Taxi driver Lucky Todd forces off a cliff the car of a reporter investigating a prominent citizen, who is secretly running a counterfeit ring. Later, when Lucky gets a call to deliver a package of counterfeit money, he finds that his car will not start, so he asks another driver, Chick Gardner, to take the package for him. Chick leaves just as police arrive to question Lucky. Afterward, Chick tells Lucky that he threw the package into a sewer when he saw that the police were following him. The police apprehend them both for questioning, and in Lucky's presence, Chick is slugged by the chief of police. After they are released, Chick, who is working undercover for the Secret Service, berates Lucky for allowing him to carry something risky without getting paid for it and hits him. Impressed with Chick, Lucky's superior in the ring, importer Philip Strickland, picks him to drive for a delivery. Greatly upset, Lucky pulls a gun on Strickland, whereupon Chick struggles with him. Strickland shoots Lucky and orders Chick to take Lucky's money to make it look like a robbery. Strickland then hires Chick as the new manager of his district and introduces him to Flash Dillon, his cohort, and Gilda Lee, who owes a debt of gratitude to Strickland. When Flash voices suspicions about Chick, Strickland asks Gilda, who seems to like Chick, to find out about him. Gilda goes to dinner with Chick and proposes that he keep some of the money he collects for Strickland and that they split the amount after she changes the figures in Strickland's books. Chick declines, saying that he does not want to double-cross Stickland, and when Gilda reports this, Strickland is convinced that he has picked a good man. Strickland sends Flash with Chick to Fisherman's Cove to pick up a new series of five-dollar bills. On the way, Chick speeds to attract the attention of police, and when he is pulled over, he shows a traffic cop a note written on his license that instructs the cop to contact J. W. McNeary of the U.S. Secret Service. During a gun battle at Fisherman's Cove, Chick slugs a cop struggling with Gilda before being shot himself in the shoulder. He then drives off with Gilda, and after he slumps over, she drives them to a house and gets an old woman living there to put him up. Gilda calls the mob's doctor, and after the bullet is removed, she volunteers to remain with Chick while he recuperates. When Flash retrieves Chick's clothes from a tailor, he sees the note on Chick's license. He shows Gilda the note and then plans to kill Chick on the way back to town. Gilda, however, tells Chick and gives him a gun. When Flash pulls a gun on him, Chick shoots him, then jumps on Gilda's car as she tries to drive away. In town, Chick tells Gilda that he will give her time to pack and get away and kisses her as he leaves her at her apartment. McNeary and Chick follow Gilda and Strickland to the pier, where Chick jumps onto the back of their motorboat. In the fog, they arrive at a yacht where Strickland explains to John Rudd, the secret head of the ring, that he had to bring Gilda. Feeling endangered by their knowledge of his identity, Rudd kills Strickland. He then finds Gilda with Chick, and when he learns that the police are approaching in boats, Rudd threatens to shoot Chick unless the police turn around. Chick yells for them to keep coming, and as Rudd is about to kill him, Gilda shoots Rudd. Gilda is sentenced to ten years, but her sentence is suspended, and she is paroled to Chick's custody for the ten years. When he hears this, he says, "You mean for life!"