Jack Rafferty, deputy head of the trade union of transport workers gives testimony before the senate committee on suspicion of corruption.

Rafferty has the right to refuse to testify citing the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, but then he will never be elected as chairman of the trade union.

As a result he becomes totally bankrupt: his wife leaves him with the children (additionally his daughter dies in a car accident), a childhood friend commits suicide and publicly disgraced Jill Hart also escapes, taking with her all of Rafferty's secret savings.

Ames provides a recording of telephone conversations from which it is clear that Rafferty called the police and ratted out his closest friend – Tommy Farichetti.

And then Farichetti drives up to the building where the commission is in session and pulls out a machine-gun to finally settle accounts with Rafferty who betrayed him...