Bullets or Ballots

Anti-crime crusader Ward Bryant (Henry O'Neill) is murdered, and the prime suspect is racketeer Al Kruger (Barton MacLane). A grand jury investigation of crime syndicates headed by police Captain Dan McLaren (Joe King) is convened. Former detective Johnny Blake (Edward G. Robinson), now reduced to the rank of beat cop, expects to be included in the investigation, but instead McLaren fires him for no reason. Johnny turns down an offer from his friend Lee Morgan (Joan Blondell) to join her numbers game racket, and instead takes up a previous offer from Kruger to join his organization. Kruger takes orders from secret partners and wants Johnny to find the weak links in his organization. But gunman "Bugs" Fenner (Humphrey Bogart), an associate of Kruger, is suspicious of Johnny and believes he still works for the police. Johnny is in fact working undercover for McLaren as he tries to discover the identity of Kruger's partners. Johnny gains Kruger's trust when he suggests a new racket based on Lee's numbers game, which is very successful. Fenner uses this to make Lee believe Johnny has used her. When Fenner kills Kruger during an argument, Johnny takes Kruger's place. Fenner finds out for certain that Johnny is still a cop and uses Lee's distrust to locate Johnny with the intention of killing him.