Uptown Manhattan is where Olivia Kidd forces her brother Sarge to sell his beloved collection of paintings as ordered by their father, a Texas trillionaire. Downtown, Detective Reardon seeks for clues to the gunmen who have shot Ralph D'Annunzio dead in his restaurant. Robbery isn't the motive; there seems to be none, nor can Reardon make a connection between D'Annunzio and a second murder victim, a lawyer killed after leaving a stock broker's office. By diligently investigating the dead men's last days, however, the detective begins to put together bits of a puzzle with appalling implications. The murders and other crimes form a graphic picture in Reardon's mind of a great metropolis ravaged by people beyond the law's long arm.