The night-shift drivers at Manhattan's Sunshine Cab Company all see the job as temporary: Bobby is an actor, Tony a boxer, Elaine a receptionist at an art gallery. Only Alex Reiger, a disillusioned realist, accepts he will drive for life, and the others lean on him as they endure the tyrannical dispatcher Louie, the mechanic Latka and, later, the burnt-out Reverend Jim.