After a late night phone call Beth hires Jim to look for a missing friend who eventually turns up dead. The dead woman worked for a fashion designer who is unknowingly in up to her neck with some very bad "fellas".

Jim's shackled to his ex-parole officer Marcus Aurelius (Louis Gossett Jr.), now a PI himself, when a no-holds barred competition for a new NBA franchise ensnares both sleazes. Jim can't figure which jock-sucker, the motor mouth Marc works for, but whoever it is, they keep bringing Jim the pain and costing him way-too-many non-reimbursed expenses. As a PO, slick Marc tried to send Jim back up the river; as a PI, he runs Jim dizzy dodging bullets.

Rockford's newest case is to clear his friend Dennis Becker, who is suspected of selling drugs to deal with his financial problems.

When the son of an old friend goes missing, Jim goes to the young man's college to try and find out what happened.