Aging, low-rent Los Angeles private eye Ira Wells (Art Carney) answered his door to find old colleague Harry Regan (Howard Duff) shot and breathing his last. Ira's hunt for the truth brings him to Harry's last client-flighty new-ager Margo Sperling (Lily Tomlin), who'd hired him to find her cat-and from there, into an improbable web of blackmail and murder.