It is 1979 in Chicago and Ritchie, a big-time drug dealer, has just been found dead in his bathtub with a bag of blow between his legs, a gun on the floor, and a McDonald's straw between his fingers. Nineteen-year-old Hunter Nielson is a small-time slinger who owes Ritchie five thousand dollars for a deal he ended up snorting instead of selling. When Ritchie's body is discovered, Hunter is advised to leave town-and quick. The threat of a possible arrest pushes Hunter and his brother Pauli to move to Denver where Ritchie's thugs manage to find them, kidnap his brother, and then threaten to kill him if Hunter doesn't pay the debt he owed Ritchie. When Hunter is offered a job managing a chain of strip joints, he pays off the thugs and releases his brother from their deadly grip. Hunter loves his job, but has been unknowingly thrust into a dangerous world comprised of mobsters and a nationwide sting operation that begins in New Orleans with tentacles reaching to Denver, Las Vegas, and Chicago.
As Hunter becomes a key FBI informant for an organized crime ring, he must help investigators take down the mob in Operation Barbeque.