Kid Sally Palumbo (Jerry Orbach) grows jealous of his older mobster boss Baccala (Lionel Stander), who has little respect for the crew Palumbo commands. Baccala allows Kid Sally to supervise a six-day bicycle race (for the purposes of keeping the money generated), and among the twelve Italian cyclists brought into the city is a budding thief, Mario Trantino (Robert De Niro). When the bicycle race does not take place due to outside interference, Sally is demoted to serving Baccala as a chauffeur, while Trantino stays on in NYC to run his own cons, including masquerading as a priest. Kid Sally's mother Big Momma (Jo Van Fleet) urges him to take down the old entrenched mobsters in power. But it appears the only fatalities are in his own camp. And the increase in violence draws the attention of the city police.