Johnny Ricardo, private investigator, took on Joe Bushemi, big-time gangster, as a client and undertook to recover some important papers being held by Maxie Collet, once kingpin of the Los Angeles underworld, but since extradited to Mexico. But when he took the job, he little knew what he was letting himself in for. Too many guys started getting themselves bumped off before he could reach them and ask the all important questions. Then, beautiful Helen Lisbon, the girl Maxie Collet had threatened to kill, hired him to protect her, and he ran into more trouble - big trouble. It wasn't until he got hold of the keys of Collet's strongbox and laid his hands on the slim brown envelope containing political dynamite, that he really had a weapon with which he could fight back. But before he could use it, he had to walk into a deadly snare to rescue his beautiful client, held hostage by a gang of ruthless killers. And the final showdown, when it came, showed him the true nature of these men he had been fighting - the yellow streak that lay just under the surface of terror and cruelty.

Johnny Merak was determined to get Maxie Temple, who'd framed him for a three-year stretch in San Quentin. But the Big Men of the Los Angeles Underworld wanted both Temple and Johnny Merak and decided that by killing Temple they could do both with the same shot.

But Merak wasn't having any of the deal and when Dawn Grahame showed up, he was more than ready to take on the whole of the Organisation. But first he had to meet the suspects. The unknown hoodlum who knew too much. Madden who might have been the killer and his girl-friend who had to be fed with heroin to keep her from talking to the wrong people.

Finally there were Clancy Snow and Dutch McKnight, the bosses of the Underworld who sat like black spiders in the web of treachery and vice that made up the Dark Side of Los Angeles.

And at the end of the play, when the chips were down and all the cards on the table, Death stepped in to reap the winnings.