Teresa, the pregnant teenage daughter of a powerful Mexican crime lord known only as El

Jefe (Spanish for ''The Boss''), is summoned before her father and interrogated as to the
identity of her unborn child's father. Under torture, she identifies the father as Alfredo Garcia,
whom El Jefe had been grooming to be his successor. Infuriated, El Jefe offers a $1 million
bounty to whoever will "bring me the head of Alfredo Garcia".

The search progresses for two months. In Mexico City, a pair of business suit-clad,
dispassionate hit men, Sappensly and Quill, enter a saloon and encounter Bennie, a retired
U.S. Army officer who makes a meagre living as a piano player and bar manager. The men
ask about Garcia, believing they will have more luck getting answers out of a fellow
American. Bennie plays dumb, saying the name is familiar but he doesn't know who Garcia is.

It turns out that everyone in the bar knows who Garcia is; they simply don't know where he is.
Bennie goes to meet his girlfriend, Elita, a maid at a ghetto motel. Elita admits to having
cheated on Bennie with Garcia, who had professed his love for her, something Bennie refuses
to do. Elita tells him that Garcia died in a drunk-driving accident the previous week.

Bennie goes to Sappensly and Quill in the hotel room of the man who hired them, El Jefe's
business associate Max, and makes a deal for $10,000 for Garcia's head, plus a $200 advance
for expenses. Bennie convinces Elita to go on a road trip with him to visit Garcia's grave,
claiming that he only wants proof that Garcia is in fact dead and no longer a threat to their
relationship.

Bennie proposes to Elita, promising that their future will soon change and she can retire from
her cleaning job. Elita warns Bennie against trying to upset their status quo. While having a
picnic, Bennie and Elita are accosted by two bikers who pull guns on the couple. Elita agrees
to have sex with the bikers if they spare Bennie's life, then goes off with one of them. He rips
off her shirt, lets her slap him twice, slaps her back, then walks away; she follows. Bennie
knocks the second biker unconscious and takes his gun. Finding Elita about to have sex with
the first biker, Bennie shoots him dead and then kills the second biker as well.

Bennie confesses to Elita his plan to decapitate Garcia's corpse and sell the head for money. A
disgusted Elita, still shaken from what has just happened, begs Bennie to give up this quest
and return to Mexico City. Bennie again refuses, although he agrees to marry Elita in the
church of the town where Garcia is buried. They find Garcia's grave, but when he opens the
coffin, Bennie is struck from behind by an unseen assailant and knocked unconscious. He
wakes up to find himself half-buried in the grave, and Elita is dead. Garcia's corpse has been
decapitated.

Bennie learns from villagers that his assailants are driving a station wagon. He catches up
with the men after they blow out a tire. Bennie shoots them, searches their car, and claims
Garcia's head. Stopping at a roadside restaurant, he packs the sack containing the head with
ice to preserve it for the journey home. Bennie talks to the head as if Garcia were still alive,
first blaming Alfredo for Elita's death and then conceding that both of them probably loved
her equally.

Bennie is ambushed by members of Garcia's family. They reclaim the head and are about to
kill Bennie when they are interrupted by the arrival of Sappensly and Quill. The hit men
pretend to ask for directions. Quill produces a sub-machine gun and murders most of the
family, but is fatally shot by one of them. As Sappensly sorrowfully looks at Quill's corpse,
Bennie asks: "Do I get paid?" Sappensly turns to shoot, but Bennie kills him. Bennie returns
to Mexico City, "arguing" with Garcia's head all the while.

At his apartment Bennie gives Garcia's head a shower and then brings it to Max's hotel room.
Feigning willingness to surrender the head for his $10,000, Bennie reveals he is no longer
motivated by money; he says Alfredo was a friend of his and demands to know why Max and
the others want his head so badly. He also blames Elita's death on the bounty. Several men
pull guns but Bennie evades their fire and kills them all. He takes a business card from the
desk with El Jefe's address on it.

After attending the baptism for his new grandchild, El Jefe greets Bennie as a hero in his
hacienda, and gives him a briefcase containing the million-dollar bounty. Bennie calmly
relates how many people died for Garcia's head, including his beloved. El Jefe tells Bennie to
take his money and throw the head to the pigs on the way out. Infuriated that the object
responsible for Elita's death is viewed as nothing more than garbage, Bennie guns down all of
El Jefe's bodyguards.

Teresa enters with her newborn son, causing Bennie to hesitate shooting El Jefe. She urges
Bennie to kill her father. Bennie obliges and leaves El Jefe's hacienda with Teresa, taking
along Garcia's head. They approach the entrance gate and Bennie says goodbye to Teresa,
departing the scene with the words: "You take care of the boy. And I'll take care of the
father". Bennie drives away, only to be killed by El Jefe's men, their machine guns tearing
him to pieces.