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

by Steven Grosso

  Everyone had stories about how they’d gotten a job as a waiter or bartender and how they’d walked out at the end of the night with fast money, $100 or more, cash in their pockets, four or five times a week, and still had time to party. Some who’d chosen college saw that, made quick money for the first time in their lives, partied, fit in, quickly dropped out, and didn’t think down the line. Good deal, many of them thought.

  Oftentimes, Mario had wondered why he was spending money to go to school, still living at home, and working at Shoprite on the weekends for just over 100 bucks a week after taxes. He’d wanted to have few responsibilities, work for fast money, and party until two every night and sleep until noon every day like some of his friends he’d known all his life. He’d told Marisa after their breakup that, at times, it’d felt like he’d had two identities: the college kid and the street kid. The college kid who spoke up in his philosophy classes, hoping to earn a degree and the street kid who indulged in his demons, getting drunk and into bar fights on the weekends with tough guys he’d hung around with.

  Marisa had never known if it was the pressure that had gotten to him. It didn’t matter the cause, though, because Mario had broken it off with her, encouraged her to go to law school, and told her it wasn’t fair to waste her time with him. She had been brokenhearted. Over the years, she’d hear stories about Mario, and from the last bit of news that floated through the grapevine, he’d been clean for the last two or three. He’d even gotten married and had a little boy, from what she’d heard. She was happy for him. However, that experience had removed the word trust from her vocabulary. It had eluded her ever since.

  Marisa scooped steaming hot scrambled eggs with a black spatula and flipped them onto a plate like she was on the Food Network. She grimaced and grabbed the warm plate, then placed it on the kitchen table next to a napkin, fork, and squeeze bottle of Heinz ketchup. After the thoughts of Mario had passed, her mood improved, usually the case. She wandered a few feet and stared out her window. Her apartment was small. She felt she didn’t need a lot of space for just herself—a small bedroom, a kitchen, and a living room with enough space for a TV, sofa, and table.

  Her bare feet settled on a comfortable, cool spot on the hardwood by her window. She pressed both hands into the small of her back, observing the city of Philadelphia waking up for the day. The apartment in a thirty-floor building towered over Broad Street, just off Market Street—the heart of Center City Philadelphia. From her vantage point, she caught a glimpse of the rising sun half hidden behind a bronze statue of William Penn atop City Hall, which reflected golden hues off one side of her building. The sun glare fought through thin slots in the blinds over the window and glinted off the hardwood, streaking the wood with white lines. The glass was warm to the touch. The sky was the lightest shade of baby blue save for one cloud that was stretched and torn apart like a cotton ball. What a glorious morning. Cars driving through the city reminded her of game pieces from the board game Monopoly. Taxis’ horns honked and were still able to be heard from her position so high up on the twenty-second floor, and black pigeons soared by her window, searching for something to chomp on.

  Her cell phone hummed on the countertop in the kitchen and broke her concentration on the beautiful city-morning. She jogged to it, and the cold floor ran a chill up her body. She shivered and tugged her robe’s cotton belt fabric. “Hello.”

  “Morning, partner.”

  “Steel, what’s up, parrrrtner? You woke me from my beauty sleep,” she said, followed by a giggle. “Just kidding…I’ve been up. What’s up?

  Steel paused, taken back by her upbeat voice. “Turn on channel six, the news.”

  He waited, listening to her fumble around her apartment. He noticed that she sounded happy but remembered that she had practically ignored him the previous day. Damn, he thought. This woman is difficult to read. I’d have a better chance reading Shakespeare in old English.

  She must’ve found her remote control because he heard the news reporter’s muffled voice echoing in the background.

  Marisa muttered, “Oh, shit.”

  “Yeah, oh shit.”

  “When the hell did this happen?”

  “All last night.”

  She looked back at the eggs on the table, saw steam rising, figured she was okay for a few more minutes, and said, “Four murders all within an hour of each other.” She gasped through the receiver, didn’t say a word, and continued listening to the reporter. “One was a college student just walking by herself in the middle of Center City, poor girl.”

  “Yep, and the rest drug-related…”

  “Shit. This is outta hand,” she said.

  He told her to keep watching, since he’d seen the six o’clock news already. The one she was watching was almost a repeat, with some minor adjustments in the traffic report. She continued glancing at the TV and shook her head with her hand draped over her mouth.

  The news reporter, an attractive thirty-something female with light brown skin and black hair so straight it could’ve been ironed, reported from one of the crime scenes with a microphone in her hand and police officers in the background working behind yellow caution tape. She shot off statistics:

  Last year’s total homicides: 315

  Last year in July: 100

  This year in July: 140

  After she’d read the statistics, pictures cut across the screen of recent unsolved murder victims. Hitchy’s was second. Then the reporter interviewed outraged onlookers who yelled into the camera. The reporter went further and announced a “March for Peace” at City Hall, organized by locals, which would call for an end to the violence.

