In exchange for the $27,000 he owes on his credit cards, struggling actor John Person offers to drive a blue suitcase from Los Angeles to Baker, Calif., and give it over to a mysterious cowboy. When John gets there, he can't find the cowboy, but he does get a strange item in the shape of a cowboy's head that he's meant to hold onto. While he's waiting, John becomes friendly with Ruthie, whose paranoid lover Randy threatens to kill him at any moment.