A vexed life becomes cursed when Charlie returns to his cottage one afternoon and finds the body of jockey Jimmy McClatchy slumped not only dead but headless at his kitchen table. McClatchy had shown up the night before, looking for a place to hide before testifying as a federal witness in the prosecution of race-fixing schemes before a Brooklyn grand jury. Now rumor has it that the Mobs responsible for his murder, and that Charlie himself must have put them on to McClatchys whereabouts. Already a loser in the eyes of his ex-wife and successful cousins, Charlie becomes an outcast in his own hometown.