Joe Barbarossa is a descendant of a Nez Perce warrior who was scared of blood. Joe isn't. When he whacks someone he stays whacked - usually - and when he sells dope he gets away with it, always. Joe isn't just any warrior, he's a New York City cop. He's also Montezuma's Man. He just doesn't know it yet. FBI don Frederic LeComte wants Joe to be Isaac Sidel's man. Isaac wants Joe to drive his black Dodge. Along with the Pink Commish, Joe becomes one of the Black Stocking Twins, hitting Mafia social clubs from Brooklyn to the Bronx. But neither Isaac nor Barbarossa are prepared for the sea of blood and trouble into which they will plunge. Two estranged mobsters - Sal Rubino and Jerry DiAngelisare quarreling over some wooden Sicilian puppets. In the hands of a master puppeteer and his assistant, the hand-carved dolls tell stories of war and honor and heartbreak reaching back to the time of Charlemagne. In the hands of master string puller LeComte and a Mafia turncoat named Montezuma, the puppets tell another story: one of murder, mayhem, and kilos of elegantly imported heroin...