Chicago, the 3rd week of November 1932. Working on an anonymous tip, Eliot Ness and his men raid a warehouse; all the crates are filled with champagne bottles, it was a shipment for the New Year's celebrations. Ness has the landlord who owns the warehouse, Michel (french for Michael) Viton, arrested; but he's released. Birdie, a deaf-mute, takes Viton to his boss, Edmund Wald, a bottle manufacturer (he's also the one who tipped Ness, to get rid of the competition).