An elegantly dressed corpse in the outside stairwell of a Midtown Manhattan apartment house is not what she appears to be. She is a he - a female impersonator at Le Paree. Unmasking the murderer from among the "unusual" suspects - the Le Paree troupe; Elberta English, the voyeuristic hostess of a dinner party where "illusionist" Billie Love had his farewell performance; and her dinner guests, most of whom are hiding secrets - becomes the obsession of NYPD detectives Maggie O'Dowd and herb Klein. Suspecting procurement and blackmail, they must discover the vulnerabilities of the large cast of characters: MaggieOs deteriorating relationship with her mother and inability to commit to her detective boyfriend Vince Garza; and herb's unrequited love for Maggie. Complicating the unraveling of who killed Billie love are a stone-walling witness, the sudden disappearance of a tenant, the murder of a private investigator with connections to the investigations, a false confession, the discovery of a blackmailer blackmailing a blackmailer, and homophobic cops in the detective's precinct. Maggie's attempt to flush out Billie's killer with misinformation in the press backfires and precipitates a deadly encounter between Maggie and a murderer.