It is 1935 and America remains in the depths of the Great Depression - Benny Goodman is the "King of Swing," Senator Huey Long was just assassinated, and Joe Louis has just beaten Primo Carnera in the boxing ring. To millions of Americans, Alexander Brass, newspaper columnist and radio personality, is the voice of Manhattan nightlife, and they rely on him for the latest gossip about the stars and the beautiful people, the gangsters and the lowlifes, who make up the scene. While researching his column at the latest hot spot, Alexander Brass learns that Two-Headed Mary, a renowned and beloved grifter who works the Broadway theaters, is missing and that her friends on the Street are worried. Brass runs a short item in his column about her disappearance and shortly thereafter he finds himself in the midst of a full-scale mystery. Not only does Mary's disappearance seem tied to the disappearance of an ex-chorus girl cum Broadway box-office ticket taker, but Brass learns that someone else out there is far too interested in Mary's whereabouts.