It was a strange sensation. These guys Par had never met before chatted with him about the latest Michael Jackson video as if he was a neighbour or friend just returned from out of town. Then they took him further uptown, to a police station, for more extradition paperwork. This place was no World Trade Center deluxe office. Par stared at the peeling grey paint in the ancient room, and then watched officers typing out reports using the two-finger hunt-and-peck method on electric typewriters--not a computer in sight. The officers didn't cuff Par to the desk. Par was in the heart of a police station and there was no way he was going anywhere. While the officer handling Par was away from his desk for ten minutes, Par felt bored. So he began flipping through the folders with information on other cases on the officer's desk. They were heavy duty fraud cases--mafia and drug-money laundering--cases which carried reference to FBI involvement. These people looked hairy. That day, Par had a quick appearance in court, just long enough to be given protective custody in the Manhattan detention complex known as the Tombs while he waited for the authorities from California to come and pick him up. Par spent almost a week in the Tombs. By day three, he was climbing the walls. It was like being buried alive. During that week, Par had almost no contact with other human beings--a terrible punishment for someone with so much need for a continual flow of new information. He never left his cell. His jailer slid trays of food into his cell and took them away. On day six, Par went nuts. He threw a fit, began screaming and banging on the door. He yelled at the guard. Told him none too nicely that he wanted to `get the fuck outta here'. The guard said he would see if he could get Par transferred to Rikers Island, New York's notorious jail. Par didn't care if he was transferred to the moon, as long as he got out of solitary confinement. Except for the serial killer, the north infirmary at Rikers Island was a considerable improvement on the Tombs. Par was only locked in his cell at night. During the day he was free to roam inside the infirmary area with other prisoners. Some of them were there because the authorities didn't want to put them in with the hardened criminals, and some of them were there because they were probably criminally insane. It was an eclectic bunch. A fireman turned jewellery heister. A Colombian drug lord. A chop-shop ringleader, who collected more than 300 stolen cars, chopped them up, reassembled them as new and then sold them off. A man who killed a homosexual for coming onto him. `Faggot Killer', as he was known inside, hadn't meant to kill anyone: things had gotten a little out of hand; next thing he knew, he was facing ten to twelve on a murder rap.