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south of the city. In Skärholmen, I think he said it was. That’s when I told him to stop talking ’cause I didn’t want to hear about all the shit he was into. He got pissed at me. Told me to go to hell or something.
    Prosecutor: So, he was angry?
    Defendant: Yeah, he got pissed when I, like, thought he was talking smack. Maybe that’s why he’s made up some story about me being involved with that storage unit.
    Prosecutor: Did he say anything else about the storage unit?
    Defendant: No, he just said he kept his cocaine in it. And that it was in Skärholmen.
    Prosecutor: Yes, thank you. I have no more questions. Thank you for your time.

PART 1

1
    Jorge Salinas Barrio learned the rules fast. The gist of
número uno:
Never pick a fight. He could count the long version on five fingers. Never talk back. Never stare back. Always stay seated. Never snitch. And finally: Always take it nicely up the ass—no whining. Figuratively.
    Life shat on Jorge. Life blew horse cock. Life was tough. But Jorge was stronger than that—they’d see.
    The joint stole his energy. Stole his laughter. Rap life remade as crap life. But what only he knew was that there was an end to it, an idea to realize, a way out. Jorge: homeboy you couldn’t keep down. He was gonna get out, break out, escape from this shithole. He had a plan. And it was thick as cream. Whipped.
    Losers—
adiós.
    One year, three months, and nine days in the slammer. Which is to say, more than fifteen months too long behind a twenty-three-foot concrete wall. Jorge’s longest time yet. He’d only done short stints before. Three months for theft, four months for possession, speeding, and reckless driving. The difference this time: He had to create a life for himself on the inside.
    Österåker was a close-security prison, a correctional facility of the second degree. Specialty: those condemned for drug-related crimes. Heavily guarded from both directions. No one and nothing got in that wasn’t supposed to. Drug dogs sniffed through all visitors. Metal detectors sniffed through all pockets. COs sniffed out the general mood. Shady types needn’t apply. They only let in mothers, children, and lawyers here.
    And still they didn’t succeed. The place used to be clean—during the previous warden’s days. Now bags of weed were catapulted over the walls with slingshots. Dads got drawings from their daughters that were actually smeared with LSD. The shit was hidden above the inner roof in the common areas, where the dogs couldn’t smell it, or was dug down in the lawn in the rec yard. Everyone and no one could be blamed.
    A lot of people smoked up every day. Drank four gallons of water so it wouldn’t show in the urine test. Others freebased heroine. Lay in their rooms and played sick for two days until the piss wouldn’t come back positive.
    People stayed for a long time at Österåker. Grouped off. The COs did their best to split up the gangs: the Original Gangsters, the Hells Angels, the Bandidos, the Yugoslavians, the Wolfpack Brotherhood, the Fittja Boys. You name it.
    A lot of the screws were scared. Threw in the towel. Accepted the bills thrust at them in the chow line, on the soccer field, in the shop. The prison administration tried to be in the know. Break things up. Send members to other institutions. But what did it matter. The gangs were in all the prisons anyway. The lines of demarcation were clear: race, housing project, type of crime. The white supremacist gangs didn’t measure up. The heavy hitters were the Hells Angels, the Bandidos, the Yugos, and the OG. Organized on the outside. Worked heavy shit. The operational description clear: Make thick cheddar through multicriminal work.
    The same gangs controlled the city outside the walls. Nowadays tiny smuggled cell phones made it as easy as zapping channels with a remote. Society might as well surrender.
    Jorge avoided them. After a while, he made friends anyway. Got by. Found mutual points of interest.