Lionel Essrog is an uncredentialed “detective” with Tourette’s syndrome (a neurological disorder characterized by compulsory, repetitive verbal and physical tics). Lionel is on a stakeout in the Manhattan neighborhood of Yorkville with his colleague Gilbert Coney. Gilbert and Lionel, along with two men named Tony Vermonte and Danny Fantl, grew up together in an orphanage in Brooklyn—and were, at a young age, recruited to work for Frank Minna, a “penny-ante hood” with ties to the Mafia. Minna has, over the years, become a father figure to all four “Minna Men.” Lionel and Gilbert wait and listen while Frank, wearing a wire, enters a Zendo (Zen Buddhist study center) and conducts a meeting with an unknown client or acquaintance. The anxious Lionel calms himself by eating White Castle burgers. Lionel listens as Minna discusses an unnamed woman, a person named Ullman, and something called a “Rama-lama-ding-dong” with his acquaintance, whose voice Lionel does not recognize. Frank gives the code to let the men know that he’s exiting the Zendo. A giant man hurries Frank downstairs and into a car and begins driving away. Lionel and Gilbert give chase, relying on Frank—still wearing a wire—to guide them to Greenpoint, a Polish neighborhood in Brooklyn. There, Lionel finds Minna in a Dumpster: he has been stabbed. Lionel and Gilbert hurry Minna to the nearest hospital. On the way, Lionel soothes Minna with jokes, yet Minna knows that he is about to die. Minna drops his beeper, wallet, and watch on the floor just before Gilbert pulls into the hospital. Inside, doctors are unable to revive Minna. Lionel and Gilbert flee the premises and head for the storefront of L&L—the car service which serves as a front for the “detective agency” founded by Minna and staffed by the orphans he took under his wing when they were children.
Lionel departs into memory, recalling his youth and his initiation into Minna’s criminal dealings—many of which, Lionel recalls, were done in the name of “The Clients,” a pair of aging Italian men named Rockaforte and Matricardi. Lionel recalls meeting The Clients just once, while moving stolen concert gear into the upper floors of the abandoned townhouse which served as the men’s headquarters. Also present in the shadows of these dealings was Frank’s older brother, Gerard, whom Lionel met twice—the second time Lionel met Gerard, Gerard had come to Brooklyn to hurry Minna away “upstate” after some business gone wrong. Lionel recalls that when Minna returned years later, he had a new bride, Julia, on his arm—and a dream of creating a legitimate detective agency. Nevertheless, Minna was forced to operate in the Brooklyn underworld to scrape by. The prejudiced but sunny Minna, Lionel recalls, used humor as a way of coping with the stressful demands of his job. Lionel recalls one joke in particular about a Jewish woman who travels to Tibet and demands to meet with the High Lama. After obtaining a hard-won audience with the Lama, the Jewish woman reprimands him, addressing him as Irving, for staying away from home so long—she and his father are worried about when their son is coming home.
Back at L&L, Tony orders Gilbert to look into Ullman and sends Lionel to break the news to Julia. When Lionel arrives at Frank and Julia’s apartment, he finds that Julia is packing—she is preparing to skip town, and she is bringing a gun with her. Julia insists the hospital called to tell her about Frank. Julia is distraught but not particularly mournful; she talks about how Frank erased the woman she used to be over the course of their marriage. Lionel asks Julia where she’s going, and she tells him that she’s headed for “a place of peace.” Lionel helps Julia downstairs, where a car is waiting for her. A Black detective investigating Frank’s death, Lucius Seminole, attempts to deter Julia from leaving—but with no warrant, he can’t stop her. Seminole then asks to follow Lionel around town and compare information. Lionel’s compulsive behavior—and his nonchalant ordering of sandwiches and magazines to Frank’s tabs at several convenience stores—make Seminole suspicious, but Lionel insists he is just as desperate to catch Frank’s killer as the detective. Seminole abandons Lionel, who returns home to his apartment above the L&L storefront. The phone downstairs rings, and Lionel goes to answer it: it’s Loomis, a sanitation cop who works with the Minna Men. Loomis reports that Gilbert has been arrested for Ullman’s murder. Lionel drives to the precinct where Gilbert is being held, but he’s not allowed to see him. Lionel collects Loomis and drives him back to L&L, then heads up to his own apartment for the night. Lionel eats a sandwich and at last allows himself to cry.
In the morning, Lionel straps Minna’s beeper to his belt and returns to the Zendo, where he meets a Zendo student named Kimmery. Kimmery invites Lionel to come to a class later—there, she says, he can glimpse the Zendo’s Roshi, or head instructor, and some important monks who are visiting. As Lionel leaves, four thugs pull him into a car and announce that they have been told to scare him into staying away from the Zendo. Unintimidated by the inexperienced thugs, Lionel frustrates them into abandoning him in their car. Lionel sees that the car is leased to the Fujisaki Corporation at 1030 Park Avenue. Using a cell phone left in the car, Lionel calls Loomis and asks him to dig up what he can about the building. Lionel visits the building himself, but a group of doormen throws him out. Lionel calls Tony, who urges Lionel to get off the case. Suspicious, Lionel hangs up. Frank’s beeper goes off, and Lionel calls the number—it is The Clients. They tell Lionel to come visit them. Lionel travels to Brooklyn, where The Clients urge Lionel to work with Tony rather than against him to bring Julia home so that they can learn her secrets.
