…” he said, still laughing.

  She went into her room.

  But as he sat there, the Hitchy case flooded his mind. He screamed at his brain, telling it to leave him alone until the next day. Thankfully, Marisa walked from her bedroom before the internal argument could ignite, making him forget all about the case. He noticed she’d combed her hair straighter than it had been and assumed she’d slapped new makeup on her face, too. She walked barefoot to her kitchen, reached up for a cabinet with one leg in the air, and pulled out a Cabernet. She lowered the bottle, tapping it against the marble countertop, then tugged at her dress and smoothed the fabric out from the long reach. “Come in here.”

  Steel placed both hands onto the sofa and lifted himself up. He walked over, trying to seem as calm as possible, but that was impossible. His stomach tossed itself and swirled with excitement and nervousness. Steel knew he was neurotic about everything, and that made him more neurotic about everything—the knowing bothered him most. Can’t beat a biological predisposition to anxiety, he’d always thought. Anxiety disorders ran rampant in his family. Normal things that didn’t bother most people threw his fight-or-flight response into high gear. His thoughts often raced, and the expression “nerves of steel” didn’t apply to him. One thing he’d learned through the years was to fight through the anxiety, to fight through fear. He’d learned that fear would control him if he avoided it; instead, he stayed in the moment long enough and the fear eventually subsided, often replaced by unbelievable amounts of courage and enthusiasm. It had taken him years to learn that. On many occasions he’d let his doubting mind get the best of him. He knew that fear and anxiety would eat him alive if he didn’t fight back. It became a challenge, like solving a case; he’d separate himself from the fear—it versus him. He tried to exemplify Hemingway’s famous quote: “Courage is grace under pressure.”

  Marisa reached for two wine glasses from another cabinet and set them down. She pulled out a wooden corkscrew from the bottle and poured it. Red wine flowed into each glass. She held up a finger and rushed into the living room and dimmed the lights. “I hate when it’s too bright in here.”

  He peeked out her window, at the lit up buildings that made up the skyline and followed it all the way up to the William Penn statue atop City Hall—the founder of Pennsylvania.

  As her feet slapped the hardwood floors and made it back to the kitchen, she cupped her glass. He did the same. Both headed for the sofa. Steel sat straight, his knees forward and shoulders back against the cushion. Marisa curled up next to him and folded her legs underneath herself. She leaned her right elbow on top of the couch and held the wine in her left hand.

  “You have a nice time tonight?” he asked and turned his head toward her.

  “You were quite the gentleman.” She smiled. “I expected the foul-mouthed, introverted, over-thinker whom I work with on a daily basis.”

  “If you wanted that guy, I can start droppin’ f-bombs right now.”

  She set her glass on the coffee table. He hunched over and put his there.

  Steel had a li
ttle buzz going, and he suspected Marisa did, too. Both of their eyes were red and glassy, and they laughed at a higher pitch.

  He leaned back, and she dropped her head onto his shoulder. Her soft hair fell into his eyes, and he ran his fingers through, the warmth of her scalp against the tips, strands of the hair tickling his nose.

  She rolled her head around and made eye contact. “What do you look for in a woman?” Her warm breath washed over his chest, just above the last button of his shirt, and tingly heat brushed along the skin of his neck.

  The question was odd to him, as he thought he’d made it clear to her, but maybe he hadn’t been clear enough. He answered the only way he knew how, sarcastically, as if it was a shield against his poor social skills, which he often used to get his point across. “Well, what turns me off the most is a woman detective who lives in Center City. I hate when women wear black dresses, high heels, and straight hair. I don’t like women who drink wine or who love their families. And I’m really not into Italian women that much.”

  She flipped her body over and dug both knees into the sofa cushions, leaned up. “You think you’re slick.” She playfully slapped his chest, each time sliding and resting her hand longer than the previous.

  He raised his arms up into a defensive position and smiled.

