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Tony Ellis, owner of Big Daddy Taxi Company, drives a cab through Albuquerque on Wednesday to pick up a passenger. Ellis leases his taxi from Yellow Checker Cab Company for about $94 a day. He has to make enough in fares to cover the lease and gas costs before making any take-home pay. Even so, he loves the freedom of being his own boss. "It's a blast," he said.

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As the yellow Crown Victoria with its spotless blue interior cruises west on Central Avenue, its backseat passenger fills the air with stories.

Her sister in the hospital . . . The parking situation at Presbyterian . . . Taxis in New York are expensive . . . Her late husband the World War II pilot . . .

Tony Ellis nods and smiles back through the rearview mirror.

He is the cab driver, after all, the everyday chauffeur to those with with no car, no time for a bus, or no other way to get around.

Or in the case of this passenger, someone who doesn't want to deal with a difficult hospital parking situation.

"You meet all types of people," says Ellis, 50, a burly man who resembles actor Danny Glover if Danny Glover smiled all the time. "Some from Yale and some from jail."

Albuquerque isn't New York, where taxis are an integral part of the city's character. But the taxicab industry is alive in New Mexico, allowing drivers like Ellis, a 23-year-veteran of Albuquerque cab driving, a way to make what he calls "a decent living."

There are 44 cab companies registered in New Mexico, according to the state Public Regulation Commission's transportation division. The metro area has four: Yellow Checker Cab Co. and Albuquerque Cab Co. in Albuquerque, TDL Taxi in Los Lunas and Valley Cab in Belen, according to the PRC.

There are 102 individual taxi cabs between the city's two operators - 47 from Albuquerque Cab and 55 from Yellow Checker, according to the PRC.

But there's a fundamental difference between those companies' business models. Cabbies for Albuquerque Cab work on commission, collecting 33 percent of their total fares, plus tips.

Yellow Checker cabbies, like Ellis, are independent contractors. He works four to five days a week, leasing his car from Yellow Checker for $88 a day - $94.05 after tax. Ellis also pays for the gas.

So every day he hits the road, knowing he's got to pick up enough in fares to cover those expenses before earning any take-home pay.

But he does it, earning anywhere from $40 on bad days to $130 on better days. His annual income can range from $12,000 to $29,000.

That "decent living" he talks about means more than just money.

"What's nice about Yellow Cab is you have a lot of freedom," he said while driving to pick up a fare on Amherst Drive near Nob Hill. "You can do other jobs, start a business, go to school and still drive a taxi."

That freedom is what drove Ellis to New Mexico in the first place.

Ellis was raised in a military family in Virginia, where his father pushed him to join the Marines, something he wasn't interested in.

"I was tired of taking orders," he said. "I took out a map, closed my eyes, and put my finger on Albuquerque."

He arrived in 1974 to attend the University of New Mexico. He studied biology and is still 30 credit hours shy of a degree.

The need for a job led him to the taxicab industry in 1983. Since then, he's built a company, Big Daddy Taxi Company, and a base of regular clients that make up as much as 40 percent of his fares.

Ellis notes a difference between his day-shift and night-shift passengers. His clientele are mostly business travelers, tourists or daytime shoppers. Night drivers may still have business clients - people on their way to night shifts of their own - but they also rely on bar and nightclub traffic, he said.

He'll take people anywhere they want - even as far away as Las Cruces, though those trips are rare. He supplements his business by offering city tours for $40 an hour for up to three hours.

It's not a job for everyone, said Patricia Consterdine, operations manager for the privately-owned Yellow Checker Cab Company.

"You need to be really self-motivated. You need to make your lease money and gas money before you can start working for yourself," she said. "I couldn't do it. I'm not that disciplined of a person. But these guys, they're good because they get out there and pound the streets to make a dollar."

And, she said, they get "ripped off a lot of time."

"For some reason, people think that not paying for cabs is OK," she said.

Ellis said cab drivers need to be at least 25 years old with a clean driving record.

But the most important attribute is knowledge of Albuquerque, said Shawkeet Hindi, co-owner of Albuquerque Cab Company, which has been owned by the Hindi family for 32 years.

"I dispatch the closest cab to a call," Hindi said. "If a driver has trouble finding the address, I may lose the customer. I need somebody that knows the city."

It's not a job that comes risk-free.

Daniel Magnuson, 46, a driver for Albuquerque Cab Company, was killed last Thanksgiving when his cab was struck by a drunken driver who ran a red light as he headed east through the intersection of Lomas and Juan Tabo boulevards Northeast.

Ellis steers his car through Nob Hill as Jason Ulibarri, a cabbie with Albuquerque Cab, passes by and rolls the window down for a greeting.

Ulibarri, 32, has driven cab in Albuquerque for three years.

"It was going to be a job, just like a temporary job," he said. "But it ended up being a full-time job."

He drives with a TV armed with rabbit ears and powered by the cigarette lighter, a move his competitor Ellis said can bump up tips by as much as $6. Especially if his fare is a baseball fan and the TV is showing the World Series.

On Dec. 19, before he'd picked up any customers for the day, a man pointed a knife his direction and asked for his cash.

Ulibarri was unhurt, aside from "a little scratch," and the man left without any money. But the near-stabbing showed him how close the local cabbie community can be.

"They all pulled together. I got so many calls," he said. "I think that's why I say I really grew into this cab business. I really enjoy it. I can't have it any other way."

Ellis drops off another a customer, a man who paid $7.60 to ride about a mile from a Smith's grocery store to his apartment.

It's around 3:30 in the afternoon. He directs the yellow taxi with the pi¤a colada scent northward on I-25 when the conversation veers back to why he loves his job.

"Let's say I want to stop and have dinner. I can spend four or five hours," he said. "If I want to go home right now, I will."

In other words, as he said before, he doesn't have to take orders from anyone.

"I do as I please."