When Eliot Ness and Agent Martin Flaherty raid a small butcher shop looking for illegal liquor, they find more the cheap booze: they find the body of the store's owner, Arturo Vittorini, in the meat locker. The dead man's wife Barbara accuses the neighborhood Mafia chief, Joe Bucco, of ordering the killing. Bucco denies having anything to do with it - the dead man was his wife's cousin - but is pretty sure his collector, Little Charlie Sebastino, is responsible. He also learns to his shock and dismay that the Mafia hierarchy has pushed him out and Little Charlie has been named as his replacement. Bucco strikes back and sabotages Sebastino's trucks but the Mafia sends him a message when they kill his driver and he knows that unless he backs off, he will be next. He gives Eliot Ness a present just in case he's knocked off.