Armed with a sawed-off shotgun in a cardboard box, Tony Kiritsis ambushes Dick Hall at Meridian Mortgage, affixes the dead man's wire to Hall’s neck, and walks him through freezing downtown streets to his Crestwood Village apartment. Over a tense 63-hour standoff, Tony booby-traps the apartment, confines Hall inside a bathtub, and calls into Fred Temple’s radio show to rally widespread public sympathy.
Believing he has achieved absolute victory after authorities deliver a notarized statement of immunity and an apology from mortgage executives, Tony stages a live, televised press conference with Hall still tethered to the wire, delivering a triumphant, expletive-laden tirade declaring himself a national hero. Tony then releases Hall unharmed and fires a single shotgun shell into the air to prove the weapon was live. He is instantly swarmed and arrested by police, as the immunity agreement signed under duress is legally void.
The postscript reveals that Tony Kiritsis was found not guilty by reason of insanity and spent years committed in a state psychiatric hospital, while Richard Hall was left with lasting psychological trauma.