The only thing matters on this job is where you eat and where you piss. Honest to God truth, Kid, take my word for it.

My hands stink? Yeah, in a second. Where was I?

Okay already!

So like I'm saying, I'm coming back light from Kennedy when I spot her, that's how it started. Squat off the Five-Niner, just this drunken lunatic I take to Madison and 68th, him babbling in the back. I was afraid the guy was gonna puke his guts out! Tips me five on a three-buck fare. Know what I'm talking about? I deserve it after listening to that bozo rant about this woman walking out 'cause he wouldn't open up his stupid heart. Forget your stupid heart, I'm thinking, gimme a break and shut your stupid mouth!

Madison's still good at that point so I head uptown and at 73rd I see her, hailing like crazy, like she's mad as hell every cab in the city's not instantly in front of her the second she raises her pretty little hand.

You know how you can read from their hail exactly where they're going?

Don't worry, Kid, you will soon enough. You'll read more than you want to know. Trust me on that one, right Mikey? This one's dressed very East Side, leather coat with money dripping off it, I mean literally dripping off it, dark red leather, maroon, yeah, I think that's maroon, matching boots, think of it: boots the color of your friggin' jacket! No luggage, good fare. From her looks and how she's standing I'm guessing 5th in the fifties, maybe Lex or Park higher up. I cut over three lanes and line up the door exactly. That's when this creep she's with marches out and starts yelling. They get into a screaming match right there on Madison. You know the deal, he wants one place, she wants another. I've had couples get in and give different addresses and make me decide. She just wants this clown to get lost. She keeps saying, "I can't believe you did that. I can't believe you sometimes, I really can't."

Eventually he gives in and she climbs in by herself. Usually it's the man who wins those fights, right Mikey?

Well, this guy is vicious, one of those mean bastards who can't stand to lose an argument with a woman. He shouts, "Okay, go back to that loser!"

Yeah, more coffee. You got that right, Babe.

Sure I'll pay for it later. Where you eat and where you piss, but like this passenger says to me, ain't that what life's about? It boils down to deciding where you're gonna eat and where you're gonna piss?

I thought it was very profound.

He was a professor at NYU. The arch on Washington Square, to Christopher off Sheridan Square. Yeah, probably gay. Who the hell else can afford to live down there?

Did I tell you how she greets me? With this address on West End. "Second awning," she says.

I had to ask her to repeat it, I was so shocked, but some guy behind me is going ballistic because I cut him off and nearly forced him into a parked truck He had plenty of room if the idiot knew how to drive. I'm supposed to pass up a good fare?

Enough milk here, thanks Sally.

Will you check out the caboose on that one.

So I drive up Madison and hang a left for the 79th Street transversal. Good fare, had a run of them. Always like that, run of good ones, then bad ones. Make good time cutting through the park, around the museum, and cross-town's no hassle that far up.

Next to twenty-third it's the best. I know you hate that street, Mikey.

Yeah, Kid, we all think we're doing this for a little while. Me, I was supposed to drive a hack for like a month.

How many years ago we talking? How many fare hikes you think I personally lived though? Guess!

More than that, my friend. Way more.

Anyway, with this lady I know to keep my trap shut. I've been doing this long enough to read what they want, and that she gave an exact destination means drive, Buster, no chitchat. That's something I can truly respect.

When we get there she says, "Right here," in a voice that shows gratitude, like there's a tip in her tone of voice. Can you appreciate what I'm saying to you? It was like she whispered it even though she's speaking in a normal voice.

I'm getting to it. Have a little patience. I don't normally tell fare stories, you know that, but wait till the end. You won't be disappointed, I promise you.

I don't even remember the tip she gave me, which says a lot in itself.

And tipping is another myth, ain't it Mikey? Let me tell you, Kid, s'got nothing to do with what you do. I've hauled boxes up three flights and been stiffed. All that matters is the type of fare they are. Single women traveling alone are the worst. Tell me I'm wrong! Best are blue-collar guys who - I'm coming to it. Sheesh!

