So one night I parked my car in front of the Central Station in Bucharest and waited. Two ?clients? ? a very fat one and an African one ? jumped on me at the same time. I got greedy and proposed to serve them both in turn. Prompted by my deeply seated sense of national hospitality I offered to take the foreigner first to his destination. On the way it dawned on me that there was something fishy about the Romanian passenger, because he kept pestering me about breaching traffic rules, which in full honesty I did, given the streets were desert. When we arrived at the Student Dorm in the Regie Campus, where the African was getting off, he gave me a 10 lei note, which was ludicrously little. I had a moment?s inspiration to refuse it, arguing that I had only done it for humanitarian reasons?My argument didn?t seem to be very convincing, so the Romanian guy produced a police ID card (he was a police officer no less) and ordered me to drive to the Traffic Police Headquarters in Udriste Street. On the precincts he couldn?t quite prove the crime, so I got away with it, innocent-till-guilty-as proven fashion. They did however take my name and plate number down, which counted as a warning.

Obviously enough, a couple of days on, I started playing with fire again. On the night of  31 of December 1984, around 21.30 I stopped at a crossroads where the traffic was really intense and waited for whoever may have been late for the New Year?s Eve Party. In less than 2 hours, with just a couple of clients I would have made some really nice money; the time was just perfect because they were ready to pay just as much as I asked, for fear they might have to spend the New Year?s Eve on the streets. Hardly had I stopped at the spot when this man came up to me and asked me what I charged to take him to Udriste Street (where the Traffic Police Headquarters was). I felt shivers down my spine at the thought that I had come across another policeman eager to take my name down in a register. So I just put on this really angry face, like who do you think I am, I?m not one of those, forget it, saying that I was actually waiting for someone. But he couldn?t take no for an answer, he kept pushing, I asked him to let me be, it was cold, I had to shut the window. At which point there came his wife with an elaborate hair-do, carrying a huge cake in her arms. So I understood they really were desperate clients looking for a taxi; then they let me know they actually wanted to reach a side street close to Udriste Street, but he had first indicated that, because the address was a landmark no driver would have mistaken.