After exiting the train, Liz made her way up the escalator to the taxi stand, took her place in line, and finally secured a yellow cab. Once inside, she told the driver her aunt’s address. Then she said, “I wonder if you could answer a few questions for me? I’m a reporter working on a missing person’s case and I’d like to know how to identify who was driving a certain cab at a particular time.”
It was unclear if the cabbie’s heavy accent was affected or if he genuinely had trouble understanding her. What was certain was that he would not answer her question.
Arriving at her aunt’s address, Liz requested a receipt before getting out of the cab. The driver took out a pad of receipts and filled one out by hand.
“Why aren’t you printing one from the meter?” Liz demanded.
“Not working,” he said, driving off as soon as Liz was clear of the cab.
The hand-written receipt delivered far less information than did the printed one.
After an evening of laughter and delicious dining with Janice, Liz rose early and phoned the telephone number on the taxi receipt. It seemed the “Consumer Hotline” was hot indeed, since it was constantly busy. When half an hour of calling kept producing a busy signal, Liz decided to seek out another cabdriver.
At Janice’s street corner, she hailed a cab. Once inside, she began with a less honest conversational gambit.
Giving the driver an address located far downtown, Liz turned her smile on him and said, “I wonder if you could help me? I’m writing a book with a taxi driver as the hero. Just one of his good qualities is his helpfulness when a woman leaves a diamond ring in his car. I’m trying to find out what a driver like you would do if he found something valuable in his car.”
“I would turn it in, of course.”
“Where would you turn it in, I wonder?”
“At the nearest precinct.”
“Do you mean a police station?”
“If it was valuable, yes. Sometimes I also have called people on the phone, you know, when they drop something like a wallet that has an address in it. Then I meet them in a coffee shop and return it myself.”
“What a nice thing to do!” Liz enthused.
“Well, honestly, I sometimes get a reward if I do it in person. So it pays to be nice. Of course, it isn’t always a happy ending like that. It all depends on the next rider. After someone loses something in the cab, it is usually the next passenger who finds it, not the cabdriver. We can’t check the backseat every time someone gets out of our cab.”
“Of course not. Do you ever take things back to the dispatcher’s office?”
“We’re hail-only in New York.”
“What?”
“We don’t need dispatchers in Manhattan. People flag us down in the street.”
“What about your garage?”
“I don’t have one. I’m independent. I got my own vehicle. I park this at my place at night, not at some garage. That’s why I take valuables to the precinct. I guess drivers that work from garages might take valuables to their bosses.”
The cab came to a halt in traffic.
“If I gave you a printed receipt, could you tell me which garage the cab came from?” Liz asked. She handed the driver the copy of Ellen’s receipt.
“For that, you have to call the number on the receipt.”
“It’s always busy. Could you radio in and get the information for me?”
The driver hesitated.
“I’ll pay double for this ride.”
That decided it. The driver pulled over, and with the cab idling and the meter running, he took his time gathering the information.
“Do you know where that taxi garage is located?” Liz asked.
“You should’da asked me that when you got in my cab. It’s a block from where you got in.”
“Would you mind turning around and taking me there?”
“The things people will do for a story!” the driver said. “You realize it’s quite a few blocks, in traffic? And at double the fare, it’ll cost ya.”
“No problem. With this receipt, should I be able to find out who was driving a certain cab during a particular trip?”
“If it was my cab, they could. Like I told you, this is my vehicle. Unless I’m on vacation and I rent it to another driver when I’m away, I’m the one driving it. If you called the number on the receipt, they’d ask you the medallion number. That’s my cab. The taxi commission would point you to me. But, like I said, it isn’t always up to me to find your valuables. You’re outta luck when you lose something if the next rider doesn’t turn it in.”
“I see. I’m not too worried about valuables. What if you drove a cab from a garage? Then how would I know if you were the driver at a particular time?”
“You can ask at the garage. Here it is,” he said pulling up to the curb.
The taxi garage was located next door to a red-painted building that looked like it had been custom built as the subject for an Edward Hopper painting. A lone customer sat absorbed in the New York Post behind the plate glass window, which was painted with a salmon-pink image of a minaret and the words “Fabulous Falafel” in bright blue lettering.
Liz passed by the felafel shop and made her way into the garage. There, two mechanics, supine under a battered taxi, leered at Liz, behaving far more like alpha males than did the Banner’s mailers. One of them directed Liz to an office at the far end of the work area. On her way past the men, Liz tried, with difficulty, to feign interest in the surroundings. There wasn’t much to catch the eye: a few out-of-date license plates, a vending machine offering “Salted Peanuts: 25 cents,” and a girlie calendar.
The office held more to look at, as Liz soon learned. As she entered the room, its sole occupant signaled her to wait while he carried on a heated telephone conversation with a taxi driver.
“I’m telling you, my friend, that’s how it is,” he said. “You either get in here with that cab this minute and turn it over to the guy on the next shift, or I consider you on duty and earning. Don’t give me a song and dance about being in the boroughs. I don’t care if you’re at Montauk Point,” he added, referring to the easternmost point of 118-mile-long Long Island. “You’re due in now, pal. And make sure your cab’s clean. I’ve had two complaints in the last three weeks about your filthy trunk.”
Liz took the opportunity to look around the office and found it to be well organized. Keys to cabs were hung on numbered cup hooks screwed into one wall. Below the keys was a system of open cubbyholes, each one labeled with a driver’s last name. Another wall was hung with fan belts, numerous family photos of the man in the office and his brood, and an oil painting of Mount Fuji, done in flaming hues that suggested either a violent sunset or an ongoing eruption of this symbol of Japan.
Slamming down the phone, and shrugging his shoulder in the direction of the painting, the garage manager said, “One of our drivers painted that.”
“It’s pretty good.”
“Yeah? Maybe for a guy from Canarsie who’s never been east of Queens. Frankly, I think he got the Jap mountain mixed up with the Eye-talian one. You know, Mount Vesuvius. The thing looks ready to blow.”
“Or like it’s already flowing with lava,” Liz laughed.
“You didn’t come in here to discuss art. What’s on your mind?”
“I’m here because I’m writing a mystery novel. . .”
“I don’t want anything to do with that.”
“Please, hear me out. I’ve got a taxi driver in my book—who saves the day. But before he does, he gets in some hot water. I don’t want him to be too goody-goody, you know, because then it won’t be surprising if he’s the hero.”