The novel, consisting of three short stories, dates back to the economic depression of the 1930s.

Florida fisherman Harry Morgan from Key West makes a living by renting his motorboat to various rich people who come here to fish. They hire a boat with the owner - he knows well where it is better to bite and which bait is necessary for which fish. Harry prefers to be in good relations with the law and made it a rule not to mess with smugglers and not to engage in illegal fishing at all. But one day everything changes.

The American who chartered the boat for three weeks, with whom Harry fished off the coast of Cuba, deceives the fisherman and, having spoiled him in addition to tackle, calmly flies away without paying and not compensating for the losses.

Morgan hoped to get about six hundred dollars, he needed to buy gasoline to return to the States, he also needed money for a living: he had a family - a wife and three schoolgirl daughters.

Harry is forced to make an illegal deal: for a thousand dollars he agrees to illegally export several Chinese from Cuba. The mediator makes it clear that the Chinese do not need to be delivered to the mainland, but simply slap along the road. Morgan prefers to kill the most villain-mediator, and landed the Chinese on the Cuban coast, not far from the place where he took them on board. The Chinese, not realizing that they had been saved from certain death, are unhappy that they were cheated, but they do not grumble openly.

Down and Out trouble started. Harry, who needs to feed his family, becomes a smuggler - transporting whiskey from Cuba to Key West. Once, when Harry, along with a Negro helper, makes a private flight with a load of whiskey, they are caught up by a boat of the marine police. They are ordered to stop. When law enforcement officers see that they are on a motorboat and do not think to obey orders, they open fire and injure Harry and the black man. However, he manages to escape from the persecution, but the Negro is completely limp, and Harry hardly anchors in the waters near Key West. Storms. Harry is afraid that intermediaries will not come for a dangerous load.

From a passing boat, the owner of which Willie is a friend of Harry, they notice that something is not right on Morgan's boat. The passengers of the boat are representatives of the law, they suspect that the wounded man on the boat is a bootlegger, and demand that Willie come closer to the little ship, but he flatly refuses. Not only that, he screams to Harry that if he has something superfluous on board, he would quickly get rid of it and let him know: Willie did not see him in the eye and will show it even before the court. He says to his passengers that he will not go to witnesses and, in general, if he comes to the hearing, swears that he knows nothing and has not seen this boat in his eyes.

Overcoming the pain in his hand, Harry throws the cargo overboard and directs the motorboat towards the harbor - he and the black man need a doctor. Maybe the hand will still be cured - it would be very useful for him ...

However, the hand cannot be saved, now Harry has his right sleeve pinned to his shoulder. His boat after the last incident was arrested: lawyers from Washington, who appeared on that day on the boat Willie, got their way. But, as Harry tells the Friend, he cannot allow his children to lose their stomachs from hunger, and he also does not intend to dig ditches for the government. Harry still does not refuse illegal voyages - this time he is offered to deliver four illegal immigrants to Cuba. His friend Albert agrees to help Harry, especially since they pay well for this work. They unanimously decide that there is no such law that a person is starving. The rich are buying up land here, and soon the poor will have to go to starve to another place. Harry is not "red", but, according to him, he has long been taken evil from such a life. To do the job, Harry rents a boat from his bartender friend.

Mary, the wife of Harry, since her husband agreed to the last dangerous offer, finds no place for himself. A touching feeling connects these two middle-aged people, each one still cares about the simple touch of the other, and they understand each other perfectly.

In winter, many famous and simply rich people gather in Key West. Their problems are not like those of Harry, they do not need to raise money for food every day at the risk of their lives. They drink and make cheap affairs - like Mrs. Bradley with writer Richard Gordon; She collects writers in the same way as their books. Passengers are more dangerous than Harry expected. They robbed the bank, and when boarding the boat for no reason slammed Elbert. At the point of the assault rifle, Harry was sailing off the coast, realizing that the Cubans, after completing all the tasks, would also be wasted. The Cubans do not hide the fact that they are revolutionaries, they rob and kill people, but this is only for the sake of revolution and the future triumph of justice, for the sake of working people.

Lord, Harry thinks, to help people, they rob and at the same time kill the same ordinary people. Everyone is crazy. Harry understands that he needs to get ahead of the Cubans and, in order not to doom himself to the slaughter, attack first. At a convenient moment, he snatches out a machine gun hidden in advance and fights the Cubans with several bursts. However, one Cuban finds the strength to fire back and injure Harry in the stomach.

Lying at the bottom of the boat, Harry painfully thinks what Mary will do now. How to raise girls? Nothing, somehow living, she is a woman with a head, But I bit off more than I could chew. There’s a ton of money on the boat, but I can’t give a cent to my family.

A boat drifting on the high seas is noticed by a coast guard boat. A lot of what the police have seen in their lifetime, coming closer, cannot hide the confusion at the sight of a blood-drenched deck. Harry is still alive, albeit unconscious. He mumbles something. “A man cannot be a damn thing,” the guards stepping aboard hear. It is clear that a terrible drama was played out here - in the dead, the police recognize the criminals who robbed a bank. But what is Harry's role in all this? The boat is slowly pulled in tow to the pier past the rich yachts standing at the pier.

And on these yachts comes their own lives. On one, a Harvard graduate, millionaire Wallace is wrapping up with a certain Carpenter, a completely ruined type who is said that if he is dropped from a height of five hundred feet, he will safely land at the table of some rich man.

On other yachts - other people and other concerns. At the largest and most luxurious - a sixty-year-old bread broker tossing and turning on the bed, alarmed by the latest bookkeeping account. Money is his only passion: he did not even notice the departure of his wife, with whom he lived for twenty years. On a yacht nearby, the famous playboy sleeps with his mistress - the wife of the famous Hollywood director. She lies beside him without sleep, wondering whether to drink sleeping pills and why men are such villains.

Mary is reported on what happened. Together with her daughters, she sits in a hospital, all four earnestly pray that her husband and father will survive. But Harry dies, never regaining consciousness, and Mary feels that something with him died inside her, she recalls how fervent, strong, like some kind of rare animal. Better than he was a man in the world. Now she will also have to become dead - like most people.