Frank Cale, a disgraced Pinkerton agent and recovering alcoholic, is given a chance to win his way back into the good graces of the Agency he once served and the woman he once loved by killing a firebrand union organizer. When he intentionally botches the job, the Agency gives him one final mission: travel to El Paso to find Lionel, the missing son of his ex-lover. Unable to determine whether he is being rewarded or set up, Frank travels to the border town, where he is immediately swept up into a world of wealthy liquor barons, plotting Klansmen, police on the take, ruthless call girls, blood feuds, betrayals, body snatchers, Juarez jazz clubs, and Christero revolutionaries. As he traces Lionel’s footsteps, his hopes for a brighter future with the boy’s mother war against his memories of past crimes he committed in the Agency’s name, his ever-increasing hunger for alcohol, and his unrivaled talent for mayhem.