On the outskirts of Greenwich Village, among a wasteland of warehouses and tenements, a group of young people are opening a coffee shop. They are idealistic, giddy, and beautiful-the picture of 1960s youth-but their optimism cannot last. When a corrupt detective comes around demanding regular bribes, one of the young hippies, Robin Kennely, asks for help from a distant relative, the honest but fallen former cop Mitchell Tobin. When Tobin visits the coffee shop for the first time, he finds Robin in a state of shock, clutching a knife and covered in blood.

Two corpses lie upstairs. It seems impossible that anyone but Robin could have killed them, but for the sake of a group of children whose lives are so much brighter than his own, Tobin attempts to prove otherwise.