Paula Nelson goes to Atlantic City to meet her lover, Richard Politzer, but finds him dead and decides to investigate his death. In her hotel room, she meets Typhus, whom she ends up knocking out. His corpse is later found in the apartment of David Goodis, a writer. Paula is arrested and interrogated. From then on, she encounters many gangsters.

In the shadowy outskirts of Paris, a desperate door-to-door salesman crosses paths with a mysterious young woman trapped in a grim world. As his obsession deepens, his grip on reality begins to slip—and the line between escape and destruction starts to blur.

Cain has been traveling for a long time throughout Europe. Back "home" he knocks at the door of his parents' trailer only to be rejected by his hateful mother, who once again blames him for his laziness and once again compares him to his brother Abel, a successful businessman and a right guy, good to his parents and stuff. As for his father, now blind and crippled, he escapes his wife by being permanently drunk and he is of no help. In disgust, Cain runs away from the place and contacts Abel, the perfect son, to borrow money from him. But, although Abel tells him he doesn't mind helping him, Cain shoots him down with a gun found in his brother's car.