One Way Ticket to Hell

On a September morning in 1952, police lieutenant David Jason, of the narcotics division, escorts prisoner Cassandra Leigh and her parents to a train station. Along the way, they notice that Miguel "Cholo" Martinez, whom Cassandra has not seen in three months, is following them in his car. Cassandra's destination is the federal narcotic hospital in Kentucky, where she will be incarcerated for drug addiction. Jason fears that Martinez, a wanted criminal, will interfere with Cassandra's departure, so he alerts the police department. While they wait for the train at the station, some motorcyclists drive away, prompting Jason to recall that Cassandra's troubles first began with motorcyclists three years earlier: The summer before her last year in high school, Cassandra worked for her mother. A motorcycle repair shop was located in the alley behind her mother's store, and Cassandra there met Russel Packard, leader of a gang of teens. Suffering from a divisive relationship with her mother, Cassandra abandons her job to go out riding with Packard and his gang. Although Cassandra is initially resistant to their offers of marijuana, she soon succumbs to the lure of the drug, which interferes with her remaining school year. Cassandra's grades drop and she loses most of her former friends, except for Johnny Adams. After she graduates with grades too low to attend college, Johnny marries her. However, Cassandra soon finds the drudgery and responsibility of married life to be emotionally draining. Johnny is unable to help his wife, who soon returns to joyriding with Packard's gang. In time, Cassandra starts drinking and returns to her drug use. One day, Johnny returns home early from work and discovers that Cassandra has overdosed on sleeping pills, having faked a prescription from their doctor. Cassandra crashes their car before Johnny can get help, and she is incarcerated in the police ward of the city hospital for three months, after which she is released into the custody of her disapproving mother and stepfather. Cassandra leaves home as soon as her probation is over, and seeks out Packard, unaware that the police are attempting to close in on a dope ring in which Packard is involved. Jason follows Cassandra, hoping she will lead him to Packard. Posing as a junkie, Jason helps Cassandra find Packard by driving her around town. Within a week, Packard and his boss, Al Stutzman, have arranged for Cassandra to work as a carhop at a drive-in restaurant, where she slips marijuana to buyers under their food trays. Stutzman then installs Cassandra in an apartment across from a high school, where she is to hold open houses to lure students to purchase Stutzman's drugs. However, Cassandra once again falls prey to the drugs. After the police raid the apartment, Jason offers Cassandra leniency in exchange for information, knowing that her addiction will outweigh her discretion. Cassandra agrees and returns to her parents' home during probation, again departing as soon as the period is over. One day the next year, Cassandra encounters Margo Rossi, a heroin addict suffering withdrawal symptoms in a doorway. Cassandra helps Margo and they become friends and business partners in the drug trade. Their business encroaches on Sven Bergman's territory, and he kidnaps them. Margo, who had once worked for Bergman, is further enslaved to him by her heroin addiction. Bergman then introduces Cassandra to the drug. Four months later, police find Cassandra in an alley in the same condition she first found Margo. She is again incarcerated in a hospital, followed by time in a private institution. In the meantime, the local government steps up their fight against drugs and enlarges their narcotics detail, arresting everyone from physicians who sell drugs indiscriminately, to pushers on the street. The "clean-up" is so successful that drug addicts around the city suffer from withdrawal, and some even die. The police are tipped off about Bergman and he narrowly escapes, as does Margo, who has been delivering heroin to Cassandra through the hospital fence. Blaming Margo for tipping off the police, Bergman murders her. After Cassandra's release from the hospital, her parents take her out of town. When she returns, she has new connections to Martinez, who heads a car-theft and drug ring. Police have arrested so many of Martinez' confederates that he enlists Cassandra's help in stealing a car. Cassandra works as a shill to distract the salesman, and leaves with Martinez and his remaining partner, Jimmy Sanchez, in the stolen car, unaware that they are being tailed by police. As anticipated by Jason, they head for the Mexican border intending to exchange the car for heroin. Police arrest Sanchez when they stop at a gas station, and Martinez and Cassandra flee. After obtaining information about Martinez' destination from Sanchez, the police and sheriffs post roadblocks at the borders, but Martinez bypasses them and cuts across the desert on an old wagon road. However, he and Cassandra eventually abandon their car and go on foot. The sheriffs find the car and launch a manhunt in the desert, but Jason realizes the fugitives will not get far, as they left their heroin supply in the car. Cassandra and Martinez begin to suffer withdrawal symptoms in the desert heat and take refuge in a small cave. The next morning, they stumble out and although Martinez is not found, Cassandra is discovered unconscious. Back at the train station, Martinez is arrested, and Cassandra boards the train without mishap. Jason muses that although she will receive medical and psychological treatment in Kentucky, there is no certainty that the treatment will be effective, and that her story may have only just begun.