Morris, thin lips with dark, wavy hair, gaunt face and serious eyes, bunched his brow and relaxed-ever so slightly-his grip on the knife. “This the guy who started the fight?” he asked with a Louisiana twang. “The diversion?”
Anglin nodded. Morris set the utensil down.
MacNally turned to the man at Anglin’s right, who possessed a more youthful, relaxed face, perhaps late twenties. He was not as intense as Morris, but just as slightly built.
“Allen West,” the man said, not lifting his eyes from his tray.
“Carnes,” another said as he took the seat next to MacNally. “Clarence Carnes.” His skin was a shade darker than the others, and he had full lips and a broad nose. Moderately bald, his face had an exotic look to it.
MacNally nodded. “Good to meet you guys. Just got here this afternoon.”
The men looked down and went about eating their chow.
MacNally realized they had been engrossed in conversation when he walked over, yet in his presence they had fallen mute. “You don’t have to stop talking on my account. You want me to move,” MacNally shrugged, “I will.”
West leaned in to Anglin. Though he spoke in a low voice and near his ear, MacNally read his lips: “Can we trust him?”
Anglin, blowing on a spoonful of soup, nodded.
“You good at anything?” West asked. “Electrical, plumbing, that kinda shit?”
MacNally lifted a shoulder and pouted his lips. “Worked some construction. Good with my hands. I like to sculpt, build things. And yeah, I know electrical. And heating and ventilation. Some plumbing. I used to be a handyman, so I know a little about a lot.” He let his eyes move from man to man in front of him. They all stopped eating and were staring at MacNally.
West suddenly looked down at his plate, swirled his fork, playing with the food, and then glanced around. MacNally figured he was about to tell him something significant, and he was assessing where the nearest officer was. “I been planning a break ’bout a year now. Got lots of ideas. We could use somebody with the things you know. Interested?”
MacNally slid his buttocks forward on the bench. “Hell yeah.” He lifted a roll from his plate, then looked up and waited for West to bring his gaze back toward him. “What-when?”
“We’re takin’ our time,” Morris said, his eyes moving from left to right across the room. “Goin’ slow. Want to do it right. We’ve got a lot of shit to plan.”
MacNally nodded. “Going slow’s a good thing. I made a break myself, after the one we tried with J.W. and Clarence. His brother.”
“Don’t look like that worked out too good,” Morris said.
Rather than responding to Morris’s remark, MacNally turned to Anglin, hoping to tactfully broach the subject he had wanted to bring up since the moment he had seen Anglin. “I would’ve made it if Rucker hadn’t fucked me over. He went over the wall, then cut my rope.” He realized his fingers had squeezed through the roll, which he had crushed in two. The pieces fell to the plate. “If I ever find that guy, J.W., I’m gonna kill him.” He began bouncing his knee, watching Anglin’s reaction. He had none; his face was impassive, as if that kind of shit was expected to happen in a penitentiary filled with liars, cheats, thieves, and murderers.
And maybe that was the correct read of the situation. No doubt such a thing was commonplace. But it did not matter. MacNally would exact his revenge…Somehow, somewhere, sometime.
“Did you know he was buddies with Gormack?”
Anglin leaned back. “Fuck no. That the reason-”
“Yeah. He sent me a note.”
“Who’s Gormack-and Rucker?” Morris asked.
“Nobody important,” MacNally said, his eyes riveted to Anglin’s.
“You mentioned you did some work with ventilation,” West said. “Carnes and I got an idea.”
“Oh, yeah?” MacNally said, pulling his gaze over to West. “You three know anything about escaping?”
Carnes and Morris laughed.
“Carnes was involved in the Battle of Alcatraz in ’46.”
MacNally tilted his head. “Never heard of it.”
West grinned. “Legendary shit, m’man.”
Carnes waved a hand. “I was nineteen. Sometimes shit happens you can’t anticipate, no matter how smart your escape plan is-and this one was well thought out. A key that was supposed to be in the gun gallery wasn’t there, and we couldn’t get out of the cellhouse. Six of us were involved, but Bernie Coy and Joe Cretzer led the thing. They offed two hacks, shot a bunch of others. Marines came, shelled the place, dropped demolition grenades into C-block.” He looked down, stabbed a green bean with his fork, keeping his gaze on the plate. “Coy, Cretzer, and another guy, Hubbard, were killed. Two others were gassed at San Quentin for killing those hacks. I got a second life sentence and six years in Seg.” Carnes looked up at MacNally, who was riveted by the story. “But Frankie here’s a legend, too.”
Morris stuck a small piece of meat in his mouth. “I’ve escaped from every prison I’ve ever been at,” Morris said, his chewing and molasses-thick drawl making it a bit difficult for MacNally to follow. “You know what the warden’s record on me says?” He laughed. “Under ‘Occupation,’ it says, ‘escape artist.’ He nodded. “I fuck you not.”
“Since you’re on The Rock, doesn’t look like your record as an escape artist ‘worked out too good,’” MacNally said, mimicking Morris’s earlier dig, then flashing a smile to defuse the mocking sarcasm behind the comment.
“I’m better at escaping than I am at robbing banks.”
MacNally nodded slowly. At least the man could admit his faults. “What’d you want to know about ventilation?”
“There used to be eight air exhaust blowers,” Carnes said, “on top of the cell blocks, above the third tier. They were attached to ducts that vented to the building’s roof. We looked at goin’ out of ‘em during the ’46 shootout, but we couldn’t get the scaffolding over there. After the hacks retook the cellhouse, most of the blowers were removed and they sealed off the vent openings with bars and concrete.”
Carnes seemed to be articulate and thoughtful. MacNally found himself listening carefully to the man’s soft-spoken delivery.
“But,” West said, “I heard one of ’em’s still there.”
“Frankie and I work in the library,” Carnes said. “I bring books around on a cart to all the guys here. It gives me a chance to look around, observe. And looks to me like that one vent is the one that’s over the back side of B block.”
“I just moved cells,” Morris said. “To B-356. Right under the vent.”
“This vent,” West said. “It’s round and pretty damn wide. There’s a blower attached to it, with ductwork. If we can get that ductwork off, I bet it’d lead us right up to the roof. And once we get on the roof, it’s a matter of getting off the island. The water presents other problems, but we’re working on that.”
MacNally said, “Ductwork’s fastened with sheet metal screws. A wrench or screwdriver would do the trick. But-and this might seem like an obvious question, but how do we get out of our cells?” MacNally suddenly felt the presence of someone over his left shoulder. He shifted the topic. “What do you guys like to do out in the rec yard?”