A collection of five stories involving cab drivers in five different cities. Los Angeles - A talent agent for the movies discovers her cab driver would be perfect to cast, but the cabbie is reluctant to give up her solid cab driver’s career. New York - An immigrant cab driver is continually lost in a city and culture he doesn’t understand. Paris - A blind girl takes a ride with a cab driver from the Ivory Coast and they talk about life and blindness. Rome - A gregarious cabbie picks up an ailing man and virtually talks him to death. Helsinki - an industrial worker gets laid off and he and his compatriots discuss the bleakness and unfairness of love and life and death.
1: A blind woman plays a deadly game of survival 2: The blinds moving up and down. . .the squeaking shoes. . .and then the knife whistling past her ear. . .
Plot Summary:
After an airplane trip, a young woman asks Susie’s husband, Sam, to keep a doll for her to avoid spoiling the surprise of her daughter’s gift. But the real reason is to avoid her partner, Harry Roat, whom she hopes to cheat of the drugs hidden in the doll. Harry discovers her treachery, murders her and leaves the body in Susie’s apartment, where he has tracked Sam and the doll. He concocts an elaborate plan, involving Mike and Carlino, small-time hoods, to get Susie, who recently lost her sight in a fire, to reveal the doll’s hiding place. They lure Sam away and take advantage of Susie’s blindness, posing as an old friend, a police detective, and a father-son pair of eccentrics. Susie eventually catches on and, with the help of her young neighbor, Gloria, shows everyone that she is indeed “a world-class blind lady.”
