Longshoremen's union leader Charlie Vitteli is a cold-blooded villain who clawed his way to the top of the heap and no one's going to take him down. Like Vince Carlotta. The union boss's fiercest rival has accused Vitteli of embezzlement, election rigging, and other abuses. Now Carlotta is just another corpse on the waterfront. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Vitteli is somehow involved. But proving it is a whole other story. Enter District Attorney Butch Karp and his wife, Marlene Ciampi. Drawn into the case by a friend who manages a women's shelter, Marlene speaks to the abused girlfriend of a man who may or may not have been hired to kill Carlotta.