You know how when some fares leave you still feel them in the cab? You're seeing that, right, Kid? Told you you'll get the hang of it. She left something like a perfume that I couldn't smell. Sure it's crazy. This job makes you crazy. If you don't let it make you crazy you'll go nuts, for sure.

Yeah, he thinks he's going back to that office. Yeah, Mikey, why don't you enlighten our friend here on how we all end up like this? Okay, Kid, I admire your faith. Catch that butt. Give him more coffee. Yeah, bend over and pour it, baby! Sweet!

So, I'm light again for a block and then I get this hail from this guy walking from the same apartment house the woman lived in, hurrying, like he don't want to be seen by anybody. Keeps glancing back to make sure.

I'm not finished with her yet. Have a little patience.

You'll need it in this job.

The guy gives me this address way the hell downtown below SoHo. Below Canal.

Another piece of that crap? Jeez, you can pack it away. I guess at your age you can. Me, behind the wheel all day, the gut just expands. You think it's disgusting to look at? You ought to carry it around all day, day in and day out.

So I fly down Broadway to Canal. Broadway's a beauty sometimes ain't it? Just glide down three lights behind the change to green, that's the trick. The meter's clicking like something beautiful. Man, I tell you, it's a pretty thing when that happens. I feel like Sid Arthur, I told you that story, didn't I? What this passenger says to me, how our jobs are like Sid Arthur, this guy who ran a ferry, catching the lights, downtown and uptown all day, with people who think they're actually going somewhere but really aren't.

I think it's from a book.

Now this guy, he's on some date, dressed up, humming. One of those times you have the greatest job there is, sitting in comfort, shooting the breeze with interesting people while a great city rolls away before you. Like you drop a bunch of uptight businessmen at lunch and think, poor stressed-out suckers are working, I'm just driving them and now I'm off to the next adventure. Yeah, you felt that, Kid? Good. Be happy when you do 'cause it don't come around that often.

So this guy, I smell cologne. Usually I hate cologne, or any perfume, but because I like the guy the scent is extremely pleasant.

I honestly don't think I'm obsessed with smells. The hell you supposed to think about, traffic? How to get through the park? Where the hookers are this lovely evening? Then a funny thing happens, me and this guy. We can't find the address.

"That was what she said," he keeps repeating, staring at this scrap of paper. I turn on the interior light so he can hold it up to read better.

The guy was so disappointed, like he was gonna cry. It was a woman's address, and she gave it to him. I mean, he can't believe it.

"Can you call," I ask. "Call your friend?"

I can be very diplomatic when I have to. It's part of the job.

"Don't have her number," he tells me. "Just this address."

We try variations, twist the numbers around, backwards, frontwards, even though the woman wrote it herself.

"I can't fucking believe this," the guy says, finally. We're before an apartment house, and he looks at the top floors. They're all lit up, and they look so welcoming, especially if someone you want to see is up there waiting for you.

"It's probably just as well," he says. "Let's head back uptown."

I should be happy because it's another good fare - a long run that'll leave me in a nice spot, relaxing uptown drive, no cruising to get it, best of all possible worlds, even though I won't get the drop but what the hell, let's not get greedy here. Hey, usually long runs bring you out to some God-forsaken part of Queens and you have to dead-head back to the city or take a shot at the airports.

I know you love the airports, Mikey. Least you can take a piss in the parking lot.

So my guy, doesn't say a word all the way uptown. Now, this is what's funny. You never hear the whole story, just parts, like the woman on Madison - I'll get to her in a second. You won't believe it when you hear it. I begin to think I jinxed the guy who went downtown and came back up, you get superstitious this line of work, I mean, so much depends on chance. How much you book, even the danger, no matter how good you get at sizing people up. Think of the odds, Kid, someone leaving an apartment this second instead of two seconds later, and you passing just then to catch the hail. Even if some paranoid psycho with a meat cleaver climbs in while you're waiting out a red. In the long run it evens out. That's what this Sid Arthur guy was telling me, in a nutshell.

