He translated: "He got orders from the prison underground to short-circuit the electronic units in the tangler circuit. They threatened to kill him if he didn't."
The warden drummed with his fingers on the desk.
"The tangler field, eh? My, yes. That is important. You'd better get it fixed, O'Leary. Right away."
"Fixed? Warden, who's going to fix it? You know as well as I do that every mechanic in the prison is a con. Even if one of the guards would do a thing like that—and I'd bust him myself if he did!—he wouldn't know where to start. That's mechanic work."
The warden swallowed. He had to admit that O'Leary was right. Naturally nobody but a mechanic—and a specialist electrician from a particular subgroup of the greaser class at that—could fix something like the tangler field generators.
He said absently: "Well, that's true enough. After all, 'Specialization is the goal of civilization,' you know."
O'Leary took a deep breath. He needed it.
He beckoned to the guard at the door. "Take this greaser out of here!"
The con shambled out, his head hanging.