An ex-con college professor takes a bullet to the shoulder when a hit-man murders a blackmailer. But the professor refuses to have the bullet removed, and the hit-man is hot on his trail to recover the incriminating bullet.

An artist is thrown to his death from his apartment window. Stone and Keller's investigation centers on the daughter of a renowned eccentric poet, who sets to spinning a web of deception to deflect the dogged detectives from her trail.