The narrative is on behalf of Peter Leverett, who grew up in Virginia and has worked as a lawyer in New York at the age of 40. Having seen in the magazine a drawing signed by the name of Kassa Kinsinga, the narrator decides to go to the latter in order to find out the details of the death of his friend Mason Flagg several years ago in the mid-50s in Sambuco, Italy. Then Mason raped an Italian girl, after which he committed suicide by throwing himself from the top of a cliff. To a letter from Peter, Cass replied that he received part-time at a cigar factory in South Carolina and taught a painting class, and his wife Poppy got a job as an accountant at a military shipyard. Despite the lack of an invitation, Peter nevertheless decides to poison himself during his vacation to visit the Kinsolvingas to find out what really happened to Mason in Sambuco.
Peter met Cass two years ago. By the end of Peter's tenure in Rome, his long-time friend Mason found out about his stay in Italy and invited him to visit in Sambuco, where he settled down thoroughly - "how to pee." On the way to visit Peter’s car on a scooter, a local loser Luciano di Lieto crashed, already blind in one eye and having a history of several fractures. Appearing at the scene of the accident, the mother of a victim who fell into a coma in a frenzy accused the “Swede” Peter of bombing her house during World War II. On the further road to Sambuko, Peter met a drunk insoles Cass and his family. He learns from Poppy that filmmakers are visiting their common house with Mason, this terrible person, among whom only director Alonzo Crips is distinguished by kindness and condescension. Cass also does not particularly favor guests.
Met with Cass, Peter fulfills his request and is the first to talk about his memories of that hot July day. Arriving in Sambuco, Peter interfered with filming, after which he finally met in Mason, who introduced Pitsy (as he used to call the narrator by old habit) to his girlfriend, Rosemary de Laframboise, who was taller than him. Upon learning that instead of a room in his villa, Mason decided to rent a hotel room for him, Peter was offended, but nevertheless agreed, attributing his irritability to fatigue and an accident on the road. While the local crazy Saverio was carrying his things, Peter accidentally witnesses Mason's quarrel with Rosemary, which ended in a slap on the side of Mason.
In his issue, Peter recalls the early years of his acquaintance with Mason. Until the age of twelve, Mason lived in the city of Paradise in the state of New York. Before being assigned to St. Andrei Mason has already been kicked out of two schools. He boasted about himself that he had gained his first sexual experience at the age of thirteen, but by the constant embellishment of this story he lost his friends, of whom only Peter remained. Peter later learned from Mason’s mother, Wendy, that the actress, whose connection Mason boasted of, really visited them and even shook the very little Mason on her lap and gave him a teddy bear. Mason's father, the New York capitalist, fabulously earned money at the box office. Establishing a network of cinemas in Brazil during the war, he suddenly died, as a result of which Mason inherited two million dollars. Mason decided to admit to Wendy that he had been kicked out of college for the third time only after he had given her a good drink. From the revenge of the father of the thirteen-year-old girl, with whom Mason was found right in the church for a shameful thing, only the stepfather, whom Wendy constantly accused of treason, saved.
Peter Rosemary woke up and hungry in Sambuco and led her to the villa, where, according to her, a lot of products from the military store were stored. It seemed strange to Peter, but he said nothing, remembering some of Mason’s past. Lost in the crowd of guests from the world of the film industry, Peter could not find Mason. Having finally received food, Peter learned from the butler that Mason had scratched his face, falling on a rose bush, but categorically refused to help Rosemary.
The calm of the guests in the middle of the night was interrupted by the unexpected visit of Kass, who could hardly stand on his feet from the amount of drink. In dirty clothes, looking like a sick, exhausted person, Cass quoted Sophocles and nearly broke the piano, turning over with him. Crips told Peter that Cass is on Mason’s hook, which he twists at his discretion. When Peter was left alone, a girl of about eighteen to twenty in a torn dress ran past him. Following her with an atrocious expression on her face, an angry Mason appeared in a hastily dressed robe and promised to kill Peter because he refused to give him the side where the girl had hidden.
Cass reveals to Peter that it was Francesca who was raped and killed that night.
Having lost sight of Mason, Peter accidentally met with Mason in a New York bar ten years after the events at school. He said that after a correctional school he was kicked out of the university for his connection with one insatiable widow, and for poor progress. During the war, he served in reconnaissance in the rear. He had to make a real military sortie only at the end of the war, when he was parachuted to the German rear in Yugoslavia, where he lived for two months in an ally’s seaside villa, who did not object to his connection with his fourteen-year-old daughter. Fleeing from a sudden German raid, Mason was slightly injured, which showed Peter, to whom the story seemed not very believable and too colorful.
Mason hatched plans for writing his play, although he believed that art had died. In the afternoon he was with his lawful wife Celia, and at night in various evil places, in the company of rebels, cheated on her with another. Mason was especially proud of his collection of pornographic books and pictures and regularly organized orgies in which his wife did not participate. It was she who told Peter that Mason had borrowed his military exploits from the book, and was injured as a result of a bicycle collision. On the last night before Peter left for Europe, the tearful Celia came to him after Mason had not hit her with a plate for the first time. Despite her husband’s many connections, Celia continued to love him, considering him an outstanding personality. In the cabin, Mason found many gifts from Mason and felt used, as at all those times when Mason paid for him in restaurants for the last two weeks. On deck, Mason started a quarrel with his mistress, who almost led to assault. Angry over the friend’s disregard for his married life, Peter expressed his disgust with lies about military service in Yugoslavia and the writing of the play. In response, Mason said that in this way he looked at the reaction to the content of his future play.
