Virginia Collins is not what she appears to be. By all outward appearances the successful uptown psychiatrist is just another beautiful dame who hires a private investigator to find her missing husband: a weird little man who makes fancy umbrella drinks and dresses like something out of an old gangster movie. Collins hides her real motives, along with her tragic past in order to win the affections of Raffy Rheinhardt, a cynical PI with an equally tragic history; a long forgotten shared incident resulting in damaged psyches and dead bodies. Caught in the middle is the stunning Charlene (Charlie) Coffin, heiress to a distillery fortune, the remainder of which is The Coffin Building that houses the bizarre Dystopia Bar and the office of R.R. Rheinhardt. Despite being Raffy's landlord, Charlie works with Raffy as his assistant, not just because she finds the work exciting; but also because she loves him, an issue that doesn't go down well with the disturbed blonde psychiatrist client.