Surely, not the hacks and precious few prisoners. But JoJo Aquintez was one of them. The state had dropped him for eight years on an armed robbery conviction. He was a tough boy and his little vacation at Shaddock was the second time the state had sent him away to college. But for all that and for all the swindling and menacing he’d done in his time, Aquintez was all right in Romero’s way of thinking. He was a good guy to have at your side. When you were his friend, you could trust him absolutely. He wouldn’t steal from you, snitch on you, or try to ram a homemade knife into your back. And in a maximum security prison, man, that was saying something. Romero was being up front about what he knew, exhuming all the demented little secrets from the black soil of his soul, rattling yellowing skeletons from closets he would just as soon have left bolted. “I know it’s fucking jiggy crazy stuff, JoJo, but I swear to it on my mother’s grave. Palmquist…Jesus…he ain’t like other people.
