The Secret Service of the US Treasury learns that a new batch of counterfeit bills has been in circulation using the plates that Tris Stewart, having completed three years of a ten year prison sentence, had used that led to his conviction. They are able to make a deal with Stewart, in consideration for early parole, to stage a "mock" escape so that he can help them locate the source of the counterfeit bills and hopefully recover the plates to shut down this counterfeit operation for good. In discovering that the plates had been sold by Stewart's deadbeat former partner Sam Hooker to one of their old associates, Jack Sylvester, Stewart may have other things on his mind, such as reconnecting with his old girlfriend, Meg Dixon, a nightclub cigarette girl who now goes by the professional name Laurie Fredericks, and together living off the proceeds that those plates and resulting counterfeit bills can provide. What happens with Stewart and Laurie will not only be affected by Sylvester and his handlers in the Secret Service, but also by the presence of Johnny Hackett, who, assumed to be a racketeer in the way he easily throws around money in the nightclub, has his eye on Laurie for himself.