Stephen Recka, Akim Tamiroff, is a gangster and former bootlegger who has become a powerful figure in city politics and business circles, with the mayor and local bank in his pocket. He moves with cold certainty, always plotting how to climb higher, even as he toys with the idea of social advancement. A city councillor who wants to become mayor has a plant in Recka's office, John Rance Edward Pawley, but Recka discerns the treachery and maintains his grip on the city’s power.
Recka’s birthday party is staged by his friend and hostess, Madame Lan Ying Anna May Wong, drawing guests who crave a share of his sprawling influence. Among the attendees is Margaret Van Kase Gail Patrick, an impoverished member of the town’s once-elite family, who is quickly charmed by Recka, much to Lan Ying’s dismay as she watches the social climb threaten the delicate balance of their circle.
Later, Recka meets with Rance at his apartment. In a tense confrontation, Rance is forced to write a suicide note and then falls to his death from the window, an act that pulls Inspector Brandon Lloyd Nolan into an open-and-shut pursuit of Recka for eight murders—yet the evidence remains elusive and hard to pin down.
To cement his influence, Recka has the mayor alter the city’s development plans to skirt the district around Margaret’s house, a tactic designed to ingratiate himself with her. He also learns that Margaret’s boyfriend, Philip Easton Harvey Stephens, a bond salesman, is a useful ally, and he begins funneling more business Phil’s way to win his trust. As Recka presses his charm on Margaret, Lan Ying warns that aiming for high society is a step too far for him and could cost them all.
To secure Phil’s loyalty, Recka brings two outside men to West City and they steal $218,000 in bonds from Phil’s bank, then kidnap him so the crime appears to be his. The police are tipped off, and Phil is found in a disheveled state, seemingly drunk, with the bonds missing. Recka offers a deal: he will clear Phil if Margaret marries him and opens the doors of respectable society for him. Phil is released on bail, and the threat to his name is momentarily averted.
The two outsiders double-cross Recka and speed away with the bonds, but their flight is interrupted when they are pulled over for speeding. Recka realizes that Phil could identify them, and he must be silenced to protect the larger plan. He arranges plane tickets for Margaret to flee with him, but the bonds have been replaced by newspaper, and he understands that Inspector Brandon now holds the key to the case.
Lan Ying grasps the full scope of Recka’s ambitions and that he intends to kill Phil, yet her own loyalties prove costly when her henchman is arrested before he can complete the hit. She warns Recka she will not be waiting if he returns, and she bids him a bittersweet farewell, playing a record of "Thanks for the Memory" as a final gesture of friendship and trust. Brandon closes in, arresting Recka and planning to convict him for Lan Ying’s murder and other, long-overdue crimes. Recka realizes, too late, that Lan Ying was the one constant in his dangerous world—the one ally who could have kept him from falling.
Margaret and Phil ultimately escape by plane, flying away to begin their honeymoon while the city’s political intrigue dissolves into a bittersweet, morally complex ending.
