How It All Goes Down
Here's the TL;DR version: Stephen Rojack kills his wife, sleeps with a lot of women, and manages to get off scot-free.
Easy enough, right?
Well, here's the more detailed version for you (but not the super detailed version—that's over in the detailed summary linked at left). After months of separation, Rojack is finally fed up with his marriage to Deborah Kelly, a wealthy heiress, so he ends up taking out this anger in the worst possible way, strangling her to death and framing it as a suicide.
Although the police are skeptical of Rojack's story, they eventually let him go. But the trip to the police department isn't a waste, because Rojack meets Cherry, a smoking hot blonde whom he falls in love with. After tussling with her ex-boyfriend, a famous musician named Shago Martin, Rojack leaves to meet with Barney Kelly—Deborah's father and one of the wealthiest men in the country.
There, Kelly makes a shocking revelation: He and Deborah had a brief (but totally incestuous) affair. After Rojack admits to killing Deborah, Kelly forces him to walk along his balcony's guardrail, thinking that Rojack will surely fall to his death. Rojack manages to survive this little tightrope walk, though, and gets away unscathed—but not before hitting Kelly in the face on his way out.
Rojack's spirits are high, but they're sent careening back to earth when he returns to find Cherry murdered. Utterly distraught, Rojack leaves New York, first for Las Vegas and then for Guatemala. If his imaginary conversation with Cherry's ghost is any indication, this guy is crazier than ever.