Magazine content is available exclusively for TIME subscribers.BRAZIL: Pen Pals
Convict Jose Simao, serving a 15-year sentence for murder and robbery, sized up his new cell mate as an ideal companion. Like José, white-haired Abdias Scares da Silva was a habitual criminal with a long police record and a vast fund of anecdotes about his scrapes with the law. Besides, both men came from the same Pernambuco home town. In no time at all murderer and thief were swapping yarns, telling jokes, helping each other pass the dreary days in the Pernambuco state pen.
One day Abdias told Jose about a night in...
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