“Over a 10-year period I spent $50,000 on Donald Judd furniture and [bought] 200 pairs of Manolo Blahniks. That equals approximately $125,000,” said Evi. “Randy’s royalty stream is [being] stolen.” The Quaids filed for bankruptcy in 2000, owing the I.R.S. $412,000; the state of California had several tax liens against them totaling more than $207,000.

“When I first knew Randy he had these really good circles of friends; he had his church group, his golf group, his actor buddies. Evi engineered the estrangement of Randy from anybody that pre-dated her in his life,” said another former associate. (“Standard M.O. for all wives,” Evi said.) “You found yourself scratching your head asking what the fuck happened to him.”

“The major question for all of us is what spell she has over this fellow,” said someone who used to work with Randy.

United They Stand

‘He’s been in this business for 40 years, and I’ve been watching his back for 25,” Evi was saying, raising her voice. “Why do you think he’s alive?”

It was the next day, and we were at a picturesque home on the water on Vancouver Island belonging to Catherine Sas, the Quaids’ immigration attorney. “Ssshhh, ssssshhh,” she was telling Evi. “Calm down.” Sas had been trying to suggest that Randy should consider going back to California for an upcoming court date on his squatting and vandalism charges. Evi, who had found out she could stay in Canada and apply for citizenship, since her father was born there, had said she was “never going back to Santa Barbara.”

“Have they investigated Lannette Turicchi and our claim she doesn’t own the house?” she demanded.

“That’s called a trial, and you have to be there,” Sas told her.

“I want a trial, Evi,” said Randy.

“Randy, you’re crazy!,” Evi said. “They’re crooks!”

“Evi, here’s another possibility,” said Sas. “You stay in Canada and he goes down.”

“Yeah, Randy and I are married,” Evi said, holding up interlocking fingers.

“Evi, I’m gonna go down,” said Randy. “I wanna go down.”

“They want to kill you Randy!,” Evi screamed.

Randy frowned and said, “No they don’t.”

A little while later he was drinking a martini while Evi went out to walk the dog. I asked him where he thought all this was going.

“Well,” he said, “what I’d like to do and what I’m able to do, I’m not sure if they’re two different things. What I’d like to do is put all this behind me and resolve it in some way that’s favorable to us, because I do believe we have many grievances against a lot of people.

“I just always wanted to be left alone to go into a creative space,” said Quaid. “I had to go there a lot because I was working a lot, and I didn’t have the interest of sitting in my trailer in between scenes and going over my bank statements. My main concern was putting a good performance on the screen. But at the same time it was always like I was never able to get ahead, and that felt weird. I just thought, Well, are we spending that much money?

“My accountant, he sent me a letter behind Evi’s back. He said, Your wife is spending so much money—she’s gonna drag you into the poorhouse! They were trying to separate us, divide us, and it really affected me. Like I started looking at Evi sideways, like, This bitch. Yeah, Evi was going into Hermès; she was going into all the stores, Chanel—the whole deal—but now I know if you total up the bills they’re just a little fraction of what I was capable of paying for. I was making enough money for me to comfortably support Evi and her shopping.

“They wanted to separate us,” said Quaid, “because Evi is very intuitive and very smart. She’s the smartest person I know. You can call her crazy, you can call her whatever you want, but she is my lifeline, and if she wasn’t with me, I don’t know where I’d be.”

He stared off into the distance, waiting for her to come back.

Additional reporting by Ted Travelstead, Alison Forbes, and Laura Griffin.