Convenience store robber Herbert I. "Hi" McDunnough and police officer Edwina "Ed" meet after she takes the mugshots of the Recidivism. During subsequent visits, Hi learns that Ed's fiancé has left her. Hi proposes to her after his latest release from prison, and the two get married. They move into a desert mobile home, and Hi gets a job in a machine shop. They want to have children but Ed is Infertility, and they cannot adopt because of Hi's criminal record, even though Ed is a police officer. Devastated, Ed quits her job. The couple learns of the "Arizona multiple birth," quintuplet sons of locally famous furniture magnate Nathan Arizona; Hi and Ed kidnap one of the babies, whom they believe to be Nathan Junior.