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MARCHING POWDER

centuries, it all seemed inevitable. For them, things would always stay the same and a few tourists getting high in the prison wasn't anything amazing.

Every now and then, the guards would warn us that they were about to conduct a requisa. If there wasn't enough time to hide your stuff properly, or if you were afraid that they might bring dogs, there was an arrangement that all contraband would be dumped in the bathrooms. The guards could then collect all the drugs, alcohol and illegal weapons on a table and show the media how they were cleaning up the prison, but none of us would get busted because they couldn't prove who everything belonged to. That way, everyone was happy.

After a requisa, prices went up because the prison was supposedly in 'drought'. In the meantime, all the confiscated contraband was placed in a small room in the punishment section called the depósito for safe-keeping, away from the main prison population. That place was like a small fortress; it had thick walls, no windows and a metal door with two padlocks. No one would dream of breaking into it — the guards would've killed you. Besides, we never needed to break in because the droughts never lasted too long, just until the guards sold our stuff back to us.

As far as the tours went, the police caused me very little hassle. I was more concerned about the gangs, especially the one controlled by Fantasma. Eventually, he had told me himself about how he'd blown away his friend at a party. It was one evening when we were doing coke together in his room. There was a knife on the table and he became very agitated.

'You know, that guy was my best friend.' He looked over at the knife again. 'Just like you are now, Thomas. And he pissed me off, so I killed him.'

When he mentioned helping out with the tours, I invited him to join my business.

Fantasma was dangerous. Before I met him in Alamos, he had been kicked out of Posta for having cocaine and fourteen bottles of whisky in his room. Eventually, he got kicked out of Alamos, also. The inmates complained because he did coke at night and walked around talking to himself. He said he was communicating with the devil.