  “Damn,” Marisa said. “Damn!”

  “Williams called a mandatory meeting at 10:30. Get dressed and meet me at the station in half an hour, okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “We have a lead on something, too…have to stop somewhere first?”

  “What lead?”

  “The girlfriend’s cousin.”

  “Where’d you get that from?” she asked, narrowing her brow, awaiting his reply.

  “I met Venice last night. She called me late.”

  He heard her sigh and blow the air hard into the receiver, and the sound muffled its way to his end.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  “What the hell’s your problem?”

  He hesitated a moment. “She called me last night, wanted to meet.”

  “I feel like I’m nonexistent on this case. I know I’m shadowing you, but I am on this thing too, ya’ know. I’m not Robin, and you’re not Batman. I can’t even get a word in sometimes.”

  He rolled his eyes and spoke with a sarcastic tone in his voice, “You sure did a lot of talking yesterday, by the way.”

  “Look…I just, I wasn’t ready to deal with that. We kissed, and that was that. It just happened. But if this partner thing is going to work, we need to make it a partnership and not a one-man show, got it? Or else I’m off this case.”

  He took in her words, her feistiness a turn-on for him. A thought crossed his mind of another partnership he’d had in mind other than the one she’d just suggested, but he chose not to bring it up. Maybe he had played it all wrong. But he played it cool as he spoke, “Of course, didn’t know you felt that way.” He thought for another moment. “I’ll see you at the station?”

  “Yeah, see you there,” she said quickly.

  She hung up without letting him get another word in. He held the phone to his ear until the dial tone beeped off and shook his head. Two dilemmas faced him, and he thought about both: solving this case and trying to figure out how he’d fallen more for Marisa after that phone call.

  Meanwhile, Marisa lowered herself into a kitchen chair and squeezed the ketchup bottle hard onto her eggs. Some missed the plate and streaked the table with red lines. She snatched her fork and dug it into the soft yellow-white eggs and chewed roughly. Her eyes burned, felt heavy, tears bubbling beh
ind each eyeball, but she held them back. She thought for a moment over the statistics the reporter had just thrown out and about the case, and then she thought about Steel but couldn’t understand why she had flipped out on him moments earlier. There was something about him, but how could she trust him? Subconsciously, she knew it was herself pushing him away before he had a chance to let her down.

  26

  Lieutenant Williams hunched over his desk and sipped his soda. The sun beamed into his office and warmed the center of his back. He tapped a finger against the middle of his eyeglasses and slid closer to his desk, and his round gut, slightly hanging over his belt buckle, slammed into the edge. He massaged his temples and breathed, trying to digest the crime issue in Philadelphia.

  He’d thought a lot over the past few weeks. Not only had the mayor called the police commissioner with an earful, but the police commissioner had personally called Williams and a few other colleagues with an earful. Jobs were on the line. In reality, all parties knew how difficult it was to control violence in a major city on a low budget, but people had to be held accountable—the citizens demanded it. They wanted to see changes—and if simply not for anything else—to provide the illusion of control and safety. Philadelphians were becoming impatient, and tempers were boiling over. Mothers and fathers were tired of burying their teenage children.

  The “March for Peace” at City Hall had begun, and Williams just watched some on TV. Families stormed the streets and closed major intersections. Mothers’ tear-stained faces were all over the news, hugging cold picture frames of their murdered children instead of wrapping their arms around their warm bodies. Thousands of people—young, old, black, white, Asian, Hispanic, and of all social classes—stomped in stride with homemade signs and chanted, “Stop the violence.”

  Williams knew the stakes, but more than that, he cared. Lieutenant detective was his job title, maybe police commissioner down the line, but his work was more than just a paycheck. Philadelphia was his home—where he had been born and raised, gone to middle school, played street basketball and tackle football, come of age, gone to high school, gone to college and started a career, met his wife, gotten married, and started his family with the addition of two beautiful daughters. All of his family and friends lived there. The current situation in his city was not what he’d envisioned for his little girls to grow up in.