Lionel leaves the meeting feeling uneasy. He is even more off-put when he finds Tony waiting for him outside with a gun. Seminole interrupts the standoff. He tells the men that he has lost track of Julia after she flew to Boston, and that he is wary of wading too deep into any mob business. Seminole orders Lionel to leave so that he can talk alone with Tony. Lionel returns to the Zendo. On the way, Loomis calls with information about 1030 Park. He suspects that the powerful people who live there own “half of New York.” He has also discovered that Ullman was the bookkeeper for Fujisaki. Lionel arrives at the Zendo, where Kimmery leads him to a room full of students. A group of Japanese monks and the Roshi enter, and Lionel notices the giant in the corner of the room. Upon looking closely at the Roshi, Lionel realizes he is none other than Gerard. Lionel begins performing tics. Gerard nods to the giant, who carries Lionel out of the room, takes him to an alley, and beats him up. Kimmery comes to collect Lionel. She takes him back to her apartment. As Lionel rests on her bed, he looks through some books on her nightstand and discovers a pamphlet for another Zen retreat in Maine, advertised as “A PLACE OF PEACE.” Lionel again starts to perform tics, but Kimmery, intrigued by his oddities, seduces him. Lionel and Kimmery have sex. In the middle of the night, Lionel creeps to the kitchen, steals Kimmery’s keys, and departs.
Lionel heads back to the Zendo, where he lets himself in and confronts Gerard. Gerard tells Lionel that Frank and Ullman were involved with Fujisaki—but when they began stealing from corporation, they wound up in hot water. Gerard urges Lionel to stay out of things. Lionel heads back to L&L—but when he sees the giant watching Tony and Danny from a car outside the storefront, he sneaks into an L&L car and engages in a stakeout of his own. In the morning, Tony gets into a car and begins driving. The giant follows him—and Lionel follows the giant. As Lionel pursues Tony and the giant northward out of New York, he realizes they are headed for the retreat in Maine.
In a town called Musconguspoint Station, Lionel discovers the site of the retreat—and a connected seafood restaurant called Yoshii’s. After asking around about the retreat and restaurant on the docks, a fisherman named Mr. Foible tells Lionel that the Japanese mob, or the Yakuza, have long been coming to Maine to fish for sea urchin. Sea urchin eggs are a delicacy in Japan, where overfishing has made the dish all the more rare. Foible boasts that he no longer has to deal with the mob: he has an exclusive deal with the Fujisaki Corporation, who own the restaurant. Lionel heads to the restaurant, where he is shocked to find Julia working as a waitress. Lionel is even more surprised when the monks from the Zendo—now dressed in fancy suits, revealing their true identity as the Fujisaki Corporation—enter. Julia urges Lionel to leave and meet her at a nearby lighthouse later on.
After leaving, Lionel spots the giant rifling through Tony’s car and throwing Tony’s things into the ocean. Lionel realizes that the giant has killed Tony. The giant spots Lionel, so Lionel attempts to flee in his car. As the chase ensues, he traps the giant by forcing him to run over a set of spikes at the edge of a ticketed parking lot and wreck his car. With the giant neutralized, Lionel calls The Clients to tell them that Gerard is responsible for Frank’s death and that Tony is dead. Lionel then goes to meet with Julia. She tells him her life story, revealing her longtime connection to the Maine Zendo and her relationships with both Minna brothers. Gerard, she reveals, was her “Rama-lama-ding-dong”—they met when Gerard came to the retreat years ago, but as Gerard studied Zen more deeply, he became detached, and she turned to Frank for comfort. Gerard and Frank’s dealings with the mob and the Yakuza, however, increasingly worried her. First, Frank betrayed Gerard to the Italian mob, forcing Gerard into hiding at the Zendo; later, Gerard betrayed Frank to the Japanese, requiring Gerard to order Frank’s killing as a “sacrifice” that would prove Gerard’s fealty to the Japanese. Gerard, Lionel intuits, ordered the giant to kill Frank. Julia, in denial and convinced that Lionel is responsible for Frank’s murder, pulls a gun on Lionel. Lionel pulls Tony’s gun on her. After distracting Julia by throwing his own gun into the ocean, Lionel rushes Julia and tosses her gun into the sea as well. Then, he feels compelled to throw three more things, including one of his own shoes, into the water. Julia leaves.
Lionel drives back to Brooklyn, where he soon learns that Gerard has “disappeared.” Lionel elects to pretend that the elder Minna brother has died in his sleep. Danny, Gilbert, Loomis, and Lionel get to work transforming L&L into a legitimate detective agency, just like Frank always wanted to. The Yorkville Zendo dissolves. Lionel continues to worry about the seedy underground of society—yet he swears off the idea of vengeance, deciding instead to move on with his life.
