Private eye Mike Hammer is no stranger to murder, but this time he has two to untangle - the killing of the Captain, a legless, homeless panhandler, dismissed by the police as minor, and the slaying of gambling kingpin Marty Wellman, whose lady friend, Helen Venn, turns to the P.I. for help when the Mob fingers her for the next kill. Seems the new kingpin, Carmen Rich - with whom Hammer has a violent history - thinks Helen made off with ten mil in skim money courtesy of her late lover, or anyway, so Rich claims. But Mike Hammer knows a damsel in distress when he sees one and takes up Helen's cause, igniting a series of hit attempts on the P.I. by a small army of out-of-town shooters - some as far out of town as Cuba. Such minor distractions can't prevent the toughest detective of them all from solving two murders and avenging a "little death" in a big way.