 Harry is attending a seaside jazz club when he hears a trumpeter playing in tune outside. Suddenly the trumpeter falls into the water - pushed in by a hit man unnoticed by anyone else. Harry, thinking the trumpeter passed out from being drunk, takes him to his beach house to sober up, and the next morning leaves to buy groceries. When Harry returns he finds a bottle of scotch broken and his car gone, stolen by the trumpeter. He also finds a young singer, Ruthie Daniels, waiting for him; Ruthie knows who the trumpeter is - her father, Arthur "Art Sully" Daniels. Daniels went to prison in 1963 for stabbing to death a mobster named Reisman and is now on parole; Daniels was gypped by his record company, led by Sid Hacktel, out of royalties, and is being pursued. Harry smokes out the hit man seeking Daniels and identifies him as Manny "Smitty" Schmicht, a former bouncer for one of Hacktel s nightclubs - and who is left-handed. When Sid Hacktel is found shot to death, Harry s car with Daniel s hat and trumpet are found abandoned in the driveway, but Harry recognizes it to be a setup since he had the hat and horn at his house that morning. Lt. Trench is stuck, since the only hard evidence he has is against Daniels even though he recognizes Daniels is being set up, since Hacktel s company is under FBI investigation for pirating recordings of jazz concerts and festivals, and an FBI agent involved in the investigation was found stabbed to death six weeks earlier. But both Harry and Trench encounter more than they bargained for when a family friend of the Daniels  is found stabbed to death and Ruthie Daniels is taken hostage by Smitty.