In 1949, Ed Crane is a low-key barber in the town of Santa Rosa, California. He is married to Doris, a bookkeeper with a drinking problem, and works in a barber shop that is owned by his brother-in-law, Frank. A customer named Creighton Tolliver tells Ed that he is a businessman looking for investors to put up $10,000 in a new technology called "dry cleaning". Ed decides to collect money by anonymously blackmailing Doris's boss, "Big Dave" Brewster, whom he suspects is having an affair with her. Dave embezzles money from his department store to pay the blackmail. However, Dave soon pieces together the scheme and beats Tolliver until he implicates Ed. Dave confronts Ed at the store and attempts to kill him, but Ed fatally stabs Dave with a cigar knife in self-defense.