Palermo, 1946. Giovanni is a child of seven, with a passion for "The Three Musketeers" and a terrible fear of the dark. On the eve of the Immaculate Conception, his father Arturo gave him a preview of the splendid family crib. Giovanni is impressed by the "Guercio", a disquieting statuette, depicting a shepherd with a stealing face and a threatening appearance: an ogre who wanders among the placid and angelic migrants who pay homage to the Bambinello. After a homicide in the street, in the city, Giovanni realizes that even his father, head of the Hygiene and Prevention Office of the Municipality, is threatened because of a permit he does not want to release. Thus, like a heroic musketeer armed with a wooden sword, hat and crusader bib, he watches over the crib in a climate of mixed tension at play. The second murder by an unknown hand in the streets of Palermo leaves no doubt to the child: his father is really in danger and the great operator is Guercio.