Sam Stone hates his wife Barbara so much that he wants her dead. He's ecstatic when she's taken by a duo of kidnappers who want $500,000 ransom in exchange for her life. Fully intending to ignore every one of the kidnappers' demands in the hopes that they do him a favor and murder her for him, the two confused kidnappers have to figure out how they're going get their money, and what they're going to do with the overbearing Barbara.

Margo is an ex-stripper who meets her long, lost father in Mexico. She looks after him in the waning days of his life, with the help of a traveling projectionist. The father passes away, telling of the loot from a botched bank robbery that he buried years earlier. The two get jobs in town as their relationship grows and they search for the treasure on the weekends. But while the treasure seems to bring them together, it also seems to be tearing them apart.

A San Francisco detective goes wild when he discovers his partner dead and the presumed culprit standing over him. After beating the man to death, he comes to his senses and realizes that he has to get rid of the body of the beaten man. Dumping the man in the river, he returns to his partner's body and calls in the death. He is then given a new partner and is assigned to investigate the death of a man just pulled from the river causing all the expected problems. However, the investigation does lead to police corruption and his own partner's involvement in drug running.