Free Interview With a Jewish Vampire by Erica Manfred Page B

Let’s hail a cab to sit in,” Charlene suggested, like the half-Jewish princess that she was. “We’ll wait for Sheldon to come out of that building. It’s almost sundown. He probably goes out at night, wouldn’t ya think?” Charlene asked me. “You told me he works at night.”
    “ It’s forty cents a minute. We could be here for hours,” I complained.
    “ I’ll spring for the fare,” Karen offered. “I just got a job on Wall Street. Hedge fund manager.”
    “ What kind of job is that for a witch?” I asked.
    “ The best kind. I’ll be a rich witch.”
    “ OK, if he doesn’t come out in an hour we’ll go in and look for him.”
    “ You’ll go in,” Charlene said.
    The cabdriver’s ID said Khalid Mohammed. He had a menacing look and a prayer rug next to him in the passenger seat. If I’d been sitting next to him on a plane I would have checked out his midsection for explosives. I was nervous. What would he think of three women sitting in the back of a cab in Crown Heights casing a building with blackout curtains?
    When I told him we just wanted to sit here he took it as an invitation to interrogate us. Unfortunately he spoke English—with a thick Brooklyn accent.
    “ So, whadda three nice girls like you doin’ in a dump like this?” he asked. “You should be clubbin’ in Brooklyn Heights. How’s about I take you to this high rollin’ club I know about. Lotsa older guys there. Gamblin’ in the back room. You might meet a guy with moolah.”
    Was this guy with the Muslim mob or with a road company of Guys and Dolls ?
    “ Where do you come from?” I asked him. “You’re sure not from the Middle East.”
    “ I’m from Joisey.”
    “ A Muslim from Joisey?”
    “ I’m Italian.”
    “ A Muslim Italian from Joisey?” I was beginning to feel like we were doing a Marx Brothers routine.
    “ Doncha believe in diversity? Whas wrong with a Muslim Italian from Joisey?”
    Charlene elbowed me in the side and whispered, “He’s probably nuts. Just humor him.”
    “ Whaddya doin’ here anyways?” He kept talking. “Just black hats around here, no good lookin’ dames.”
    “ My boyfriend is a black hat.” I leaned forward conspiratorially. “He’s hiding me from his family.
    “ Whaddya doin’ with a married man, a black hat to boot? Them guys is good for nothing,’ I never got a decent tip from one yet.”
    “ My boyfriend’s rich. And he’s single.” I leaned back confidently as if I knew what I was talking about. “And my girlfriends wanted to meet him.” It was a lame story but he didn’t look bright enough to figure that out.
    After sitting in the cab for an hour with Khalid asking us a long string of questions, including how old we were, where we worked, how much we made, who had a boyfriend, why we weren’t married, why we got divorced (me and Charlene, Karen had never been married), why we didn’t have kids…why, why, why, I finally told him that he should check out our Facebook pages if he wanted more information. We promised to confirm him if he friended us. I, for one, was lying. No way was that guy ever going to be my friend on Facebook or anywhere else, but the suggestion seemed to mollify him. Then he went into a long rant about how he hated being a taxi driver, how his back hurt constantly, how the Bloomberg administration was trying to drive honest cabbies out of business, how it was impossible to make any money after he leased the cab, yadda, yadda, yadda. By that time he’d gotten on my last nerve and I couldn’t have cared less if he wound up homeless.
    “ Someone is coming out of the building,” Charlene whispered. “A tall guy. Black hat.”
    “ Omigod it’s him!” I shrieked. I couldn’t believe it. I ran out of the cab and down the street. He moved really fast and I was out of breath by the time I caught up with him on the next block. I was yelling his name but he kept on walking.
    “ Sheldon, why are you running away from me?” I