Detective Sergeant Fitzgerald is frustrated by the growing influence of Big Jake Connors, a racketeer who uses anonymous gifts to secure the complicity of police officers' wives while running protection rackets across the town. When Big Jake targets the Elite Cleaners and Dyers, a modest business run by Brink, the detective expects a brutal takeover. Instead, Brink remains completely unconcerned, greeting every act of vandalism and violence with inexplicable calm.
Brink explains that he uses a special psionic unit based on principles of psychokinetic radiation. Much like a magnetic field creates eddy currents to heat a spinning copper disk, these psionic fields alter probabilities when violent actions are attempted. Gangsters trying to burn down the shop or shoot at its workers experience warning signs, such as twitching eyelids. If they persist in their violent intentions, the probability of success drops to zero, turning intended murders and arsons into harmless, absurd accidents.
Throughout the story, Fitzgerald watches these principles in action. Hoodlums find their own weapons backfiring, bombs failing to detonate, and getaway cars crashing due to bizarre coincidences. Gang members slip on detergent-covered floors and are buried under cascading drums of bone-black and powdered dye, resulting in comical yet total defeat. Despite the chaotic physics of the encounters, no one suffers permanent physical harm beyond deep humiliation and bruised pride.
Recognizing the potential of these psionic units, Fitzgerald resolves to use them to dismantle Big Jake's criminal empire. Brink offers him a talisman to aid in his crusade against local crime. Together, they arrange a final confrontation with Big Jake, knowing that the gangster's ingrained habits of violence will trigger the protective field once again.
True to expectation, Big Jake and his associates attempt to use force when Brink and Fitzgerald arrive to discuss a buyout. The ensuing chaos thoroughly incapacitates the criminals through a series of improbable mishaps. The local ambulance is forced to make two trips to transport the beaten and bewildered gangsters to the hospital, effectively ending Big Jake's reign over the town.
