A pair of kidnappings expose the complex power dynamics within the corrupt and unpredictable workings of 1930s Kansas City.

One night, in a Los Angeles hospital, Dr. Flax attends to a seriously injured man who, apparently crazed, whispers mysterious and disconcerting words in French into her ear.

In the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, everybody is somebody else. May, a single mother who delivers strip-O-grams, dreams of being an actress. She rents one of her rooms out to a pizza-man cum songwriter named Jonathan. Meanwhile, in the next apartment, August, an Austrian bodybuilder, fancies himself the next Arnold Schwarzenegger. As the pressures of everyday life in LA mount, Jonathan and August vie for May's love.

A crisis helpline assistant attracts the attention of a serial killer who delights in feeding her cryptic, nursery-rhyme style riddles when planning his next murder!