At a New York City outdoor café, Gus Soltic drowns his eggs with ketchup, stabs his plate with an inverted ketchup bottle, and leaves without eating. Later, Gus telephones the wealthy Clayton residence, pretending to be a school attendance officer to find out if young Virginia Clayton will be at school. Elsewhere, truck driver Sean Boyd makes a warehouse delivery, and returns to his apartment. There, Sean presents his daughter, Kathy, with ballet tickets for her birthday, then jogs with her in Central Park on her way to summer school. Meanwhile, Gus hotwires a car and watches Virginia, dressed in blue overalls, leave for class. Halfway to school, Kathy, also wearing overalls, tells her father she will walk alone so he can go home and sleep. Gus abducts Kathy, mistaking her for Virginia. Although Sean sees Kathy kidnapped, he is unable to rescue her, but he follows in a taxicab. The chase continues on the sidewalk until the taxicab crashes, and Sean reaches Gus’s car on foot. He momentarily grabs Gus through the window, but gets thrown to the pavement when the car drives off. When Gus crashes and abandons his car, he forces Kathy into the subway. Sean follows, evading the transit police as they try to arrest him for hopping the turnstile. Meanwhile, Gus and Kathy drive away in a stolen telephone repair truck. Sean “borrows” a street preacher’s station wagon with the clergyman inside and pursues the kidnapper. As both vehicles approach the waterfront, the repair truck squeezes past a rig and disappears, while Sean crashes the station wagon. Sean emerges from the vehicle and collapses on the street. Elsewhere, Det. Fogarty and Lt. Tonelli learn of Kathy’s kidnapping, and that she is the child of a former police officer. Meanwhile, Gus drives the repair truck to a bombed out section of the South Bronx. He explains to Kathy that his family once owned many properties in the neighborhood. As minorities moved in and the area changed, Gus was unable to pay the taxes and the city repossessed the buildings. Gus is bitter that companies like Clayton Properties buy the land cheap and redevelop it. When Kathy explains that her name is not Clayton and her father is not wealthy, Gus accuses her of lying. Gus calls himself “the juggler,” claiming that the kidnapping is his way of getting even, and juggling the books. Soon, Kathy escapes and hides in a condemned building, where a homeless man offers to protect her, but Gus kills the man with a broken wine bottle and warns Kathy not escape again. At a hospital, Sean gets treatment but is eager to leave when Lt. Tonelli detains him. When Tonelli informs Sean that he is being charged with grand theft auto, hit and run, and assaulting a transit officer, Sean thinks he has the right to track down the kidnapper because of his former law enforcement status. However, Tonelli orders him to go to the police station to face charges. Meanwhile, Gus hides Kathy in a condemned apartment building. Gus calls the Clayton home to alert Marguerite Clayton that he has kidnapped her daughter, and wants $1 million in ransom. Marguerite is speechless because her daughter is safe in the apartment. After Gus hangs up, she contacts her husband and the police. At the police station, Sgt. Otis Barnes beats Sean in an interrogation room because the two men once worked together, and Sean reported Otis for corruption. However, Sean overpowers Otis and escapes. On the street, Sean climbs in the car of his former wife, Barbara, and gives her details of Kathy’s kidnapping. Barbara claims that if Kathy were living in Connecticut, she would still be safe. Sean leaves, but promises to find their daughter. Later, Tonelli and Fogarty wiretap the phones in the Clayton home. When Gus calls, he blames Hampton Richmond Clayton III’s company for ruining his neighborhood and getting rich from redevelopment. Unaware that he is speaking to Tonelli instead of Hampton, Gus orders the real estate tycoon to leave ransom money behind a concert stage in Central Park. When Tonelli wants proof that Gus really has Virginia, Gus threatens to cut off the girl’s hand and deliver it in a paper bag. Thus, Tonelli realizes Gus has kidnapped Sean’s daughter. Soon, Sean returns to Peepland, a sex show establishment, looking for evidence that Gus left behind during the morning chase. As Sean is thrown off the premises, a sex worker hands him Gus’s dog ID tag and medallion. As Sean leaves, he dodges Otis’s bullets and escapes in a taxicab. At Central Park, Tonelli and his colleagues strategize how to stop Gus, while Sean searches animal shelter records to identify the owner of the dog tag. However, Otis appears at the pound, trains his gun on Sean and grabs the record away. When Otis threatens to destroy the paper, Sean pushes Otis, whose trousers become caught on barbed wire, leaving him dangling precariously above a pen filled with Dobermans. With the kidnapper’s address, Sean and Maria, the pound records keeper, board a train to find Kathy. Returning to the street, Sean fights off Puerto Rican gang members and barely escapes by taxicab, but they follow him in their cars, and the fighting resumes. Police cars appear just as the violence escalates into a riot. When Sean is unable to reach Tonelli by police radio, he and Maria head to Central Park in a police car. Meanwhile, Gus drags Kathy through tunnels beneath the park. Above ground, the police wait for Gus to appear, as the concert begins. Sean arrives and warns Tonelli that Gus will elude the police, using underground passages. Just then, the police’s trap crumbles, as Gus wounds their sniper. Gus grabs the ransom money and heads back to the tunnels. Sean follows, telling Gus to keep the money; he just wants his daughter. However, Gus has developed a romantic attachment to Kathy, and is not about to release her. As the confrontation continues, Sean instructs Kathy to climb a nearby metal ladder to safety. He fights Gus, who tries to shoot, but runs out of bullets. After Sean shoots and wounds Gus, he is reunited with Kathy above ground. She admits that despite everything that has happened, she would rather live with her father in New York City than her mother’s home in Connecticut.