http://www.nydailynews.com/front/v-echo/story/460022p-386913c.html
He's the cabbie from heaven
BY JIM RICH
NEWS DEPUTY SUNDAY SPORTS EDITOR
We've all heard about cabbies from hell. Here's a story about one from heaven.
It was a rainy Wednesday night. My girlfriend and I were getting out of a cab at 47th St. and Ninth Ave. I paid the fare and tip, darted out of the cab, and we dodged the raindrops and ran into the corner deli. We were on our way to a friend's house to watch the Yankees playoff game and had stopped to pick up some beverages.
When I went to pay the cashier, I realized I had left my wallet in the cab - and $1,400 that I had won that week in Atlantic City was in it.
I dashed out of the deli and down ninth Ave. There were what seemed like a million taxis waiting at red lights between 47th and 44th Sts. I began frantically flinging open any cab door I could get my hands on.
I couldn't find my cabbie.
My head began throbbing, and I was overcome by the urge to vomit.
I spent the next 36 hours of intermittent nausea canceling credit cards, closing bank accounts - there was a slip with my account number in the wallet - buying new MetroCards and resigning myself to the fact that I was never going to see that $1,400 again.
Then Daniel Carou drove back into my life.
By chance, Carou had spotted my billfold on his backseat while he was sitting in traffic at 42nd St. minutes after dropping me off. He drove back to 47th, but I had already headed down ninth Ave., cursing as I made my way toward my apartment in Chelsea.
But instead of celebrating his windfall, Carou spent two days trying to track me down.
"I looked in the wallet and saw all the money, and thought, 'This man has to pay rent. I have to return this to him,'" said the 52-year-old Argentinian, who came to the U.S. in 1978 and has been driving a cab "on and off" since 1986.
On Thursday, he went to the police, who told him to try the address on my driver's license. He drove to 21st Ave., in Astoria, Queens, only to find I hadn't lived there in two years.
Undeterred, he looked through the wallet again and found my Daily News identification card. Carou left his number on Friday morning at the front desk of The News' building on 33rd St. I got in touch with him that afternoon, and by 9 p.m., my wallet - and the $1,400 - was back in my hands.
When I offered to give Carou some of the cash as a reward for his honesty and effort, he declined. He said he once had his own wallet returned to him after losing it on a street near his Brooklyn home and he was happy to return the favor for somebody else.
"I didn't want any money," he said. "I just wanted to see the person's face when I handed them the wallet."
Originally published on October 9, 2006 <p>
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"he is the godamn batman! thats why! if he can breath in space you damn bet he can wear a panty on his head!" glu-glu</div></p>