During a high profile Mafia testimony case, a contract killer checks-in a hotel room near the courthouse while his next door depressed neighbor wants to commit suicide due to marital problems.

German director Hans Noever shot this crime drama in the U.S. in English, an unusual achievement at this time. The setting is Jefferson City, Missouri, and Joseph Randolph, a VIP in a fictional electronics company, has just gotten the sack. The company bigwigs insist it is simply because of downsizing, but Randolph is not buying it. Enraged, he gets a handgun (this is the U.S.) and shoots five managers to death. Then he turns himself in and is eventually put in a psychiatric hospital by the police. His family suffers a series of tragedies that leave only his daughter to wonder about why her father was committed to an institution. She joins with a visiting reporter from Chicago and another interested man, and all three start digging deeper into the company's history.