In a fly-blown bar on the backside of Paris, Kip Weston--drunk, broke and aimlessly wandering Europe--runs into an acquaintance who offers him a job on a small tourist barge around the canals of Burgundy. Kip hesitates, until the friend mentions that an elderly American has been asking after him. For reasons unclear, he is a hunted man. Kip soon finds himself in unanticipated peril when an American guest mistakes him for a "wanted" young man from upstate New York. After the Americans depart, the next party of guests prove even more unsettling. With two bodyguards in tow, Carbonne, an arrogant and mercurial business tycoon arrives with his much younger mistress, Brigitte. Though the rest of the crew makes a show of welcoming him, they clearly know and fear him. It soon becomes clear that the bodyguards are not there to protect Brigitte, but to make her a prisoner because she knows too much about Carbonne's crimes.

The plot quickly builds. Soon, Kip and Brigitte undertake a surreptitious love affair that, if discovered, could prove fatal for them both. When the police come looking for Brigitte, the crew runs them off, but everyone realizes the authorities are closing in. As the tension on board ratchets up, a terrified Brigitte agrees to flee with Kip, but they're journey is only starting to reveal the many layers of their situation.