Rookie Los Angeles cop Nick Styles is at a Los Angeles street fair, where hit man Earl Talbot Blake pulls a double cross on some drug dealers, killing four men. Minutes later, Nick shoots Blake in the knee, and Blake is grabbed by Nick's partner and best friend Larry Doyle. Nick becomes the focus of the media, thanks to an amateur cameraman's footage of Nick disarming Blake. Over the next few years, Nick's career takes off: he's offered a job in the district attorney's office, and his hip media style keeps him in the public eye. Nick marries a woman named Alice and they go on to have two daughters named Lisa and Monica. While Blake is in prison, he vows revenge on Nick. When Blake comes up for parole, he orchestrates a bloody escape -- which includes faking his own death. Blake doesn't want Nick dead. He just wants Nick to suffer in spades. He wants to ruin Nick's life as completely as possible, and then have Nick sent to prison for murder so Nick will know how Blake feels. Blake begins his vendetta by killing city councilman U. B. Farris and planting evidence to make everyone think Nick and Farris are running an underage pornography ring. Blake then kidnaps Nick, forces him to take drugs and have sex with a prostitute, videotapes the whole thing, and then releases Nick. Nick tells everyone that it was Blake who kidnapped him, but everyone refuses to believe Nick because everyone thinks Blake is dead. That night, Blake breaks into Nick's house, and makes a threatening videotape with Lisa, Monica, and an ax in it, but Blake didn't actually do anything to Lisa and Monica. Nick is then suspended from the DA's office, with everyone thinking that Nick is mentally ill because he keeps saying that Blake is still alive. Blake then begins the final phase of his vendetta -- he kills Larry and frames Nick for it. Blake also links Nick to misappropriation of public funds, specifically, the funds he's supposed to be raising for a children's center in a building at the base of the Watts tower. Nick is forced to turn to his childhood friend, gang leader Odessa, for help in clearing his name and stopping Blake once and for all.
26 April 1959, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
8 February 1949, Hong Kong
17 November 1947, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA
16 January 1971, New York City, New York, USA
16 February 1958, Newark, New Jersey, USA
30 October 1957, San Francisco, California, USA
4 January 1949, New York City, New York, USA
24 February 1966, Burbank, California, USA
19 August 1969, Santa Monica, California, USA
1 January 1959, California, USA
16 November 1951, Washington, District of Columbia, USA
20 March 1964, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA
24 March 1961, Encino, California, USA
13 November 1961, Jersey City, New Jersey, USA
9 March 1967, Redwood City, California, USA
28 December 1954, Mount Vernon, New York, USA
17 December 1948, Upland, California, USA