  Williams didn’t just believe in his community or hope to be a good citizen—he lived it. He could have easily gone another route. He’d grown up dirt poor in West Philadelphia. His father had died before he had been born, leaving his mother alone to raise seven boys. Williams was the youngest. His mother had been left with no other option but to go on welfare, on top of working two jobs to support her family. His three oldest brothers had been gunned down before each of their twenty-fifth birthdays—just one block away from one another and over local gang nonsense. Williams had recognized the senselessness at the time and never forgot the pain in his mother’s eyes. The skin around each eye had grown more wrinkled with each son’s passing. At the time, she’d put on her best front for her four remaining children, but Williams had seen her pain. She’d withdraw for hours on end and retreat to her bedroom, and he’d listen with one ear pressed against the door, shaking his head as she sobbed. His heart had always ached for her, but he’d never confronted her. He’d let her think the front had worked. One thing had always stuck out about his mother, though: she’d never lost her faith, even after losing three sons. As her despair had grown, so had her attendance at her church. Williams had watched that with a close eye at that time and made the decision to become a member of his local church. By observing his mother’s faith, Williams had consciously attempted to live morally. He’d known it was much harder to do the right thing in life than the wrong thing—that front-page news articles mostly went to something bad, while good, heroic stories were usually buried in a small column in the back sections. He’d wanted his family’s name to live on, hoped to make a life for himself.

  He’d never start a personal prayer without a tribute to his brothers. He knew that all three of them had possessed great potential, that if born in another environment, they would have excelled. They’d had ambition but had used it on the streets, in the only environment they had ever been exposed to. Their mother hadn’t been able to raise seven men alone in a rough neighborhood like theirs.

  At the time, right after the last of his three brothers had been murdered, he’d been about to graduate from high school and ready to become the first member of his family to go on to college. He’d been awarded a full ride to The Community College of Philadelphia and majored in Criminal Justice, earning his associate’s degree two years later. He’d continued on to Drexel University and earned a bachelor’s. After graduation, he’d applied and been accepted to the Philadelphia Police Academy. That was the same year he’d become an assistant pastor at his church, gotten married, and started his life.

  Now, Williams wore many hats—pastor, husband, father, lieutenant detective, Police Athletic League basketball coach for troubled youths, neighbor, and friend. He hadn’t overcome those obstacles just to live a cushy life; he wanted to give back and help his community. Philadelphia needed him, and he had to inspire his staff.

  Williams grabbed a yellow legal pad from the desk drawer and a pen from a cup holder. He plucked at his chin, reflecting. He stared blankly behind the burgundy tints before he closed them and said a quick prayer. What could he say as a leader to motivate his staff? How could he inspire hope at such a hopeless time?

  He ended the prayer and glanced down at the blank page. As soon as his pen hit the paper, his chicken-scratch couldn’t keep up with the thoughts flowing through his mind.

  27

  Marisa and Steel stepped out of the car. He glanced at her, and she stood on the sidewalk, arms folded, twirling her foot, staring off.

  He yawned and tugged upward on his belt just above his back pants pockets. “It’s over here.”

  She peeked without raising her head, and he guessed the silent treatment was continuing beyond the car ride. Save for a couple of words—hello and hi as they greeted one another—it was quiet and tense. She had ignored him the entire time by occupying herself with her phone, making it obvious she was mad and didn’t feel like talking. Some of his buddies on the force had warned him about married life, and he was getting a sense of what they meant by it, of how moods were inconsistent with inevitable bickering from being around one person a lot. He chuckled. He felt like a husband, but the laughter was painful. The fighting with her bothered him. His life had been much easier before Marisa had come along.

  Steel walked beside her and led the way to Hector Illiteo’s apartment, but she dropped back and tagged along a few feet behind. The sky swirled different shades of dark gray, light gray, and off-white, preparing itself to pour over the city of Philadelphia. He could smell the rain building up in the damp air, the humidity’s scent like wet, bitter tree pollen. The wind swirled leaves and newspapers throughout the streets. Marisa’s hair blew in all directions as the two of them squinted and walked the street. The loose fabric of their clothing swayed and flapped as they battled the wind gusts.

  The sky rumbled, but the silence between them continued, and it was beginning to piss Steel the fuck off. But he didn’t say anything. Why should he? If anything, Marisa was giving him the cold shoulder. Why would she kiss him, lead him on, and then snub him the next day? What was this woman’s problem? He played it cool, acting as if he wasn’t bothered by it.

  They approached a red brick apartment building. Steel held a hand in front of his face to block the wind. “Right here.”

  Marisa caught up to him and batted her eyes. He held her gaze but didn’t know whether to look away or duck a right hook. She lightly shoved him and smiled. Afterwards, she shook her head, combed her hair with her fingers, and pushed again. “You’re an asshole, you know that, right?”

  He laughed. This time he had no pro
blem deciphering if she was serious or not; he knew she was playing around. “I’m sorry.”

  She smiled.

  In the past few hours, Marisa had gone from steaming mad, to the silent treatment, to playful, flirtatious shoves. Ah, you gotta love women and their ways, he thought. No wonder with all of Stephen Hawking’s achievements he still admitted that women were the biggest mystery of the universe.