After I punched in the new number, I had to time my fake conversation just right, so that when the operator came on and said, “Collect call. Who shall I say is the caller?” the next word I said would be “Kevin”—in a sentence that would sound normal to the guard. (As the operator asked my name, I’d be saying something like, “Well, tell Uncle John that…” The operator would stop talking and wait for me to give my name, just as I was saying “… KEVIN… sends my best.”)
