Five short stories with contemporary settings. In New York, people are indifferent to derelicts sleeping on sidewalks, to a woman’s assault in front of an apartment building, and to a couple injured in a car crash. A man, stripped of his identity, dies in bed with actors expressing his agony. A cheerful, innocent young man walking a city street in a time of war pays a price for this innocence. A couple talks about cinema while it watches another couple talk of love and truth on the eve of one character’s return to Cuba. Striking students take over a university classroom; an argument follows about revolution or incremental change.

The fake private detective Mike Spillone is hired by two old ladies to find out if Brigitte, the wife of their nephew Otello Bellomo, has a lover. Brigitte is a physician but the two aunts are unaware of the fact. While investigating, Mike and his assistant Johnny discover Brigitte with a prospective patient, the marquis De Vitti who was shot by the husband of the woman he tried to seduce. Afterwards Spillone finds her with her husband who he believes to be her lover.