The First R. Austin Freeman MEGAPACK®
The Second R. Austin Freeman MEGAPACK®*
The Third R. Austin Freeman MEGAPACK®*
The Jacques Futrelle MEGAPACK®
James Holding’s Conmen & Cutthroats MEGAPACK®
James Holding’s Murder & Mayhem MEGAPACK®
The George Allan England MEGAPACK®
The Girl Detective MEGAPACK®
The Second Girl Detective MEGAPACK®
The Gothic Terror MEGAPACK®
The Hardboiled Mystery MEGAPACK®
The Mahboob Chaudri Mystery MEGAPACK®
The Library Fuzz MEGAPACK®
The Noir Mystery MEGAPACK®
The Noir Novel MEGAPACK®
The Penny Parker MEGAPACK®
The Philo Vance MEGAPACK®*
The Pulp Fiction MEGAPACK®
The Raffles MEGAPACK®
The Red Finger Pulp Mystery MEGAPACK®, by Arthur Leo Zagat*
The Richard Deming Mystery MEGAPACK®
The Richard Hannay Spy MEGAPACK®*, by John Buchan
The Roy J. Snell Mystery MEGAPACK®
The Sherlock Holmes MEGAPACK®
The Singer Batts Mystery MEGAPACK®: The Complete Series, by Thomas B. Dewey
The Sky Detectives MEGAPACK®
The Spicy Mystery MEGAPACK®
The Suspense Novel MEGAPACK®
The Talmage Powell Crime MEGAPACK®
The Second Talmage Powell Crime MEGAPACK®
The Thubway Tham Mystery MEGAPACK®
The Victorian Mystery MEGAPACK®
The Second Victorian Mystery MEGAPACK®
The Victorian Rogues MEGAPACK®
The Victorian Villains MEGAPACK®
The Weird Crime MEGAPACK®
The Wilkie Collins MEGAPACK®
GENERAL INTEREST
The Adventure MEGAPACK®
The Anne of Green Gables MEGAPACK®
The Baseball MEGAPACK®
The Cat Story MEGAPACK®
The Second Cat Story MEGAPACK®
The Third Cat Story MEGAPACK®
The Christmas MEGAPACK®
The Second Christmas MEGAPACK®
The Charles Dickens Christmas MEGAPACK®
The Classic American Short Stories MEGAPACK®, Vol. 1.
The Classic Humor MEGAPACK®
The Dog Story MEGAPACK®
The Doll Story MEGAPACK®
The Great American Novel MEGAPACK®
The Horse Story MEGAPACK®
The Jungle Story MEGAPACK®
The Lesbian Pulp MEGAPACK®
The Maxim Gorky MEGAPACK®
The Military MEGAPACK®
The Peck’s Bad Boy MEGAPACK®
The Pirate Story MEGAPACK®
The Sea-Story MEGAPACK®
The Thanksgiving MEGAPACK®
The Utopia MEGAPACK®
The Walt Whitman MEGAPACK®
THE GOLDEN AGE OF PULP FICTION
1. George Allan England
THE GOLDEN AGE OF MYSTERY AND CRIME
1. Fletcher Flora
2. Ruth Chessman
* Not available in the United States
** Not available in the European Union
***Out of print.
FREE PROMO MINI-MEGAPACKS®
Each one was only available from our web site for a single day—on Free Ebook Tuesday! Like us on Facebook or join our mailing list to see new title announcements.
The Poul Anderson MINIPACK™
The John Gregory Betancourt MINIPACK™
The Richard Deming Crime MINIPACK™
The Charles V. de Vet MINIPACK™
The Paul Di Filippo MINIPACK™
The H.B. Fyfe MINIPACK™
The Lt. Jon Jarl of the Space Patrol MINIPACK™, by Eando Binder
The Fritz Leiber MINIPACK™
The Richard Wilson MINIPACK™
The Rufus King Mystery MINIPACK™
The Second Rufus King Mystery MINIPACK™
The Sime~Gen MINIPACK™
The Spicy Mystery MINIPACK™
The Thubway Tham Thanksgiving MINIPACK™
OTHER COLLECTIONS YOU MAY ENJOY
The Great Book of Wonder, by Lord Dunsany (it should have been called “The Lord Dunsany MEGAPACK®”)
The Wildside Book of Fantasy
The Wildside Book of Science Fiction
Yondering: The First Borgo Press Book of Science Fiction Stories
To the Stars—And Beyond! The Second Borgo Press Book of Science Fiction Stories
Once Upon a Future: The Third Borgo Press Book of Science Fiction Stories
Whodunit?—The First Borgo Press Book of Crime and Mystery Stories
More Whodunits—The Second Borgo Press Book of Crime and Mystery Stories
X is for Xmas: Christmas Mysteries
THE GISMO
CHAPTER 1
What is it?
When Jerry Cole rode his bike home from Bridgeville Junior High, he pedaled furiously down School Street. At the first corner he thumbed the handlebar shift lever to high, back pedaled a second, and leaned right into Elm Street.
The wind combed his red hair straight back and roared in his ears. He liked to imagine he was the pilot of a jet plane or flying saucer zooming through space at a zillion miles an hour. For one block he pumped rapidly, then leaned into Park Lane, swung out of the bike seat, and rode the pedal up the driveway of the third house on the right.
Jerry arrived home from school every afternoon in exactly seven minutes…every afternoon that is, except Thursdays.
On that day he took his time and rode home slowly by way of the alley that ran for three blocks behind all the important stores in Bridgeville. Thursday afternoons the shopkeepers put the trash out for the early Friday morning collection. Hal’s Hobby Shop threw lots of good boxes away, and sometimes broken models from do-it-yourself kits. Gormley’s Radio and TV Clinic dumped old radio tubes and capacitors into the foam packing of big television cartons. Jerry always checked through these cartons of trash. You never knew when Mr. Gormley might discard a broken transformer, a few