Chinatown Scene 7 Summary

  • Back at his office, Mrs. Mulwray's already waiting. Jake tells her he doesn't know how the unknown bad guys who killed her husband were planning to profit out of emptying reservoirs…but he's going to find out.
  • She says she'll hire him to figure out the mystery of her husband's death in the process. Jake asks her about whether she married Hollis after her father, Noah Cross, sold the water company—she says it happened afterwards.
  • She seems nervous, and admits it. Evelyn explains the she and her husband had a falling out over the water company and not, she says, over her.
  • Hollis was angry with her father for talking him into constructing the dam that broke, she says, and never spoke to him again.
  • Starting by the seaside, Jake goes for a ride to visit Noah Cross at a place called The Albacore Club. They eat a large and fancy meal together.
  • Jake tells him that he thinks Hollis was murdered, while the police consider it an accident.
  • Jake says he used to work the Chinatown beat with Escobar, the lead investigator, whom he considers a very capable investigator.
  • Noah says he's concerned Jake's trying to make money by charging his daughter when the police have the situation under the control.
  • He tells Jake he doesn't know what he's dealing with. Jake says that's what the D.A. used to tell him in Chinatown.
  • They discuss what to do to find Hollis's potential murderer (if he was murdered), and Jake asks Noah when he last saw Hollis.
  • Noah says he doesn't know—but Jake says he does (because of the photos): they were having an argument together.
  • Noah remembers and says the argument was because of his daughter, though he won't say why specifically.
  • Jake presses him, and Noah claims it was about Hollis's mistress and that he didn't want Evelyn to know—he advises him to find the mistress.