"NICE GIRL, YES?" stated Maria as Montey sat down in his usual seat besides that little table dividing the two chairs up against the building on that cater-corner of Via Lamberto de Bernardi and Viale Majno.
"Very nice."
Maria chuckled.
"What?" asked the man with freshly patched up bullet holes in his back.
The last thing Montey wanted to do was chit-chat, but all things considered, he felt it was best to proceed as normal. If Maria wanted to talk, he would talk. And somewhere along that conversation trail he would find a fork in the road that veered off upstairs to his flat where he just wanted to rest in the comfort in what had become his bed.
"I was young once," Maria started. "Those were the days. Meet a stranger. A one night stand turns into a lifetime of laundry."
Now Montey chuckled, albeit a painful one.
"A lifetime of laundry huh?" He paused before asking out of genuine curiosity. "So what happened?
"Love," the sixty-five year old caretaker of the building replied. "Love and life"
"Love?" Montey sat up straight in his chair. The throbbing of the bullets wounds in his back jumped to the furthest corners of his pain threshold. "So where is this mister—?"
"D'Alessio?" Maria blurted her surname out as if she had been anticipating the question.
Montey let the last name of the man he thought was from Maria's youth roll off his tongue.
"Ha-ha, I like that. So where is he?"
"That is where life comes in. We were not blessed to have children, but we did well for ourselves. This building...this building is the one piece of property I have not had to sell."
The bright glow that had filled Montey's face diminished. He was expecting a happy story. One that could impart on him an elder's wisdom, from a female perspective no less, in regards to his own situation back home. But this began to feel like anything but.
"I'm sorry to hear that," Montey solemnly responded.
"No, there is nothing to be sorry for," Maria assured him assertively. "We had forty-seven beautiful springs together and not a drop of dew was every spilt. Four plus decades and not one argument or disagreement," she went on. "We never as so much raised our voice to one another. Like I said, life."
Montey sat there silent, mesmerized be the authority in which Maria spoke her words. She didn't appear to be sad or upset, just telling a straight up matter-of-fact story.
"If you don't mind me asking, when—"
"Three years ago this August."
Again Money felt the words being snatched from his mouth before he could even complete his verbal thought.
That's when a Mercedes pulled up. A man got out that Montey recognized as the driver who transported him from the airport seven days ago to the building he was now sitting in front of. The man was carrying a box of sweets and cups of coffee and tea from what had become Montey's favorite spot courtesy of Maria, Sant' Ambroeus.
"Where have you been hiding out Yankee?" asked the man handing Montey the cup of tea.
"This one is a fast one," Maria teased. "He's got himself a lady friend already."
"Lucky you. You missed all the excitement. Some psycho decided to make the square by the opera house his personal shooting gallery a few days past."
"Really?" asked Montey acting surprised.
"Miraculously there were no casualties."
"Miraculously." Then Montey asked, "What do I call you?"
"The Driver," the man who drove Montey from the airport responded.
"The Driver? Seriously?" Montey turned to Maria with a puzzled look on his face, "Is he serious?"
Maria just shrugged her shoulder, raised her brows and gave Montey a just-ignore-him-look.
The man who called himself The Driver just smiled as he got back in his car and pulled off.
"Now that was weird," Montey said out loud to himself.
Then Maria raised her cup of coffee, "To life. Love—"
"And friends in foreign places," Montey finished off the toast. "Is his name really The Driver?" he couldn't help but ask again.
"That's what the man calls himself. I've never made an argument out of it. Makes for a quicker conversation."
Montey took another sip of his tea and then told Maria, "And for the record. You're still young. I'm gonna start callin' you Madonna. Got yourself a lil' errand boy with a crazy name fetching you treats and everything."
"I tell myself that every day."
"That's wassup." Money paused. Pulled out his phone. Scrolled through his text messages creating that fork in the road. "I'm gonna head upstairs and relax before Annette and Daniel get here."
"Sounds like a good idea. Knowing those two, they will probably want to run you around with you being holed up with that girl for the past few days."
"Yeah I bet." Montey grabbed his duffle bag as he stood up. "Thanks for the tea and sweets." Then he disappeared through the building's entrance.