San Francisco Detective Larry Hayes thinks he's hit bottom when he wakes up in an alley after a bad trip with no memory of the last four hours. This is only the beginning of his problems. Two blocks away, Hayes' informant, a homeless man named Noble Jon, lies dead, beaten, and stabbed. The eerie pangs of guilt seep into Hayes. Is he Jon's killer? The mounting evidence says so. Hayes mounts his own investigation to stay one step ahead of murder charge and disappears amongst the city's homeless community.