It's the early 1990s, and it's a standard enough night in the city. Gunshots, the wail of police cruisers, and pockets of lowlifes living the high life in the dank gin-mills and the fleabag motels. It's also a standard night for Marty Shale - Private Detective, gambler, misogynist, alcoholic, cynic and hater of all good and true - who is now hanging upside down from a crane-jib on Luciano Heights as Mob henchman, Happy Valentine, looks cheerfully on. Marty's options are simple: He either finds a case that will bring him in enough money to resolve an outstanding gambling debt with the Mob, or he's going south to meet his maker. Of course, this should be relatively simple in a city in which crime never lets up. But Marty has the additional burden of his self-proclaimed partner, Joe Sinto, a crazed Vietnam veteran who is the millstone that weighs heavily around the neck of the albatross that perches astride the white elephant that is Marty Shale's life...