The play begins in a Chinese restaurant where Shelly Levene is attempting to get John Williamson his manager to give him some of the Glengarry leads for him to make sales from this pool of "hot" real estate leads. Williamson will only give him leads if Shelly gives him cash for them, but Shelly can't come up with the money and leaves without any of the leads.
Next, we find Moss and Aaronow talking about the pressure that is being put on them to sell by management, and that they can't take it. Moss wants to steal the leads to get back at management, and sell them to another real estate agency. Moss wants Aaronow to break in and commit the theft and stage a burglary. Aaronow wants no part of it, and Moss intimidates him into believing that he is already an accomplice just by listening to Moss' plan. In the next scene we are with Ricky Roma who is selling to a man named Lingk, but Roma doesn't go straight for the kill. Instead, he uses Lingk's unfulfilled life to build a case for him to take action with real estate.
We arrive at the real estate sales office where these men work and we find out that there was a burglary. Williamson has called the police and a detective is there interviewing the men. Levene is on the up and up because he's just sold a piece of land to a couple, The Nyborgs. We then see Lingk, the man who Roma was with in the restaurant enter the sales office and ask to cancel his sale after speaking with his wife. Roma is able to calm the man down by telling him his check has yet to be cashed, but Williamson ruins Roma's sale by telling Lingk that the check has been deposited. Williamson believes that Lingk wants to know that his check is secure so he tells him it is in the bank, but what he wanted was for his check to not be deposited at all.
This infuriates Roma and leads to a heated war of words with Williamson. Roma is then pulled into the office by the detective for an interrogation. In the middle of this Levene lets it slip that he knows the check hasn't been cashed. This is vital because the only way Levene could know this is if he was in Williamson's office. Thus, Williamson accuses Levene of the burglary and stealing the leads. And, Levene admits that he and Moss were the ones who stole them. With this Williamson tells Levene that the Nyborgs aren't hot prospects who are out to buy, they are just old and like talking to salesmen. Williamson set up Levene because he doesn't like him for all the years of his verbal abuse and his lack of respect the whole time he's worked with him.
Roma returns from being with the detective and Williamson goes to speak with the detective. Roma proposes that Levene works with him and the detective demands to speak with Levene in the back room. Roma, unaware of Levene's confession wants to work with the man and is attempting to make a deal with him. He invites Levene to eat Chinese food with him as Levene walks into his fate with the detective and Roma out the door to go to the restaurant.
