Crime boss Uncle Frank (Edmond O'Brien) and rival crime boss Big Eddie (Bradford Dillman) decide the city is too small or not big enough for two crime bosses, so one of them must go. It's a fight to the death with gang members winding up at the bottom of the river encased in cermet foot-ware, chewed up by the garbage detail, bombed out or machine gunned down. They import help. Uncle Frank hires profession killer Harry Crown (Richard Harris) and pays him 100 G's to rub out Big Eddie, and the latter sends for Marvin "Claw" Zuckerman (Chuck Connors), a sadistic and demented killer, who is one hand short of having two hands. And Marvin hates Harry because it was Harry who cut off his hand when Marvin savagely mistreated a girl. In between all the blood and bullets, there is time for romance. Harry resumes an affair with Buffy (Ann Turkel), a third-grade schoolteacher (school-class status and not a rating), and Tony (David Hall), a hotshot young gangster assigned by Uncle Frank to assist Harry, becomes involved with Baby ((Katheine Baumann), an innocent-looking young hooker. Baby works at a most unusual whorehouse, "Dolly's Incorporated", which is located high above the city in a skyscraper, and ran by Dolly (Constance Ford). Harry and Tony rescue Baby from the clutches of Marvin, the one-hand mobster, and it is love at first sight for Tony. But the deplorable Marvin kidnaps Baby when she goes back to Dolly's to collect her things. Harry and Tony go to visit Buffy at her school, where they discover that evil Marvin has kidnapped Buffy, leaving a battered, bound-and-gagged and tied to a chair Baby in her place. Marvin believes in the take-one-leave-one bartering system. Tony reaches for Baby but Harry stops him. Baby is a booby-trap wired with dynamite. Harry carefully undoes the wires and they get all the kids out before the room blows sky high. Now, heroic Harry and clueless Tony set out to rescue Buffy.