Mr. Happer is pushing seventy, a skeleton-of-a-man with razor-sharp cheek bones, sunken cheeks and withered arms that gives him cadaverous appearance. Happer has the annoying habit of watching Agatha Christie's DEATH ON THE NILE over and over again as he sits behind his desk. A wannabe Mafiosi, Happer runs a loan sharking operation along the wharves of New Orleans. His employees – wily Gordon Urquhart and the seductive Stella Dauphine – learn a painful lesson from the old man – that death cannot be denied.