They Call Me...Montey Greene

Chapter Fifty Six

IT WAS ROUGHLY eight-thirty in the evening when the plane touched down at Teterboro airport in New Jersey. During the flight, if Montey wasn't dozing off, he was constantly replaying everything in his mind. If everything was as Juan Carlos suggested, then this should be a walk in the park. But the way his luck had been running it wouldn't surprise him if he got stopped by some state troopers the moment he pulled the hundred-thousand dollar vehicle out the yard. If he was going to be spotted in such a car the least he could do was dress the part. So, forty-five minutes out Montey changed clothes putting on the same outfit that he wore to Alejandra's fashion show in Paris all the way down to the Cartier watch and shoes.

Then there was a matter of the guns he had in his bag, both which he knew for sure were the property of Federal Agents in Italy. Montey thought about contacting his friends Caesar and Marley to let them know that he was finally coming home but then figured he'd just hit the block unannounced.

The Maserati Quattroporte was awaiting him just like Juan Carlos said—Montey had seen it from the windows of the plane as it taxied to the hangar next to the Meridian Terminal. Most people would be happy that they were living the high life, but when it came with a casts of lowlifes in the same breath it could wear on even the sturdiest of souls. Such was Montey's case when he stepped off the plane and slid into the wine colored luxury vehicle, the same color as the Bentley in Paris.

Juan Carlos must have a penchant for this color Montey was thinking as he rapped his knuckles on the glass: it returned the same sound as the windows on the Audi in Milan and Bentley in Paris. "He wasn't lying about the windows," he uttered under his breath. Curiosity found him turning the windshield wiper switch counter-clockwise like Juan Carlos mentioned, when nothing happened he let out a slight chuckle to himself shaking his head. "Just what I thought," he uttered again as he put the key in the ignition bringing the car to life. That's when he heard a quick wind-up sound from a mini electronic motor and something brushed his left thigh.

He looked to see a gun handle set at a forty-five degree angle that popped out the compartment slightly below the door handle—it was similar to how a gas tank door pops open.

"Oh shit, James Bond out this muthafucka," Montey said aloud. He chuckled half-heartedly then pulled the car out the hangar.

He exited the airport onto Industrial Avenue, found his way to I-95 North, shot over the George Washington Bridge heading towards Manhattan. Normally he would have found his way to the Grand Central Parkway traveling through the borough of Queens to get to the borough of Kings, but it had been almost a six month stretch since he last had a foot in New York and he wanted to at least take in the sights and sounds during the waning hours of a humid August night.

Upon clearing the toll both into New York, he then took the exit that merged with the Henry Hudson Parkway only to jump off at 125th Street so he could cruise down Riverside Drive. Ironically, he didn't want the radio on; he just wanted to hear the sounds of the city and the sound of that V-8 engine purring when he stepped on the gas. He was relaxed. He was back in his city. He felt he could loosen up his tie so to speak.

Riverside Drive was considered to be some of the most beautiful stretches of neighborhoods in all of New York City's five boroughs. Montey often fantasized about living in an affluent neighborhood such as this while growing up as a broke teenager. Even with the money Juan Carlos had paid him, and the promised million dollar payday he had coming when he completed this one last favor for the man he presumed had his family kidnapped, Montey would still only be a renter in a neighborhood such as this the way real estate prices had skyrocketed over the decades.

He drove south down the drive along the Hudson River all the while waiting for that phone to ring. He had no idea when it would or where he was even supposed to meet this Raul character, but truth be told it didn't matter for at this very moment he was Brooklyn bound, so he already felt free. When he got to 72nd Street he jumped onto the West Side Highway, journeyed south on what would become West Street, turned left on Canal Street, made another left on Centre Street, continued on to Delancey Street which took him over the Williamsburg Bridge into the Borough of Kings.

Exiting the bridge he took a sharp right onto Broadway, turned right when he got to Kent Avenue, made a third right when he got to North 7th Street then made a left onto Bedford Avenue.

It was one of those nice muggy summer nights and as he expected the streets were jammed with pedestrians, the restaurants and cafes that symbolized the gentrification process in this neighborhood were overflowing with patrons. The grocery store-deli his friends Caesar and Marley owned was coming up on his left. He could see the red and white awning with the Lotto and ATM logo's plastered on the side— Montey's apartment was two windows about that.

He could really go without seeing them for a little while longer, at least until he got back from his old apartment on South Portland Avenue in the Clinton Hill-Fort Greene section where his wife and kids still resided. Dropping off his bag and grabbing the keys to his old apartment so he could shoot over there to see what the hell was going on were priorities 1 and 1A. He really didn't want to stop and talk. A car such as the one he was driving was bound to draw attention, even in an uppity-trendy neighborhood such as this. So, instead of taking the vacant parking space he eyed in front of the store as he crept into the intersection at 8th Street, he made a left turn at the last second parking around the corner.

Montey Greene stepped out of the car, grabbed his bag from the back seat, fished his house keys out of the inside pocket as he hurried back around the corner to Bedford. Even if he caught a glimpse of Caesar, Marley or one of their store clerk relatives through the large pane glass storefront windows, it would probably take more than a few seconds for them to realize it was him dressed as he was and without his trusted Yankee fitted cap perched on his head.

He pushed his key into the keyhole of the red door covered with multi-colored graffiti spray painted balloons and bounded up the stairs on the other side of the vestibule two at a time.

Maybe he was upstairs for five minutes, six if you want to count him having to hit the head to drain the snake. He caught a glimpse of himself in the medicine cabinet mirror as he rushed out the bathroom and paused—damn, he looked like shit. He didn't know if the bags under his eyes were the result of sleep deprivation or the fact he had been crying inside for months but unable to shed a tear. Now he found himself back behind the wheel of the red-wine colored Italian import traveling west on Dekalb Avenue. When he got to South Portland he made a left and pulled over behind the red three wheel enclosed-cabin scooter with the words to some kind of Renovation Company stenciled on the side.

Now that he was here he couldn't bring himself to get out the car. He sat there peering through the windshield looking up at that parlor floor window of the building with the number 4 above the doorway. The lights weren't on. He looked at his watch; it was a little after ten. Even though Montey knew the house phone had been disconnected months ago he pulled out his cellphone and called it anyway, nothing had changed. Then he tried his wife's cellphone getting the same result. Finally he worked up the nerve to get out the car.

He looked up and down the block as he headed to the building. Not because he felt he was being followed like in Paris and Milan but simply because he was in that New York state of mind, near Fort Greene-Brooklyn, on a hot-sticky-humid August night, where a whole lot of shit could go wrong when the natives got restless as evidenced by the shots he heard volleying on the Myrtle Avenue side of Fort Greene Park. As he bounded up the stairs he could hear the humming and water dripping from the air conditioner placed in the window. He could tell it was on full blast, somebody had to be home.