Nurse Pigeon is a licensed nurse who works in the greater Pennsylvania area. After midnight, she rides down the road in her Volkswagen and finds Kidstuff dead in a ditch. Kidstuff was the town blacksmith, her friend, and her once lover. A week ago, he had asked her if he could borrow a big sum of money, which she had planned to use to go on a vacation to somewhere tropical. She had loaned him the money, but when she checks his pockets now, she only finds a bundle of parimutuel tickets. Nurse Pigeon takes Kidstuff to his second-best lover, Rose Dewglass, who stays at the Horseman's Motel. Nurse Pigeon knows Rose will remain asleep until 3:30 a.m. because Kidstuff had once told her so. She finds Rose's room and drags Kidstuff into the house, drops him in the bed, and does her best to make it look like he disrobed and well asleep with Rose. Then, Nurse Pigeon goes back outside and knocks at 3:30. Rose comes to the door, and Nurse Pigeon pretends she is Kidstuff's wife and asks Rose if she has seen Kidstuff. Rose seems doubtful that the two are married, but says she hasn't seen him. Nurse Pigeon is appalled by the girl's stupidity in not noticing the dead man next to her when she woke up. She convinces Rose to go back to the bedroom to use the telephone and hopes that she will notice Kidstuff. Her plan works, and Rose comes back to the door in distress, telling her Kidstuff is dead and swearing she had nothing to do with it. Nurse Pigeon plays along, trying to figure out from Rose where Kidstuff has been all week. She also wants to figure out if Rose knows what happened to the money he borrowed from Nurse Pigeon. They go back into the bedroom and notice that Kidstuff, who had been frantically disrobed by Nurse Pigeon earlier, is covered in marks that look like he has been roughed up, leading Nurse Pigeon to suspect the death was not of natural causes. Rose, wanting to be helpful, offers the nurse some money to help with Kidstuff's burial. Nurse Pigeon, knowing she won't getting anything more out of the girl, leaves for her next location. She visits another one of Kidstuff's girls, Shirley O'Rickey, and shows her his dead body. She once again calls Kidstuff her husband, claims Shirley was the last on to see him alive, and asks for money. Shirley declares with certainty that Kidstuff and Nurse Pigeon were not married, and accuses Nurse Pigeon of trying to hustle her. Nurse Pigeon, realizing she won't get any money out of the woman, leaves. From there, she takes Kidstuff's dead body to see Two-Tie Samuels, a shady businessman with an office on Charles Town Avenue. She throws Kidstuff's body in a trashcan behind Two-Tie's office, and then knocks on the front door, demanding to know what Two-Tie has done with her husband and claiming she hasn't seen Kidstuff all week. Two-Tie says he also hasn't seem him all week, and tells Nurse Pigeon to send Kidstuff to him when she finds. Then he reminds her to use the back door, as he can't have people using the front door at all times of night. When she exits, she screams, pretending to have just discovered Kidstuff's body in the trashcan, and accusing Two-Tie of killing her husband. Two-Tie repeats that he hasn't seen Kidstuff all week and didn't kill him. Then he begins to guess at what might have happened to Kidstuff. He explains that Kidstuff had gambled Ruth Pigeon's borrowed 1000 dollars and won 5000. Moreover, Kidstuff had claimed that the money he won was for her. After he won, however, some men who had a grudge against him showed up and took him away to a private room, and that was the last Two-Tie saw of Kidstuff. Two-Tie implies that the men had killed him. Nurse Pigeon is surprised and almost flattered that Kidstuff wanted to give her the money. She remembers the stack of parimutuel tickets, which she stupidly kicked into the ditch, and realizes that she could trade them in for the money. She goes back to where she initially found him and picks up what remains of the tickets. The money from the tickets is enough for her to at least take a vacation to Ocean City. She drives away, looking into the rearview mirror at Kidstuff's dead upright head in the back seat and feels at rest knowing that she was able to take care of him in the end.