Larry Ritter arrives in Anytown with a secret agenda, a lot of self-confidence, a list of aliases, and a suitcase full of smiley faces pattern bandannas. He visits with many of the town's residents and persuades them for various reasons to wear one of those and gather in Town Square that evening. A critical element throughout his many manipulations is that he must not explain to anyone his real reason for doing this. Ritter gives a smiley faces square free to anyone who agrees to wear it on his/her head - on a hat, under a hat, or without a hat; as a bandanna, a babushka, or a band. They...

Jeeves Baldwin is hired as butler/ driver/ representative for the Drackenmire Estate family of assorted ghoul types and reformed vampires. He must sell jewels "acquired" by the family over the centuries and now in the mansion's treasure room to pay the bills including his own salary. Neighbor Villana DeCrewel has a big estate but little income so she is always looking for money any way she can get it. She parties with art thief and collector Seymour Scovar and separately with local mid-level mobster and collector of unusual jewelry, Giorgio Xylode. Xylode's employee jeweler Kirby Kirbey,...

In private Bint Uldrich calls himself Phone Man because he had invented a device that lets him transport through the landline phone wires to distant places where he can look out, reach out of the phone, or even emerge from it entirely to thwart bad guys, do good, or simply note and report back about who is where and the current conditions at the end site. Here Uldrich uses his invention to try to stop a woman using small stolen items that if one is forcibly put into a victim's left ear gives the person with a special communicator device close to total control of the actions of that otherwise...

At times chemist Pamela Princeton disguises herself as Granny Glue, a street person pulling a cart of all she owns - but actually an array of specialty purpose adhesives - to rescue someone in need of help or to inhibit and thwart those up to no good without revealing her true identity. When a coworker goes missing under strange circumstance, possibly kidnapped, Princeton investigates. She suspects that egomaniac Karol Karlinsky, who calls himself the Perfect Master and rules over the highly secretive Perfect Way cult, is the kidnapper. With the aid of her special chemical tools she sneaks...

Saskatchewan Indianapolis Smithe (Polie to friends and foes), is an honorary curator of the Thyemaster Museum of Science and Man-Made Arts where he often accidentally causes chaos. Curious, Smithe attends a local event for amateurs interested in greeting alien visitors - or hunting them. There he encounters rich entrepreneur and thief of high-tech systems Dolores Hollister who suspects there could be alien technology around and she wants to claim that for herself and her profit. He also meets Otto Pratley who may have a crashed UFO in his farm field. Ever skeptical, Smithe goes to see what is...

Small-time con man Sylvester Pernell expects to make enough money pulling little scams on the train ride from Philadelphia to Miami to keep him through the winter. However, impressed with his smooth talk ability, two other cons mess that up to force him to make a pickup for them from mobster Alfonso Gargoyle. Pernell surprises Gargoyle by invoking the "Code of Honor among Thieves" which the mobster cannot refuse to honor. But he can delay. Supposedly to get the cash to meet the demand for repayment, Gargoyle sends Pernell to pick up a suitcase of cash in Savannah. After repeatedly tries to...