Nonetheless, I pressed on to Florida to attempt an interview with Dr. Eli Kuperman, anthropologist and convict. He was incarcerated in the Belle Isle State Correctional Facility outside Orlando, which was yet another of the country's new corporately operated prisons. The structure had originally been intended as a high school; but given the remarkable levels of violence that had come to characterize teen behavior in the increasingly ghettoized suburbs of nearly every American city, the design of high schools was not all that different from prisons. Thus when Florida fell into line with the rest of the country by giving the people's mania for punishment precedence over education, converting the sheer stone and nearly windowless mass at Belle Isle into a penitentiary hadn't been much of a trick.

I arrived at midday, made my request and found, much to my surprise, that Dr. Kuperman was not only willing but anxious to see me. He insisted that he would only do so, however, during evening visiting hours on the following day. By the time I took my seat at a clear, bulletproof panel on the second floor of Belle Isle's visitors' building at 7 o'clock the next evening, it was nearly dark. A guard soon appeared through a door in the room on the other side of the transparent divider, followed by a man of moderate height and similar weight who had dark features and curly brown hair and wore delicate tortoiseshell glasses: Eli Kuperman. He recognized me as quickly as I did him, and proceeded to eagerly sit opposite me. The guard switched on an intercom that allowed us to talk.

"Dr. Wolfe," Kuperman said with a smile. "It's an honor. I've read your book--fascinating, really." The fact of imprisonment seemed to be having no effect on him at all.

"Dr. Kuperman," I said, acknowledging his compliment with a nod. "I've read a great deal about your work too--though I'll admit I can't quite figure how it's landed you in this place."

"Can't you?" Kuperman said, still cheerful. "Well, you'll find out soon enough. Oh, that reminds me--" He unbuttoned the cuff of his sky blue shirt, revealing what appeared to be an ordinary timepiece. Touching a series of small keypads, he then rebuttoned his cuff with another smile and looked back up. "There. We have a few minutes yet--how would you like to pass the time?"

I assumed that the "few minutes" he was referring to was the balance of the time I'd be allowed with him; and so I put my query bluntly: "Suppose you tell me what your brother had to do with John Price's death?"

Kuperman waved me off cordially. "Oh, plenty of time for that later. And Malcolm will be able to explain it much more thoroughly than I can."

"Malcolm?"

"Don't worry--you'll understand. I'm sorry about Mr. Jenkins, by the way. We'd hoped he'd come along too." MORE>>

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