When poverty kills Blondie Johnson's mother, Blondie vows that she will never be poor again. Convinced that virtue doesn't pay, she travels to the city and immediately invents a con with the help of taxi driver Red Charley. Later that evening, after splitting the take with Red, one of her marks, Danny Jones, spots her and invites her home with him for a talk. When she hesitates, he tells her that he is the right hand man of Max Wagner, the head racketeer in town. With Blondie's brains and Danny's connections, they move to take over Max's territory. Danny falls in love with Blondie, but she prefers to keep their arrangement strictly business. Max tries to eliminate the competition by running over Danny with a car, but Danny lives. Now Max must be killed, and Louis, one of the gang, has him shot. Now that they are in power, Danny and Blondie fight over his excessive spending, and Blondie vows to ruin him. She takes over the gang and is extremely successful. When Louis is arrested for Max's murder, the gang believes that Danny talked. Reluctantly, Blondie approves Danny's murder, but when she finds out that he had nothing to do with Louis' arrest, she rushes off to stop the shooting. She is too late, but Danny is not dead. After he recovers, they are both tried and sentenced to jail, but agree that they lived the wrong way and that after they pay their dues, they will marry and try to go straight.