Under heavy police protection, gangster Joe Rico arrives late at night at the courthouse to testify against crime boss Albert Mendoza.

There have already been several attempts on Rico's life but lead prosecutor Martin Ferguson reminds him that he himself faces plenty of charges unless he cooperates.

After yet another attempt on his life, Rico gives his bodyguards the slip but falls to his death from the ledge outside the eighth floor window.

The case began when small-time gangster James "Duke" Malloy burst into a police station and claimed to have killed his girlfriend under pressure from others.

When Lazick refuses to talk, Ferguson threatens to jail his wife and put his son into foster care.

He reports that Tony Veto and his daughter Angela had witnessed Mendoza’s first murder along with her father but now there were no survivors for the prosecution.

On the other hand, her roommate, Teresa Davis, did have blue eyes and Ferguson concludes that Nina was fingered as Duke's contract by mistake.

However, upon viewing Nina's photograph, Mendoza reaches the same conclusion and, with the assistance of his attorney, dispatches two of his remaining henchmen to pursue the real Angela Vetto.

It was during this investigation, and the Kefauver hearings, that terms like "contract" (a deal to commit a murder) and "hit" (the actual killing itself) first came into the public knowledge.

Bogart's ADA Martin Ferguson is based on Burton Turkus, who led the prosecutions of several members of the Murder, Inc.

Like Rico, Reles was about to testify against a major crime lord but, although under heavy police guard, was found dead after falling out of the Half Moon Hotel in Coney Island on November 12, 1941.