  “Wiiiise guy?” she said slowly. She genuinely laughed for a few seconds, until the last of it faded out into low echoes. The room froze as if time stood still. She lifted his chin with a finger and stared her deep, dark, seductive eyes into his own for a minute that felt like an hour. During the stare, a hard lump pressed against his Adam’s apple, and his breathing slowed. It amazed him how one look from a woman could stop a man right in his tracks.

  She slowly adjusted his shirt collar, fiddling with the top button. “Remember what you told me in the restaurant, how you feel comfortable around me?”

  He nodded, not taking his eyes off hers, his chest warm and heavy, her fingertips slowly gliding over it.

  She traced her nails along his jawline, and the vibrations sent chills throughout his body. “I feel that way, too,” she said. “I haven’t felt this way in years, either, even from the first day in Barnes & Noble.”

  His heart rate sped up, pumped what seemed to be a gallon of blood per second, and pounded hard against his chest. Heat tingled just under the surface of his skin. Warm, salty perspiration leaked from his scalp, moistening his hairline. His demeanor on the outside didn’t change much, but his insides were doing somersaults. Had fate thrown a woman as beautiful, inside and out, as Marisa his way? Maybe the movies were right—the ending to a long drama always worked out.

  He slid his fingers across her lips. She gazed amorously at him, and he gazed back. Both understood the feeling was mutual and knew words weren’t needed. The moment was happening as though in slow motion; as if it would stay that way forever. Their eyes, still locked, inched closer to one another. Steel kissed her, and she kissed back. Their lips and tongues met and pulled apart, met and pulled apart, still chilled from the wine, each kiss long, slow, passionate—the passion authentic, desire for one another unmistakable.

  Steel gripped her waist, slid his body on top of hers, and glided his lips, which warmed from deep breaths, into her soft neck. Marisa’s breasts shifted up and down against his chest. He tucked his forearms underneath her, his heart beating against hers. She breathed sharply into his eardrum until the breaths shot ice-cold shockwaves up and down his spine. Their legs and arms rubbed against one another’s and kicked and turned rhythmically. They craved each other, their desire burning like the flames swaying in the restaurant they had just left from.

  After a few moments, they made it to her bedroom. They kissed and groped some more before falling onto Marisa’s white sheets, rolling around and making love deep into the night.

  34

  The following morning, the sun broke through the curtains in Marisa’s bedroom, turning the material bright white. A warm beam of light cut through the slit in the curtains and hit Steel’s face. He opened his eyes, yawned, and shook his head. After running his hands through his hair, he yawned again for a good minute and stretched his jaw muscles until they hurt. He glanced at a digital clock on Marisa’s end table: 6:04 His phone alarm was set for 6:30, so he rested his head back on the pillow, rolled away from the sun, and stared at Marisa’s closed eyes and soft facial features as the bed sheets lay just above her chin. He watched the covers slightly lift as she breathed. The sun still bothered him, so he turned on his back, cupped both hands behind his head, and stared his puffy eyes at the ceiling. A smile stretched across his face, and he couldn’t help it. And why not? Life’s good, he thought. He was about to get a huge break in the case and had a good woman sleeping right beside him. He knew how hard a decent woman was to come by in your thirties. He assumed most of that age were married or career women with little time, and if not, they had baggage, were emotionally scarred, or were flat-out psychos. Maybe he was thinking extreme, and he guessed a woman could’ve said the same things about him. He had his own flaws, for sure.

