A low-rent private investigator and former cop is sent to Austria on a job, and while there sees a number of seemingly unrelated coincidences that lead him into a strange web of corruption and decadence.

The farmers on the Lohhof, the largest farm in the area, are well known all around and have the highest prestige amongst their peers, not the least, because they never suffer any shortage of water. When in times of drought the water everywhere else has dried into nothingness, the water on the Lohhof is abundant and fresh. But one very dry summer, the drought comes to the Lohhof, too, and this time, the source of the water has dried up. And so, with diving rod in hand, one of the farm's old peasants goes on his merry little way to find a new source of water. At one point, the diving rod bends so strongly, that it almost slips out of the old man's hands. Convinced that there must be a huge source of water nearby, all the farmers of the Lohhof bend their backs to find the new well. They dig long, but they dig in vain: no water is found, only a strange sand, which is yellowish, shiny and flickers golden in the sun.

Alois, Wendelin, Schani and Franz operate an auto repair shop in Vienna. One evening, Alois fishes the suicidal Hannerl out of the Danube and takes her to live with him. The timid and taciturn woman soon disappears however, and with her, a large amount of cash out of the shop's cash register. A disappointed Alois wishes to forget about her, but his three friends look for Hannerl and the money. As it turns out, she's married to the smuggler Kerrylis, who forces her to take part in his business; that's why she tried to kill herself. When Kerrylis is found dead, Alois is suspected of being the murderer.

Early Austrian avant-garde film about a triangle relationship between a passionate artist, a repressive artistic manager and the woman in both of their lives.