An unnamed eleven-year-old boy lives with his mother and older half-sister Helen in New York City in the 1920s. When his mother, a crime reporter, falls in love with a man named Harry, the boy quickly grows to dislike Harry. Inspired by pulp magazines and crime stories, the boy wishes to get rid of Harry any way he can. His dreams unexpectedly come true when he finds his mother missing one morning. He sees Helen in the kitchen, who says that Harry shot himself and their mother had to go. At first the boy doesn't believe her, but later that day he sees a newspaper headline about the failing stock market and rise in suicides. In the subsequent days, the boy watches his grief-stricken mother deteriorate before them. He learns that she had planned to marry Harry, and that they had lost all their money in the stock market. The mother's grief culminates in an outburst one night that wakes the two children up. Helen tries to make sure their mother doesn't waste the last of their money — ten dollars — while the boy watches. Then his mother sees him and begins to yell at him. She compares him to his father, who left them. The boy begins to cry and starts to apologize for Harry's death.