Mike Hammer’s secretary and partner Velda has walked out on him, and Mike is just surfacing from a four-month bender. But then the murder of an old cop who worked with Velda when she was on the NYPD Vice Squad attracts Hammer’s attention. What’s more, Pat Chambers reveals that Velda is in Florida, the moll of gangster and drug runner Nolly Quinn.
Hammer hits the road and drives to Miami, where he enlists the help of a newspaperman and a police detective. But can they find Velda in time? And what is the connection between the murdered vice cop in Manhattan, and Velda turning gun moll in Miami?