In New Orleans, a young woman named Muriel goes missing. Her sister, Amelia, arrives to look for her. Aided by her aunt's lover, an ex-CIA agent named Bill, Amelia finds evidence on Muriel's computer of conversations with a mysterious and philosophical man. Bill and Amelia's search for him is fitful, but we learn that he's Eddie, a local exterminator who wants to produce and direct a movie about Nicholas Tesla. We follow Eddie, full of schemes, and we meet his brother, Tom, a firefighter who may know something about the death of a man whose widow, Hannah, seeks him out. What has happened to Muriel? Is this a world where anything can be known?