questions about the plot

spoilers....







Harvey Keitel's character was dying of cancer or something, a secret he kept from his wife. He couldn't be intimate because of his illness and his wife thought he just didn't love her any more (which wasn't true), so she ended up cheating on him. Keitel's partner in a real estate development was not only having sex with his wife, he was also threatening to reveal a secret about her identity (more later on that). Keitel was worried about his wife's financial security after he died and her secret being outed. So Keitel set in motion a scheme where he hired Gittes (Jack N.) to get evidence of his partner and his wife having sex at a hotel while he pretends to stumble in on them and be surprised, confront them, etc., and when he does that he then pretends to "lose it" at the hotel and kill the partner in a fit of rage (but it was really how he planned it all along - he had a gun hidden in the room). Keitel set up Gittes and his audio recording to be there to corroborate his "losing it" argument (temporary insanity, etc.), which if he could get the court/jury to buy it, may mean he is now the only partner and would be the 100% owner of the development (or his wife would when he died). The dead guy's wife (Madeline Stowe) suspects the killing was planned and not really a fit of jealous rage, and she tries to play Gittes to get evidence of that (the audio recording has some statements that suggest that there is more going on than is apparent at first listen, including a mumbled reference to "Mulway" the screwed-up family in Chinatown). Meanwhile, Keitel's hoodlum friend Mickey Nice and his muscle are trying to get the recording so they can destroy (in case it's bad for them) or tamper with it, so Keitel can use it to support the "lost it" argument. There's oil under the development Keitel and his partner were developing, and an oilman (with the complicity of Keitel's partner, but I'm not certain of that) was slant-drilling to get at that oil (even though he didn't have the right to drill there, and it was causing tremors, gas leaks, and endangered anyone living in the development, and he wasn't going to cut in the owner of the mineral rights on his profits). One of the oilman's underlings spills the beans about this to Gittes. Keitel's wife turns out to be Katherine Mulwray, who was the young girl in Chinatown (the product of incest between Evelyn Mulwray (faye dunaway) and her father, Noah Cross). Gittes figured out who she really was when he saw her wildflower broach with different color flowers - her mom bred wildflowers and changed their color by scorching the seeds, something Jake learned in Chinatown, and he put that together with the fact she dyed her hair and figured out who she was). Jake had vowed to protect her in Chinatown but she was taken away by Noah and he hadn't seen her in years, but he keeps his promises. He tampers with the tape so it would support the "lost it argument". Keitel kills himself (he's on his last legs anyway, plus he says he doesn't want an autopsy because his terminal illness, if discovered, could suggest a motive to stage the jealous rage killing to help his wife - that's why he blows himself up). Jake beats up Lt. Loach, whose father (also a cop) is the one who shot Faye Dunaway's charcter in Chinatown as she tried to get Katherine away from the incestuous father - when Loach jokes about this, Jake loses it and makes Loach suck his own gun, and Loach wets his pants. Presumably, Kitty will be financially secure because she will own the development and can establish the rights to the oil under it. But as Jake says, the past never goes away.