Joseph December is a legitimate businessman and the scion of a wealthy family who own the Great Lakes Pacific railroad which, by all accounts, is on its last legs. With Eliot Ness receiving hot tips and managing to intercept liquor being smuggled in from Canada, Al Capone enforcer Pete 'The Persuader' Kalmiski and his underling Allan Sitkin approach December to make a deal. In return for letting them use his railway, December get to keep 20% of the proceeds.

A vice ring known as the Group has been hiding their speakeasies and brothels by using free soup kitchens as a front. When white slaver Chez Goshen dies his niece, Ginnie Littlesmith, decides to take possession of the Group's books. She had worked for her uncle and feels it is her inheritance. Enforcer Vic Cassandros tries to seduce the spinsterish Ginnie to get his hands on those books. Eliot Ness wants to get his hands on them as well knowing it would be the end of that racket.