So my guy gets out, on the corner I picked him up, a block from where I figure he lives. He was expecting a lovely night, probably a roll in the hay, who the hell knows. After he's out I cruise down West End to midtown. Always head to midtown, Kid. I cut over, maybe hit Lincoln Center, and get this hail, and wouldn't you know it, it's the Madison Avenue lady. Walking from the apartment house I dropped her off at.

And she's so furious it's like steam's coming out of her ears.

She has me take her back to Madison and 73rd. I get the drop, always good to be heavy, do the park at 66th, uptown on Madison.

Just top it off, Sally.

That is one sweet butt. Hey! For a piece of that cake!

I'm coming to it! Take a chill pill, Friend.

So we get there, and get this. She don't pay me. And me, I'm so wrapped up in her I say nothing. Like it's expected, the way paying is when they pay you.

Now, here it comes. Sit tight.

What I'm getting to is that she has a - lean in, okay? I'm not shouting this to the whole place - she has a gun. Honest to God.

And she takes it with her as she storms down the street into one of those ritzy townhouses between Madison and Fifth.

I'm shaking, like when that maniac put a gun to my neck and stole my bookings for the night.

I pull over. I had to.

Don't ask.

Some jerk knocks on the window. I wave him off, like I'm "off-duty." Yeah, they can't read. And they're the ones supposedly with the college education, tell me about it. Like a minute later the lady comes out and climbs in. She knew I'd be waiting.

She doesn't say a word. I smell something (I know, I'm ultra sensitive to odors. Yeah, right). It smells like a match, after it burns out.

It was the gun.

Told ya!

I give it the gas up Madison and that second a cop car swings the wrong way down Madison. I don't panic. I keep moving at a natural pace, for a cab, racing to make the light. In the mirror I see two other cop cars, one speeding the wrong way down 73rd.. They park at crazy angles in front of the townhouse. Rush out, guns drawn.

The lady watches but she don't react, just says, "Can we get out of here, please."

The voice is the same, a regular voice like a whisper.

"Count on it," I say. It was like we had become very close friends.

Did I mention the police ignore me? Cabs are part of the city, they blend in. That's why they use them for undercover work, this cop told me, the night I got held up. Anyway, she gives me the address on West End, same second awning. I shoot over, making the lights. Damn, I'm good. Like Sid Arthur, East Side, West Side, back again.

That's when it crosses my stupid thick skull that I'm driving around with a probably crazy lady who has a gun, who probably just killed someone. But I'm not afraid. I size people up real good. In some ways, sizing people up is the most important aspect to this line of work. After eating and pissing, I mean.

We're almost there and she says, "Tell me about your last fare. Describe it to me."

I don't think under the circumstances I should tell the truth, about a guy who must have known her, by how he was looking back. But at that particular moment in time my main concern is keeping this lady from going postal on me.

So I tell her about the downtown guy, the look on his face when the address turned out to be a phony.

"It doesn't matter," she says.

"What?" I say.

"You heard me" is all she says, in the same whispery voice.

We're in front of her building by now. And get this: she doesn't pay me. Again. Just says, "Here," and hands the gun through the partition.

I'm serious.

It's heavier than I expect, very sweaty - she was probably gripping it all the way from Madison. Strange feeling her sweat. I can't say I hated it though.

She says, "Take care of this for me, will you?"

"You know I will." I say.

My heart was pounding so loud you could hear it in Chinatown.

She opens the door and she's gone. I'm wondering what's going on in her life, but you never really know about other people's lives. Or your own, for that matter. Where you eat and where you piss is all you can make book on. Tell me I'm lying to you?

The hell you think I did with it? Am I nuts? I - closer, I'm not screaming this - I blast down to Riverside Park, passing terrific hails, and onto the West Side Highway. I park in a parking area and toss the gun into the river. I'm paranoid someone'll see me, but cars just breeze by. My hands smell of that powder. That's why I had to wash up when I came in. You can't smell anything, right? Then I just have time for a quick leak and get my ass over here to eat with you guys.

So that's it, I have no idea what happened, but I'm open to theories. Just keep your voice down.

Told ya, Kid? I don't know what to make of it, but it was the scariest thing ever happened to me, including the night I got robbed, though sort of similar in a funny way.

Smell my hands. Nothing, right?