Spots 
Detective Sergeant Fitzgerald starts his morning by finding an unasked-for meerschaum pipe at his doorstep. Knowing mob boss Big Jake Connors uses unsolicited luxuries to soften up police officers, Fitzgerald surrenders the pipe to a local orphanage. He has already turned over Scotch, fishing tackle, and silk socks, yet he watches helplessly as fellow officers slowly yield to the mobster's calculated generosity.
Part 1
The orphanage director admits fewer police officers are donating their suspicious gifts, revealing how deeply Big Jake's bribery strategy has penetrated the department. Fitzgerald receives a bizarre station house memorandum that leads him to Elite Cleaners and Dyers. Inside the quiet wholesale garment shop, he meets Mr. Brink, an unbothered proprietor who displays none of the terror typical of mob targets.
Part 2
Fitzgerald steps into Brink's private office and notices technical literature on psionics and psychokinetics alongside a dusty plastic machine. The detective asks about Jacaro, a mob affiliate whose trousers spontaneously burst into flames on a city bus that morning. Jacaro clammed up after receiving medical treatment, leaving police baffled by the lack of matches or accelerants.
Part 3
Jacaro's burns were non-lethal, but Fitzgerald notes the suspect's long history of unprovable arson. Brink remains entirely unconcerned about the bus incident or Jacaro's underlying motives. Fitzgerald then brings up a drive-by shooting two days prior, where a shotgun flash scorched off the getaway driver's hair without inflicting a single physical scratch.
Part 4
The hairless driver panicked and crashed into a telephone pole, leaving four armed hoodlums knocked out for police retrieval. Fitzgerald suspects Big Jake intended to terrorize Brink's staff and force Elite Cleaners out of business, repeating the exact tactic used on the previous owner. Brink listens calmly and treats the detective's extortion analysis as merely an entertaining hypothesis.
Part 5
Mechanics inspecting Brink's delivery truck discovered two sticks of dynamite wired directly to the ignition key. The bomb squad intervened before any detonation could occur, leaving law enforcement eager to secure Brink's formal testimony against the syndicate. As Fitzgerald demands cooperation, an incoming telephone call interrupts the interrogation.
Part 6
Brink takes the call from Big Jake's syndicate and casually mentions Jacaro's early ignition accident. He suggests Jacaro failed because he ignored the involuntary twitching in his eyelids before leaving on his arson run. Brink advises the caller to check on Jacaro's physical recovery while reiterating that violent plans inevitably backfire.
Part 7
Big Jake slams the phone down in frustration after receiving Brink's calm warnings. Brink reaches across his desk and gently taps Fitzgerald's pipe, instantly igniting the bowl and filling the detective's mouth with rich smoke. Brink admits the caller was Big Jake Connors, who routinely phones to voice cryptic threats.
Part 8
Big Jake demands a half-interest in Elite Cleaners under threat of total destruction. Fitzgerald recalls how Big Jake built his illicit empire, starting with a beer distribution monopoly secured through truck sabotage and smashed kegs. The mobster neutralized police intervention by sending luxury items directly to officers' wives.
Part 9
Big Jake expanded into jukeboxes and taxis by organizing targeted vandalism and selling mandatory protection insurance. Fitzgerald recounts how Brink's brother-in-law, Burdock, was driven to a nervous breakdown when acid destroyed garments and whole truckloads disappeared. Despite Burdock's collapse, Brink refuses to sign a criminal complaint.
Part 10
Brink insists no real damage has occurred and uses his plastic-shaper machine to press a small talisman for Fitzgerald. He explains that the device generates a specialized psionic field that shifts physical probability away from violence. Brink warns the detective to stop immediately whenever his eyelids begin to twitch.
Part 11
Fitzgerald leaves the dry-cleaning shop determined to arrange police protection despite Brink's refusal to press charges. He visits the hospital ward where the four injured gangsters from the car crash remain under armed police guard. The patrolman outside notes the mobsters are recovering and awaiting their syndicate attorney.
