Women are mysteriously being murdered by a serial killer. Each of them advertised for help using an ad for a black Stingray Corvette, and the murderer drives around in a Stingray. One of Ray's former clients, a councilwoman, helps to bring him in. Ray pulls in a favor or two to get out of jail, and begins to investigate. He eventually finds out that an old friend from his mysterious past, Edward Benton, is trying to get revenge on him. During a mission in East Germany, Benton was left behind and imprisoned and tortured as a spy. Now he is seeking to even the score. Ray tracks him down and rather then let himself capture, Benton drives his car into a wall.
Ray recreates a space isolation experiment to try and clear an old friend of murder charges which stem from the fact he was the sole survivor of the first experiment.
A rather dimwitted garage worker and his criminal buddy steal $700,000 from a Mafioso who launders his money through the garage which he owns. The garage worker's sister is concerned that her brother is going to blow it: he doesn't seem to realize that quitting the day after you rob your boss and going crazy spending the money on coll stuff is a bad thing. She contacts Ray, who pretends to be another dimwitted crook and tries to get the two criminals out of trouble. The brother's buddy tries to double-cross them, and eventually despite Ray's best efforts to work things out, the sister is killed by the Mafioso Godfather. Her brother is left to mourn, as Ray warns him that he'll have to repay the favor his sister owed him.
An artist, a former client of Ray's, is getting threatening calls from a stalker who Ray helped her out with, years before. In fact, the guy apparently died during his final encounter with Ray the last time around. The trail leads to a relative of the first stalker who is trying to get revenge.
Ray gets drawn into a case of a drugged-up TV star, Ty Gardiner, who tries to hire him despite Ray's misgivings. Turns out Gardiner's name and celebrity were used by his unscrupulous partner to rip off both the Mafia and the Yakuza. Now that the partner has disappeared, Gardiner is left holding the bag with both sides trying to kill him, and the Feds looking for him as well. Ray's attempts to negotiate the matter aren't helped by Gardiner, who fancies himself the big dramatic hero that he plays on TV. Ray manages to set up both the Mafia and the Yakuza to shoot it out with each other, using Gardiner as bait so that he isn't wanted by the Feds. In the subsequent shootout Ray and Ty both end up in hospital beds, with Gardiner hatching another nutty scheme.
Ray travels to Vietnam where an exploding bomb blinds him, hindering his search for a statue which can provide clues to the whereabouts of American MIA's.
