Jack Diamond and his sickly brother arrive in prohibition New York as jewelry thieves. After a spell in jail, the coldly ambitious Diamond hits on the idea of stealing from thieves himself and sets about getting close to gangster boss Arnold Rothstein to move in on his booze, girls, gambling, and drugs operations.

On the way to pick up the bounty on a wanted murderer, a bounty hunter stops at a staging post where he is forced to continue his journey with two outlaws who want the murderer for their own reasons and a recently-widowed woman, with the murderer's brother and his men in hot pursuit.