In Chap­ter 145 of “All the Col­ors of the Dark,” Misty occa­sion­al­ly vis­it­ed the gallery, where he would sit by the win­dow, serv­ing as a liv­ing dis­play while clean­ing the glass. The warmth of the sun on his skin was a stark con­trast to the ghost­ly pres­ence of the miss­ing girls observ­ing him. On Sat­ur­days, he had break­fast with Saint and her grand­moth­er, Nor­ma, at Lacey’s Din­er. Despite Norma’s crit­i­cal com­ments, Saint showed ten­der con­cern for her grand­moth­er, par­tic­u­lar­ly when she asked the wait­ress to “Irish up” her cof­fee. The con­ver­sa­tion shift­ed to recent events, includ­ing the riots in Los Ange­les, which Nor­ma linked to a lack of civil­i­ty in soci­ety.

The nar­ra­tive then shifts to the Palace 7 cin­e­ma, which had been closed since fall 1986 while own­er Sam­my bat­tled the town coun­cil over zon­ing issues. He envi­sioned the venue’s poten­tial, with its high ceil­ings and broad win­dows, but was ham­pered by bureau­crat­ic delays. As Sam­my dealt with his frus­tra­tions, he was approached by Mitzie, the wife of Walt Murray—the the­ater’s beloved pro­jec­tion­ist, who was near­ing his nineti­eth birth­day. Mitzie pro­posed a sur­prise one-night reopen­ing of the the­ater. Ini­tial­ly, Sam­my agreed, but under the influ­ence of Remy Mar­tin, he for­got about the agree­ment the next day. When he saw a poster announc­ing the event a week lat­er, he lashed out, feel­ing blind­sided by Mitzie’s request.

Patch, a friend of Sammy’s, attempts to per­suade him to embrace the oppor­tu­ni­ty to give back to the com­mu­ni­ty. Sam­my express­es his dis­dain, argu­ing that he already offers an escape through his gallery and dis­miss­ing the idea that reopen­ing the the­ater would earn him any good­will. Yet Patch coun­ters that the com­mu­ni­ty’s long­ing for the Palace 7 could trans­late into pos­i­tive recog­ni­tion for Sam­my if he allows the event to pro­ceed. Despite his reluc­tance and frus­tra­tion, Sam­my con­cedes that he might con­sid­er par­tic­i­pat­ing, albeit with skep­ti­cism about the film choice. A humor­ous ten­sion builds as Patch ner­vous­ly checks the poster’s title, reveal­ing Sam­my’s con­cern for the movie selec­tion and hint­ing at a deep­er con­nec­tion to their shared past .