Jimmy Quinn is delivering a bribe for the infamous racketeer Arnold Rothstein when a bomb goes off on Wall Street, killing thirty people and scaring every banker in the city down to his spats. Twelve years later, Rothstein is dead, and Jimmy is doing his best to stay out of trouble, running a quiet Manhattan speakeasy. At a bad moment for him and his favorite waitress, a blast rocks the alley outside and draws him right back into the madness of 12 years ago. That morning, a strange package came in with his liquor shipment: four plain books filled with cryptic numbers. The incident sets Jimmy off on a mad race from the heights of the Chrysler Building to the depths of New York's underworld.