Johnny Lubin has been on the make since he was a young kid. He quit school after grade 3 and by the age of 13 was paying off his truant officer $75 a week to leave him alone. Now 20, he own a string of speakeasies on the waterfront, including opium dens. He soon hooks up with George Dodd a toy manufacturer whose real name is Phil Melnick and is a supposedly reformed mobster. He has $2 million worth of opium to distribute and Lubin thinks he has just the way to get it into the hands of distributors.

Although Eliot Ness and the Untouchables managed to destroy the Underground Court, they have yet to make a dent against the Syndicate, which has re-grouped and continues to operate. They elect Nero Rankin to chair the national board of the syndicate, but the choice wasn't unanimous. He's also in poor health and that leads Sylvia Orkins, who loves Rankin and is convinced he will die or be killed, to approach Eliot Ness to do something, anything, to get him out of his new job.