Everybody wants Ego Shabazz. After stumbling into a shoot-out between two rival drug gangs, he left with a big bag of cash and two account books. Big Ed Zelkey wants his account books back. So does Armando Duarte, Big Ed's rival for control of the North Jersey drug trade. Then there's Tiny Lianides, a bail bondsman, who's in the hole for 100K after Ego failed to appear for trial on a drug rap. Another interested party is Miles Archibald, a South African mercenary and free-lance manhunter.
Enter John Mack, former NYPD detective, now working in New Jersey as a private license. As a favor to his old friend, Tiny, he agrees to track down Shabazz. With the help of his associate, skip-tracer and part-time philosopher, Costas Dalmas, they follow Shabazz's trail from Washington, D.C., to the hills of North Carolina to the torrid streets of Little Havana, bumping heads along the way with various mobsters, murderers and other ne'er-do-wells. **