Returning to the events of the fateful night in Sambuco, Peter accepted Mason's apology for the recent threat, which in vivid colors described his incredible adventures on a safari with a languid blonde, surpassing himself in shamelessness and shamelessness. Mason received a note saying “You are in big trouble. I'll feed you a crow. TO.". Mason called the drunken Cass upstairs, where, not paying attention to the protests of Poppy and Peter, forced Cass to speak to the guests for fun until Crips stopped this heinous show. Peter followed Cass to the first floor, where he met the police officer Luigi, who considered himself a humanist and at the same time a fascist, because he did not want to follow communism. He persuaded Cass to pull himself together and stop drinking. Slightly sobering up, Cass stole pills from Mason and, together with Peter, went to the village. There they went into a dwelling from which they carried death, where Cass handed over the medicine to an old man dying of tuberculosis. Upon learning that his daughter, Francesca, did not come home, Cass was worried, but he was convinced that, most likely, she had her friend.
Waking up the next morning, Peter found out that a raped and severely beaten girl was found on a drogue in the morning. There was no hope of survival. And Mason, after his deed, rushed off the cliff. The crime scene was surrounded by police, but Peter convinced Luigi to let him pass. When asked by the investigator about the mental health of the committed suicide, Peter said that he did not notice any deviations. Filmmakers left the city that day. Returning to the Kinsolvingam, Peter learned from Poppy that Cass was missing. When Cass appeared, he had the face of a man who had aged ten years in a day.
In the second part, Cass confirms Peter's suspicions that he killed Mason, after which he talks about his life and reveals the real chain of events in Sambuko.
He was advised by a military psychiatrist to do painting for therapeutic purposes. After the war, having lost all faith and stopped painting, Cass began to drink and insult his wife, an Orthodox Catholic and children. Following the visions that arose in his head, he decided to go with his family from Paris to Italy, despite the protests of Poppy. He also did not want to return to the United States, as Poppy suggested, since America was associated with him in a poor alley in a provincial town. After meeting with a family of Catholics who turned out to be card fraudsters and left Cashier literally naked in a bedbug in a suburb of Rome, it was decided to go on to Sambuco.
Having broken an expensive vase at the hotel and made a drunken brawl, Cass found himself in a police station, where Corporal Luigi advised him to hush up the matter with a bribe. Cass nearly ruined the whole thing when he rebelled against the sergeant's obscene behavior towards the extraordinary beauty of a peasant girl of about eighteen, who was accused of stealing a candy. Cass paid a fine for her, giving the last money. Cass learned from Luigi that a peasant girl whose relatives were ill with tuberculosis needs work. Despite the fact that Kass has nothing to pay, he promises to help. It turned out to be Francesca - the very girl he saw in the police. The rotten atmosphere in the girl’s house reminds Kassa of the house of an African-American, who he defeated in childhood with his employer in revenge for failure to pay on time for the radio. Guilt for this haunted Kassa all his life.
Mason met with Cass for the sole reason that he confused his last name with another prominent painter. Mason and Rosemary all the time flattered Kass's pathetic drafts, which made him suspect that he was mistaken for another. Seeing that Mason had food supplies from the military store, Cass volunteered to help him in the hope of becoming a parasite. With the help of Francesca, who began working as a servant for Mason, Cass robbed a wealthy neighbor who began to suspect something. In the same military store, Cass obtained a medicine that he administered to his dying father. On the day when he was supposed to receive new medicine, Mason clamped it and left Kass alone in the city center. Having spent the last money on a drink, Cass doomed himself to return to the villa on foot, during which he met an irritable young American who had an accident before.
At night, when Cass was about to go to Mason for medicine, a tearful Francesca came to him. Mason raped her after accusing Rosemary of stealing earrings. Having written a note with a threat to Mason, Cass sent Francesca home. What was supposed to go to him, who loved her before madness, went to the villain Mason, who repeatedly expressed the idea of enjoying her body.
In the morning, Cass found out that Francesca was found mortally mutilated, Cass decided to take revenge on Mason. Having driven Mason to the precipice, Cass broke his head and threw him into the abyss.
After the doctor and the priest, Luigi first appeared near Francesca. She admitted to him that Mason raped her, and the city crazy Saverio crippled him, who frightened her in the dark and inflicted fatal injuries. Guessing that Flagg had killed Cass, Luigi, out of pity for the artist, decided to shield him and told his superiors that Francesca called Mason her tormentor. Moreover, she added that after he realized what he had done, he shouted that he would kill himself. To support this theory, Luigi swept two pairs of tracks to the cliff and paved the track to the abyss with Mason's shoes, erasing his own. Luigi received a promotion for the investigation of this case and will finally be able to imprison Saverio in a mental hospital. The madman did not remember anything that had happened the previous night. Cass wanted to admit his guilt and, thus, bring to justice both himself and Luigi, but the latter convinced him not to do this, since it would be unfair to throw Poppy and the children to their fate.
The novel ends with a letter to Peter from the Italian hospital, in which he was informed that di Lieto came to his senses, but soon entered with a broken collarbone. At the same time, he managed to get engaged and, most likely, will outlive us all.
