Frank Kramer is a high-society lawyer whose world is turned upside down when his young daughter Nicole is kidnapped. Unbeknownst to Kramer, the abductor is Ruby, daughter of the family housekeeper and Nicole's best friend. Over the course of one painfully frigid New York winter night, Ruby and her accomplice, Matty, send Kramer on a grueling chase after phone calls in telephone booths scattered all across Manhattan--from Chinatown to Times Square to Harlem. With each phone call, Kramer is forced to meet a new set of outlandish and impossible demands. It quickly becomes clear that the kidnappers are out for more than money. This is a personal vendetta against Kramer, whose mounting desperation is equalled only by his reckless indifference to others. He thwarts the efforts of the FBI, and steamrolls over his ex-wife, only to find that his rash behavior has just pushed his daughter's life further out of his reach.