Drifter Richard Bone is temporarily living with his friends, married couple Alex and Mo Cutter, in Santa Barbara, while working for their mutual friend, George Swanson, as a salesman at his boat dealership. Rich and Mo may have ended up together if Rich had stuck around at the time, something that Mo can't help but think about now in Alex long having dropped out of life the result of his experience in Vietnam, which included losing an eye, an arm and a leg, he largely turning to the bottle to cope. Only when he is brought in as a suspect does Rich comes to the realization that what he saw off in the distance one rainy night in a back alley was the disposal of a dead body, the victim seventeen year old Vicky Duran. Spotting him in a crowd, Rich is "certain" that who he saw dump the body is one of Santa Barbara's most upstanding citizens, oil baron J.J. Cord. What Rich and Alex discover about Cord and his movements that evening fit with him being the perpetrator. Bringing in Vicky's sister, Val Duran, who wants justice for Vicky, Alex comes up with a scheme to expose Cord as the murderer, that scheme - sending Cord a blackmail letter, he responding to such with the requested moneys proving he the murderer - which requires Rich's cooperation as the front man. While this plot seems to have brought Alex back to life, it may be the impetus for forever changing the relationships between Rich, Alex and Mo.—Huggo