- The movie opens with some old-timey title cards. It looks like George Roy Hill went with an old-fashioned vibe—which makes sense because this movie's set back in the '30s.
- The action opens with a guy walking up some stairs in a suit and fedora and entering a betting room of some kind.
- One guy in the betting office gets on the phone with a man in a different city and starts comparing numbers. Unfortunately, the guy's numbers don't look good compared to anyone else's.
- When all is said and done, a dude hands Suit-and-Fedora Guy an envelope filled with tons of cash.
- When Suit-and-Fedora Guy walks out, he sees an elderly man chasing a younger one down the alley. The elderly man yells for someone to stop the younger man—he's stolen his wallet.
- Suit-and-Fedora Guy just steps aside and lets the thief go. But a second guy (Johnny Hooker) manages to get the wallet back from the thief.
- Johnny heads back to give the wallet back to the elderly man, who's lying on the ground injured. Suit-and-Fedora Guy walks over to the guy too.
- The elderly man says he doesn't want any cops involved. He says that he's running money for a gang and that he'll pay Johnny and Suit-and-Fedora Guy a hundred bucks to deliver the money for him.
- Johnny seems pretty skeptical of the whole situation and says he won't do it. But Suit-and-Fedora Guy takes the elderly man's five thousand dollars (and the hundred for his share) and heads off with it.
- But before he leaves, Johnny demonstrates how to wrap his money in a handkerchief and stuff it down his pants so no one will find it.
- Suit-and-Fedora Guy walks off with the money while Johnny and the elderly man watch.
- Once he's around a corner, Suit-and-Fedora Guy takes off with the money and tells the cabbie to head for the train station.
- It's only after he's in the cab that Suit-and-Fedora Guy realizes Johnny handed him a bundle of paper with no money in it. When he was demonstrating how to stuff the money down his pants, he clearly switched the handkerchiefs.
- So now Johnny and the elderly man (named Luther) have kept their own money…and got all the bookies' money.