Police officer Joe Bash has endured the night tour for more than nine months, in the 33rd Precinct of the N.Y.P.D., and he complains of a vitamin deficiency for lack of sunlight. With tonight's foot patrol he is assigned a new partner, eager rookie Willie Smith, whom he soon must extricate from a tenement building filled with angry New Yorkers.

Joe refuses a Sunday dinner invitation from Willie, his partner. Then the officers encounter a problem with Abe Feinbaum, who orders a meal at a midnight eatery in NYC but cannot pay for it, and cannot remember where he lives.