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.

After Federal Agents destroy a large shipment of champagne there a void in the market. Bottle manufacturer Edmund Wald decides that perhaps the time has come to start filling the bottles he sells. He teams with a bootleg liquor distributor, Michel Viton, who has the contacts to sell the stuff to. He also gets his cheapskate uncle Barney Loomis, a legitimate restaurant owner, involved by getting him to lend him the up-front money he needs to the the illicit liquor operation underway.