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 Skarholmen.
Prosecutor: Yes, thank you. I have no more questions. Thank you for your time.
PART I
1
Jorge Salinas Barrio learned the rules fast. The gist of numero 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- adios.
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.
Osteraker 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 Osteraker. 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. Chileans connected. People from Sollentuna connected. Most blow connections connected.
He hung out with an old Latino from Marsta, Rolando. The guy came to Sweden from Santiago in 1984. Knew more about snow than a gaucho knows about horse shit-but wasn’t totally chalked up himself. He had two years left for smuggling cocaine paste in shampoo bottles. Good guy to know. Jorge’d heard his name already when he was living in Sollentuna. Best of all: Rolando was connected with the OG guys. That opened doors. Gave privileges. Guaranteed golden gains. Access to cell phones, weed, blow if you were lucky, porno rags, pruno. More smokes.
Jorge was drawn to the gangs. But he also knew the danger. You tie yourself down. You make yourself vulnerable. You give them trust- They screw you.
He hadn’t forgotten how he’d been burned. The Yugos’d sold him out. Wrapped him at the trial. He was doing time because of Radovan-cocksuckers’ cocksucker.
They often sat in the chow hall and shot the shit. Him, Rolando, and the other Latinos. No Spanish. There was a risk that those who belonged to gangs be mistrusted by their own. Go ahead, talk to your countrymen and have a good time-but not so that They can’t understand.
Today: a little over two weeks before he hit play on the plan. Had to be cool. It was impossible to escape totalmente solo, but he hadn’t even told Rolando anything yet. First, Jorge had to know the guy could be trusted. Had to test him somehow. Check up on how strong their friendship really was.
Rolando: a homeboy who’d chosen the hard way. Good snow flow wasn’t enough to become a member of the OG. You had to be able to kick the shit out of anyone your leader thought had an ugly mug. Rolando’d done his part: The tattoos around the scars on his knuckles told their own loud, aggressive story.
Rolando took a bite of rice. Talked broken Swedish with a mouth full of food: “Yo, paste even betta than powder. Like, it middle product, not finished. Get you in higher up. Don’t have to deal with them boys on the street. Yeah? Do business with real gangstas, fo’ real. Homeboys without heat on their ass all damn day. And, move easier. No fucking dust. Easier to hide.”
Even if Jorge’d heard all of Rolando’s half-baked ideas by now, the slammer offered a first-class education. Jorge, receptive. Had learned. Listened. Knew a lot already, before he went in. After fifteen months in Osteraker, he knew the business inside and out.
J-boy: proud of himself. He knew all about the cocaine routes from Colombia via London. Where to score, what the price was, how to distribute, which middlemen to use, where to unload the shit. How to bulk it without the junkies knowing and how to cut it without the rich Stureplan set catching on. How to package it. Who to bribe, who to avoid, who to stay tight with. One of the latter: Radovan.
Fuck.
The chow hall was a good place for private talk. Enough noise so that no one could really hear what you were saying. What’s more, it wasn’t seen as hush-hush. No sneaking. Just chatting, openly.
Jorge had to steer the conversation in the right direction. Had to know Rolando’s stance.
“We’ve talked about this a thousand times. I know you’re into it. But I’m gonna stay away from the shit for a while. When I get outta here, I’m gettin’ the hell outta this cold-ass Nazi country. And I got no plans of becoming some fuckin’ flake myself.”
“Winnin’ points. Never use. Only sell. Wisdom of the day.”
Carefully, he tested Rolando.
“You got good channels. Heavy hitters got your back, right? No one’s gonna touch you here. Fuck, you could break today and make it easy.”
“Break? Not my game plan right now, hombre. Speakin’ of, yo you heard? Know that dude, OG guy, Jonas Nordbage. Got done.”
Jorge caught on. “I know who he is. Used to bang that centerfold chick, Hannah Graaf. The guy flew custody in Gothenburg, right?”
“S’right. Same day the sentence. Seven and a half years for two simple robberies and third-degree assault. Dude a real CIT pro.”
“What the fuck man, he fucked it up.”
“Still a king. Listen. Muchacho broke a window and lowered down from the eighth floor. Fifty-six long feet. Five torn blankets. Beautiful, ey?”
