Friday Foster, a magazine photographer, goes to Los Angeles International airport to photograph the arrival of Blake Tarr, the richest black man in America. Three men attempt to assassinate Tarr. Foster photographs the melee and is plunged into a web of conspiracy involving the murder of her childhood friend, a US senator, and a shadowy plan called "Black Widow".
Although notorious New Orleans gangster J.D. Walker is shot and killed in the 1940s, his spirit remains restless for three decades, until a hypnotist's supernatural nightclub act allows him to take over the body of a mild-mannered law student and seek revenge on those who got him killed.
Richard Pryor wanders around the NBC Studio, encountering various eccentrics. Meanwhile, the Reverend James L. White, the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin Dada and others are taping their own segments.
A promiscuous housewife has been murdered and hardboiled detective Dan August has to find the motive...and the body.