After dropping off his two young sons at Catholic school, an unnamed NYPD police lieutenant snorts cocaine before heading to the scene of a double homicide in Union Square. Determined to assert his dominance in the drug world, the lieutenant tracks down a dealer and gives him crack taken from the crime scene, smoking some himself to test its purity. The dealer promises to pay him a cut from future sales. The day takes a questionable turn when the lieutenant ends up in a rundown apartment, getting drunk and engaging in a threesome with two women. Later, he visits a red-haired junkie, sharing a syringe filled with heroin. Meanwhile, in a horrifying parallel event, a nun suffers a brutal assault inside a church at the hands of two young thugs.
The following morning reveals the lieutenant's gambling troubles as he realizes he lost a bet on a National League Championship Series game featuring the New York Mets and the Los Angeles Dodgers. Determined to recover his losses, he doubles down on another wager for the Dodgers in the next game. At yet another crime scene, he rifled through a victim's car, unearthing hidden drugs, which embarrassingly tumble from his coat pocket in front of his colleagues. When confronted, he spins a lie, claiming he intended to submit the drugs as evidence, commanding them to do so in his stead.
At the hospital, he intrudes upon the nun's examination, learning the revolting details of her assault involving a crucifix. That evening, the lieutenant pulls over two teenage girls who are joyriding in their father's car. Seizing the opportunity, he uses his badge to extort them, demanding one girl to expose herself while the other simulates a sexual act. The next day, he overhears the nun's confession, where she insists she recognizes her assailants but refuses to name them.
Driving through a chaotic Times Square while intoxicated and under the influence, the lieutenant follows the Dodgers' game broadcast, losing control in a drug-fueled fury when they don’t win. Despite his mounting debts, he foolishly continues to gamble, spending the last of his cash on drinks after another Dodgers defeat. After scoring cocaine at a nightclub, he attempts yet another bet but is denied by a runner aware of his dire circumstances.
Desperate, he retrieves his $30,000 from the dealer and directly calls his bookie to place a hefty wager, arranging a meeting at Madison Square Garden. Before that, he seeks one final hit from the red-haired junkie. When he later encounters the nun, he vows revenge on her attackers, but she, embracing her faith, tells him she has forgiven them, leaving him in a spiral of emotional turmoil. In a poignant moment, he envisions an apparition of Jesus, cursing and pleading for forgiveness over his sins. This figure turns out to be a woman wielding a golden chalice, which she reveals had been pawned.
With her assistance, the lieutenant tracks down the two rapists to a crack den in Spanish Harlem, cuffing them together. The three men smoke crack while the radio announces the Mets' victory. Rather than take them to the station, he drives them to the Port Authority Bus Terminal, where he puts them on a bus alongside the $30,000 in a cigar box and a stern warning not to return. After sending them off, the lieutenant parks outside Penn Station, where tragedy strikes as a car pulls up beside him. The driver, presumably the bookie he had arranged to meet, fatally shoots him before fleeing the scene, leaving a crowd gathered as police arrive.
