Build a movie plot around this: Visser reports to whom? Marty
The film opens with a short voice-over monologue voiced by M. Emmet Walsh as various images of the Texas landscape are shown. The film then shifts to a conversation between Abby (Frances McDormand) and Ray (John Getz) in a car as it drives through a heavy downpour at night. They seem to be discussing Abby's bad marriage and Ray indicates that he's driving her to Houston. But instead of driving Abby to Houston, Ray drives to a motel and they have sex. We later find out that Julian Marty (Dan Hedaya), who owns a Texas bar, has suspected Abby's affair with Ray, one of his bartenders, so he hires private detective Loren Visser (M. Emmet Walsh) to take photos of them.When Visser reports back to Marty, he teases him about being cuckolded. The morning after their tryst, Marty makes a silent phone call to Ray and Abby.The following day Ray goes to the bar to collect his earnings, two weeks worth of work, but instead confronts Marty and quits his job. Marty threatens Ray's life and advises him not to trust Abby, that she will one day tell him she "hasn't done anything funny" and he won't believe her.Marty then hires Visser to kill the couple. Visser suggests he take a fishing trip to Corpus Christi to establish an alibi. He then breaks into Ray's home, steals Abby's gun, and photographs the sleeping couple through the bedroom window.Visser presents an edited photo of their fake corpses to Marty, who dumps four dead fish on his desk. Marty goes to the bathroom to vomit, then opens the safe to give Visser his $10,000 fee. Visser then shoots Marty with Abby's gun in a double cross, leaving her gun at the scene as evidence that she killed Marty. But he accidentally leaves his cigarette lighter and does not realize that Marty has stolen one of the incriminating photographs and locked it in the safe.Ray returns to the bar to get his last paycheck and accidentally kicks Abby's gun, firing it. He finds a motionless Marty and decides to cover up the murder. He cleans up the blood and disposes of evidence in a backyard...