  Ten minutes passed, and Steel didn’t move; all he did was daydream. He thought of life and how unpredictable and crazy it is. How you’re up one minute and down the next. Why things happen the way that they do. He wondered if fate existed or if things just happened by chance or coincidentally? He reminded himself to slow down with the thoughts because that was technically their first date. But then he reasoned that it was impossible to slow down those thoughts because once those romance-chemicals took hold of the brain, a fog set in. And who orchestrated fate in an individual’s life, he wondered. Could it be God? Which God? He didn’t believe in Jesus—although he had been raised to do so—or any of the gods of the world religions—although he envied people who did. The faith thing was a highway he couldn’t cross, and he couldn’t get past the miracles and supernatural acts in the Bible. He didn’t believe it, couldn’t force himself to. Then he thought about Marisa again, about how nice her parents had been to him. Maybe she’d be a good parent. Again, he told himself to stop jumping ahead but countered the thought by saying that he was pushing thirty-three and had to start thinking that way. He noticed how he tried to solve everything intellectually but how sometimes he should use his gut feelings or faith in fate. He was starting to think that he was thinking too much—story of his life—so he closed his eyes and hummed a made-up melody to silence his mind.

  The bed shifted, then shook.

  He rolled over and was welcomed by Marisa’s yawn. She raised her eyebrows and closed-lip smiled. Steel slid his arm around her neck, and she moved closer to him. She circled her fingers across his stomach and leaned her forehead against his chin. It was for real to Steel; he hoped it was for real to her.

  They stayed that way until 6:30, until Steel’s crumpled pants trembled on the floor as his phone alarm buzzed and vibrated in the pocket.

  “All right, come on, let’s go get breakfast,” she said, scratching his chest with her nails for the final time. The scratching felt good, and the nerves underneath his skin convulsed. She sat up naked, pecked him on the lips once, and grabbed at her bathrobe on the end table next to her. After putting it on and tightening it, she went to the kitchen.

  Steel stayed there for a moment and then kicked his feet up and over the side of the bed. He put on his white undershirt and shook out his black slacks, silenced the phone, and put on the pants. Hunching over, he rolled his dress socks over his hairy legs, too, because he didn’t like walking around barefoot and always thought his OCD played a role in that idiosyncrasy.

  As he walked from the bedroom, Marisa moved around by the stove and cracked eggs into a silver frying pan. Clouds from sizzling butter and the scent of coffee filled the apartment.

  “Big day today,” Steel called out and then buttoned his shirt.

  “Yep,” she said without turning, focusing on the eggs.

  He crept up from behind her and wrapped his arms around her wa
ist, kissed her cheek and neck as their bodies slowly rocked back and forth. She kept smashing eggs against the edge of the pan and smiled and tilted her head, making way for his warm lips. Her mind raced with thoughts, and the theme of them all focused on Steel. His brain raced, and all the activity focused on Marisa. The two slowly swayed to their own beat, totally infatuated with one another. Both knew it was more than a fling.

  He whispered in her ear, “After we eat, I’m going home to get ready, but I wish we could stay here longer.”

  She smiled to herself, hooked her hand behind her shoulder and around his neck, and rubbed the back of his head.

  The butter in the pan sizzled as the eggs took shape, just as their passion for one another had sizzled the night before. But they had to leave this moment and get back to real life.

  35

  Steel arrived at the station to meet Marisa and Frankie at 8:30. He was half an hour early, but he didn’t mind. Frankie was in his office, in the Narcotics Unit just across the hall.

  Steel knocked then walked right in. Frankie sat with a pair of reading glasses on the tip of his nose and a black pen in his right hand and was focusing hard on the crossword puzzle spread out across his desk. He looked up and over his thin-rimmed frames with his signature grayish-blue, bulgy, bug-eyed stare. His smile, just above his chin and across his half-moon-shaped head, revealed semi-crooked teeth in a shade of amber, the result of six cups of coffee and two packs of cigarettes every day. The muscles in his thin neck twitched often, and his Adam’s apple stuck out at least an inch. He was so thin, with sticks for legs and arms, and it appeared as if someone had flattened his torso with a waffle iron. His face always had stubble from three days unshaved, and he parted his brown hair to the side like a criminal from an old black-and-white gangster movie. Forty-eight was his age, but, at first glance, he’d appear in his mid-fifties. People around the station knew him as eccentric, sometimes a loose cannon, and full of energy—sometimes too much energy—but also as a damn good narcotics agent.