So Normie picks me up for the first time and takes me out to JFK via the Battery Tunnel. I'm unimpressed by the car, as it is a slightly tatty Lincoln Town Car. I'm getting spoilt by this time, as I've had a stretch limo allocated for the last few rides.

I notice that when he stops to pay the tolls, Normie has to open the car door and hold up his four dollars, making sure to get a receipt so he can put in his claim. He explains that the electric window is broken and the guys in the garage want to charge him fifty dollars to put it right. At that price he can wait.

Nothing much more is said until after he takes a call on the mobile. The call doesn't amount to much. He's just explaining to someone where he is, what time he'll free up and where he'll collect them.

Of course, I don't ask for an explanation, but for some reason he wants to give me the whole story. Maybe he just wants to give vent to his gratitude.

Normie is probably late fifties, small, wiry and tough as a nut.

"That guy there who I was talking to, he saved my life."

"Really?" I say, encouraging him - this is not the standard small talk icebreaker.

"He certainly did. Let me tell you what he did for me. Six months ago I was flat broke. I'd been a driver all my life and made good money year in, year out. I had my own car and I was used by all the best firms in town. Then I listened to a guy with a proposition - I'm not telling you what business he was proposing but I'll just say he was promising me a very nice return for some cash up front."

"He must have seen me coming. I trusted him with more than I should have. I can see that now, but I was blinded by his smart talk. Anyway, while I was out driving every day, unknown to me he was losing my money. And not only losing it, but committing me to all kinds of other payments that neither of us had the money to make."

"Bottom line, he was the lowest form of life, and by the time I woke up to the fact I had lost my house and my car and was up to my neck in debt. If I'd have caught up with him, I'd have ended up in jail too."

"So now I'm living in a heap over in Brooklyn, with my wife screaming at me every day. None of the limo firms will touch me because I haven't got a car and word has got around about what I've been involved in."

"That's where this guy on the telephone comes in. I hear from a friend that the guy is a straight-up honest businessman, who will listen to a proposition if there's a reasonable return in it for him. I take him for a drink one night and I say to him:"

"I don't know much about business, but I know about cars. I've been working with them for the best part of forty years. You take me to a garage and I can tell you at a glance which cars are worth the asking price and which ones have been painted and patched to make a markup. Better than that, I can take you to the workshops that the big limo firms use and get a trade price on a good quality vehicle, a car that will pay back its price in six months."

By this time I've started to get his interest, so I go on.

"To make a car pay back in six months, you need the right person driving it, someone who knows the people to work for and the people to avoid. Someone who knows which fares to accept and which ones to let someone else pick up."

"If you ask around you'll find that no-one knows this trade better than I do. So here's my proposition."

"I take you to a garage I know and ask you to buy a tidy Town Car for 8,000. Right away you've made a minimum of 2,000 dollars because if anything goes wrong with our arrangement you can take that same car to a lot down the street and pick up 10,000 dollars from a dealer who is going to put it out the following day with a 14,000 dollar sticker."

"But I'm not talking about you making 2,000 dollars. I'm talking about you making three times that amount because of the repayments I'll be making to you every week out of my income as a limo driver".

"At this point he wants to see some figures, so I work it out for him right there on a bar napkin, showing him how much I can earn from a trip to the airports working for one of the big firms and how many of these trips I can do in a day."

"I tell him how I'm not afraid of working hard and meeting the early flights that the younger drivers don't want to get out of bed for. Then he tells me that he can't see how he can lose on this deal, as he already trusts me to make the payments as I described. The next day I take him to the garage, where he buys me this car."

"By the afternoon, I've made some calls and Normie's back in business. And in the past six months not only have I been able to make the repayments on schedule, I've also been able to move us to a better apartment and start putting something aside. Because the way I figure it, I can't go on driving forever. And that is the reason why when this guy gives me a call and is looking for a car ride home, I'll go out of my way to oblige him."

We are at Kennedy Airport by now. I tip Normie ten dollars, check in and make my way to the ten foot glass cage where smokers can be smokers in these enlightened times.

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