Harv Beckman, writer and used car dealer, receives a rare Kaiser 48, bought quite by chance by his mechanic for thirty-five thousand dollars. The vehicle bears with it disturbing revelations about the flood that destroyed the city of Vanport in Oregon, in 1948.

     Completely in debt, Harv pawns his house to pay off the Kaiser. To make matters worse, the car is stolen, which puts the salesman into a complicated situation. In search of information on the theft, he talks to the first owner of the car, Ralph Styles, a retired black journalist who worked as a reporter in Portland, in 1940. The journalist maintains that the Vanport flood was precipitated by sabotage in the dykes, to eradicate the black and Latin population. Built in 1942 by Henry Kaiser, Vanport was between Portland and Vancouver and was a city of laborers. During the Second World War, the city had the largest shipyards and required a great deal of labor. At the time, Kaiser sent leaflets throughout the country calling on people to work, which attracted a great number of blacks and Latins.

     Harv is interested in the story. While he searches for information on the car, he tries to discover more data on the destroyed city. The deeper he goes into the past, the more problems he encounters along the way, including an accusation of fraud on the part of his insurance company.