Part 12
Fitzgerald steps inside the ward and taunts the four heavily bandaged hoodlums about their impending legal troubles. He points out that carrying a loaded tommy gun violates federal statutes, an offense far beyond Big Jake's local reach. The silent mobsters stare back with deep hostility as Fitzgerald promises them lengthy prison sentences.
Part 13
Leaving the hospital building, Fitzgerald feels his eyelid flutter rapidly and comes to an abrupt halt to rub it. A heavy glass water pitcher crashes onto the sidewalk inches ahead, shattering completely where he would have stepped. With no clear proof of who threw it from the open window, Fitzgerald recognizes the warning function of Brink's talisman.
Part 14
Fitzgerald investigates a taxi crash caused by severed hydraulic brake lines, only for his twitching eyelid to save him from falling plate glass. He then inspects a vandalized restaurant alley where eighteen cases of non-mob beer were mysteriously smashed overnight. The recurring pattern proves Big Jake's sabotage network is active throughout the city.
Part 15
Refusing to accept Big Jake's bribes, Fitzgerald returns to Elite Cleaners to push Brink for formal testimony. As he arrives, two sharply dressed enforcers walk into the building ahead of him. Fitzgerald follows them inside, drawing his revolver as shrieks echo from the back processing room.
Part 16
Fitzgerald enters the main plant floor and finds detergent flowing from a shattered carboy toward the rear exit doors. Two well-groomed mobsters wave handguns at terrified employees, demanding the plant shut down permanently. Brink steps forward angrily, then catches himself, places his hands in his pockets, and watches with quiet amusement.
Part 17
A twitching mobster throws a box of spot-remover that strikes a high-speed clothes dryer, tearing off its heavy door. The flying door disarms one gunman and shakes the wall shelves, dropping jars of detergent and imploding light bulbs. Spilled detergent on oiled floors creates a frictionless surface that sends both enforcers sliding helplessly.
Part 18
One sliding gunman shoots out the rear door into a storage garage, bringing four drums of bone-black filtering powder down upon himself. A punctured oil container overhead douses the powder into thick black sludge, while a stray bullet ruptures a dye container, coating the entire space in bright heliotrope powder.
Part 19
Covered in black goo and purple dye, the trapped gunman breaks into hysterical sobbing, convinced he has entered damnation. Fitzgerald calls for a police patrol wagon to transport the defeated intruders to the hospital. Gazing at Brink's dusty plastic machine on the shelf, the detective realizes physical law has been manipulated.
Part 20
Brink asks Fitzgerald if his eyelids twitched earlier, confirming the talisman prevented serious injury outside the hospital. Brink explains that psionic fields manipulate probability much like magnetic fields transfer thermal energy. He cites inventor Thomas Hieronymus, who accidentally discovered psionic principles while investigating novel radiant energy forms.
Part 21
Brink details how an anti-violence field generates warning eddy currents that manifest as eyelid twitches. If an attacker persists in violent intent, the field drastically alters probability until the intended harm becomes physical impossibility. Hostile actions inevitably dissolve into bizarre mechanical failures and harmless self-inflicted accidents.
Part 22
Brink clarifies that the truck bomb failed to ignite and Jacaro's pants caught fire because their persistent violent intent forced probability to disarm them. The anti-violence field ensures damage occurs only to the aggressors' own equipment or attire. Fitzgerald recognizes that psionic technology offers a complete solution to syndicate violence.
Part 23
Brink contacts Big Jake directly and offers to sell the business or expose the mobster's failed attacks to the press. Fitzgerald accompanies Brink to Big Jake's headquarters, where the stubborn mobster orders his henchmen to launch an all-out assault with fists and shotguns. The psionic fields turn every attack back on the enforcers until an ambulance requires two trips to clear the room.
Part 24
How psionic probability fields neutralise organised crime by converting violent intent into surreal self-defeating accidents.