Call Me a Cab

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She hailed me on East 62nd Street, not far from Bloomingdale’s. She was an attractive girl, wearing big-lensed sunglasses against the June glare, and carrying two plaid suitcases, one of which she waggled at me as I rolled down the street. “Say ‘Kennedy,’ ” I whispered, and eased the cab to a stop.

Opening the rear door, she shoved the suitcases in first, then followed, slammed the door, shoved the sunglasses up on top of her head, and said, “Kennedy.”

“You got it,” I said, and started the meter with a smile. Not only is the long expensive run from Manhattan out to John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens one of the joys of a cabby’s life, but there’s no pleasanter way to drive anywhere than with a good-looking woman in the rearview mirror.

Unless, of course, she’s crazy. And in this instance the early signs were not good. This girl did not sit back in the seat as I started off, nor did she cross her legs and look out at the passing world, nor did she take a compact from her shoulder bag so she could study the present condition of her face; all the normal things a good-looking young woman does when settling down alone for a long cab ride. What she did do was talk to herself, muttering phrases I couldn’t quite hear. And she kept putting her hands up to both sides of her face like the blinkers on a horse, running her fingers through her long brown hair and then tossing the hair backward in a heavy double wave. And she frowned a lot, and made strange unpleasant faces, and stared at the floor or at the back of my neck. And sat forward on the seat, very tense and upset.

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