A man gets off a train in a small town in provincial France. He has a bad complexion and an aggressive beard and wears a tough-guy leather jacket. He is Milan (Johnny Hallyday, the durable French rock star), and he is a thief, in town to meet his gang and rob a bank.
In a drugstore he meets Manesquier (Jean Rochefort), a retired schoolteacher puttering his life away with jigsaw puzzles and piano playing. Manesquier is awaiting a life-threatening operation, scheduled for the same moment as the robbery.
Talkative Manesquier puts up silent Milan (the local hotel is closed)...