Late at night, glamorous playgirl Vivian Bowers walks the streets of Manhattan's meatpacking district alone. When she realizes someone's following her, she runs for her Mercedes. But then she recognizes the man at her car window, smiles and tells him to get in. Sometime the following morning, a maid at a seedy motel knocks and opens the door to a room, only to find Vivian dead on the bed, with a distinctive abrasion on her cheek. Later, Vivian's father Robert, CEO of Bowers Pharmaceuticals, is in a meeting when the police call with news that Vivian overdosed. Devastated, Robert calls his beautiful, tough-as-nails wife Sofia. Promising to take care of everything, Sofia phones Robert's son Julian, a hedonistic playboy who is leading Bowers Pharmaceuticals' charge to develop the revolutionary cancer drug, Lyritrol.