They Call Me...Montey Greene

Chapter Fifty Two

BLACK BEANS. Sweet-sweet plantains. Yellow rice. Cuban comfort food. Las Olas Café. You can't think of one, be in Miami, and not visit the blue awnings on the corner of 6th Street and Euclid Avenue.

That's where Montey Greene was now enjoying just that.

To say it felt surreal would be an understatement of sizable proportions. The thought of feeling the humidity of tropical weather and seeing turquoise water had never even entered his mind, as that space had been occupied with visions of brownstone buildings, concrete sidewalks, funky smelling subways, and the sound of little feet jumping on the futon mattress in his matchbox sized apartment back in New York.

But as it often happens in life, the best laid plans don't always go according to plan. And Montey's plan to take a vacation with some friends had gone off the rails damn near the moment he stepped off that plan in Milan, Italy five months ago. And he was still riding on a train with no tracks beneath it.

Montey was wondering how it all came down to this as his mind flashed back to how he came to meet Alejandra and her father, Juan Carlos Lasprilla in the first place.

In the last ninety-six hours Montey and Alejandra had avoided being run down by a car in Paris, inadvertently caught a body at the Ritz Carlton and found themselves wheels-up riding a strong tail-wind to the States. The rear wheels of the Gulfstream G550 private jet touched down on the wet tarmac at Opa Locka Executive Airport, ten miles north of downtown Miami in southern Florida, hours ago. Guess Gerald must really like sucking ass Montey remembered thinking when the golden haired boy with the Aussie accent personally picked them up from the mansion in Fontainebleau and put them on his personal plane himself when he found out about the freelance fashion journalist who wanted to do a write-up on Alejandra for Ocean Drive Magazine's, Emerging Latina's International Issue, coming out the following spring.

So that's where she was, at 404 Washington Avenue to be precise, partaking in that interview. And Montey was here. In this packed café. Enjoying the simple things in life, all because guilt could be a bitch.

Montey Greene may have been about fifteen-hundred miles away from where he really wanted to be but there was no way in hell that he was going to have his feet touching U.S. soil and not find his way to New York. Not after being stuck in Europe for the past five-six months; not after being shot up and left for dead, almost sliced into sushi, chased down by drivers with harmful intent, getting the creepy-crawlies having to always look over his shoulders all the time, and the abduction of his family which he felt forced him into doing a job he didn't want in the first place. There was no way this side of Sunday that Montey wasn't going to find his way to New York. Damn the money Juan Carlos was paying him and all that. He would deal with those repercussions later.

At the moment, it was the phone vibrating on the table next to his plate that needed his immediate attention. He briefly glanced at the international number that flashed on his screen as he hit the speaker phone icon.

"You're done already?"

"Just about," Alejandra paused then asked, "Why do you sound like that?"

"I'm over at Las Olas Cafe."

"Oohh, could you pick me up something?"

"Sure, what are you in the mood for?"

"A Cuban sandwich and coffee would be fine."

"You want a hot coffee in this weather? I could never begin to understand that," he said not aware of all the people who were in the cafe drinking small cups of hot coffee until he felt their eyes on him.

"Ice coffee," she stated.

"Aiight, cool. Just don't come downstairs until I get there. I'll call you when I'm close."

Montey hung up the phone. Took in all the shades of all the faces filtering in and out of that café. He wasn't exactly home, but he was back home.