“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?”
“Baseball,” Morris said. “Sometimes I just like to enjoy the sun, when it’s out. And smell the sea breeze.” He kept his head straight, on MacNally, but his eyes followed the officer as the man continued past them and then hung a left, toward the other side of the room.
“Those cross-hatched grilles under the sink?” Anglin asked. “You seen ’em?”
MacNally nodded. He had seen them-recessed, rectangular, eight-by- ten-inch grates that allowed air to passively flow from an area behind the cells into the cell block.
“We startin’ to poke around at that there cement,” Anglin said. “Frankie thinks we can dig ’em out, then crawl through.”
“Through? Into what?” MacNally asked.
“Take a look when you’re walking back to your cell,” West said. “Between the cell blocks, between, say, B and C, there’s a metal door. Behind it, a utility corridor. Water and waste pipes run through there. If you look up, it’s a clear shot to the top tier of the cell block.”
“A ventilation duct has to vent to the roof,” MacNally said.
“Right,” West said. “So if we dig out those grilles in our cells, we just crawl through the opening into the utility corridor, then use the piping as a ladder to climb up to the roof.”
“How are we gonna dig out the cement around those grilles?”
“Inmate plumbers,” Morris said. “Con I know, Billy Boggs, helps out fixing busted pipes. The plumbing was put in by the army back in 1900 or some shit like that. The sea water that goes through ’em rots ’em out. And when they burst, they flood that utility area and eat away the concrete walls. Billy says the walls look pretty bad.”
“And those walls,” West said, “are the walls of our cells.”
MacNally absorbed what he was being told. Before he committed to the plan, he wanted to be sure he had a decent chance of making it out. The water-those sharks-was another problem.
But there were more immediate logistical concerns. “How can you dig out the cement without the guards knowing about it? They’re pretty strict where you can put shit in your cells. You can’t block that grille. They’ll get suspicious.”
“One of the oldest inmate tricks in the book,” West said. “Wet some toilet paper, mix it with soap flakes, then force it into the holes you’re making.”
“Get a job,” Morris said to MacNally. “J.W. works in clothing. I’m in the brush shop in Industries. Do what you’re told and don’t cause any trouble, they’ll give you work. Take it. Best way to get the tools and supplies we need. They got everything in there: wire, electrical tape, varnishes, nuts, bolts, machines… Some of us are already gettin’ stuff together.”
MacNally nodded.
“Like I said,” West added, looking across the room at an officer, who was approaching. “I been workin’ on this a long, long time.”
“What about the water?” MacNally asked. “The sharks?”
Carnes chuckled. “No sharks in the water, MacNally. They tell you that to keep your ass on the island.”
“I just got the new Popular Mechanics,” West said, then waited for the guard to pass. Teaches you how to make blow-up rubber geese. Works for life preservers and rafts, too.”
MacNally shook his head. “You read something about making rubber duckies and you think you can build a raft out of that? One that’ll hold up in that choppy ocean?”
“Trust me on that,” Anglin said. “Clarence and me, we grew up swimming and rafting in Lake Michigan. The stuff they say in that mag, it’ll work.”
“We need raincoats,” Morris said. “We can get ’em from Clothing, where J.W. works. But we need a lot of ’em. Maybe four dozen, way I figure. Maybe more. They’re Navy jobs made of rubber backed canvas. We can cut ’em up and glue the pieces together with rubber cement, then sew the seams on the machines we use to make gloves in Industries.” He winked. “Paddles we can make in the furniture shop. Smaller pieces, attached with nuts and bolts. Most everything we need’s there in the shops. Biggest problem’s smuggling the stuff out of Industries.”
“A little bit at a time, under your shirts and jackets,” MacNally said.
“As long as there’s no metal,” Anglin said. “Snitch box’ll get us. Metal detector. You’ll see. Gotta pass through it on the way out of Industries.”
“We’ll have to figure that out,” West said. “Big thing is getting up to that vent blower.”
The whistle blew: dinner over. MacNally had hardly eaten. He shoved some meat and vegetables into his mouth, then did his best to clean his plate. If there was one thing he took from this discussion, it was that he had to keep his nose clean and avoid segregation.
And he needed a job. But unlike his problems obtaining and holding one in the outside world, finding a position here at Alcatraz presented a much easier challenge.
