Reel Stuff

by Don Bruns

  Howell Video and Sound

  Grip Trailer

  was stenciled on the side.

  Pushing open the glass door, I was immediately surrounded by small cranes, dollies, dedolights, hanging klieg lights, follow spots, and more. Two weeks ago I would have had no idea what they were. Less than a week on the set, I had a passing knowledge.

  Standing behind a counter on the far side of the spacious room was a young man on his cell phone. As we approached, he hung up and smiled at us.

  “If you don’t see it here,” he waved his hand at the inventory, “we’ve got a pretty big warehouse out back. What can I do for you?”

  “We’re looking for Scott Howell.”

  “You guys in the business?”

  Actually, I was. In the movie business. Just as I was in the security business when Clint Anders asked me what I was doing on his scaffolding. A chameleon. Blending in wherever I could.

  “That’s us.”

  “I’ll see if Scott is free. You’re lucky he’s in. Guy is always flying somewhere. Japan, Austria, London, New York.” He picked up a landline and dialed an extension. Speaking softly into the receiver, he listened to the answer. Turning to us, he said, “He’ll be right out.”

  The Howell guy was around forty-five, dressed in jeans and a collared shirt, a three-day growth of sandy-brown stubble on his face, and a pair of Oakley sunglasses pushed up on his head.

  “Let me guess. You two are getting ready to film the surprise hit of next summer and you need not only some top-notch equipment, but expert advice. Am I close?”

  Em smiled, her eyes meeting his. “The advice maybe.”

  “So I’m not making any money on this transaction? Well, at least I’ve gotten to meet you.”

  I bristled. He was flirting with my girlfriend like I wasn’t in the room. I got that a lot. I hadn’t gotten used to it, but I got it a lot.

  “Mr. Howell, I’m certain the police have already come to you,” I said, “but we’re here to find out who the cameraman was on the Deadline Miami shoot when Jason Londell fell from the scaffolding.”

  “Ah, jeez, I couldn’t believe that. What a tragedy. So, you guys aren’t with the cops?”

  “No,” Em shook her head. “We’re with a private investigation firm, and we’ve been hired to investigate the fall.”

  Investigation firm. All of a sudden I felt kind of grown-up. We weren’t just two P.I.s who stumbled through some cases, we were now an investigation firm. Leave it Em to bring a degree of professionalism to the job.

  “Cops haven’t been here. Why would they?”

  “The production company hired a camera operator who came from Howell Video and Sound along with a camera, am I right?”

  “The company rented a camera. What are you asking about the operator? I don’t think we had anything to do with the operator.”

  I seriously believed the guy had no clue.

  “Scott,” Em was getting a little more personal, “does this cameraman, does he do a lot of work for you?”

  “Like I said, I don’t think we had anything to do with the guy. But I didn’t make the deal. Hold on a minute, let me see what I can find.”

  Walking over to the counter, Howell started working a laptop computer, keying in code words, and bringing information up on the screen.

  “Greg Handler was the operator. Man didn’t work for us. In fact, I have no idea who this guy is.”

  “Oh. One of our operators, Jerry Clemens, said the production hired him through your company.”

  “No. Somebody got the wrong information. Greg Handler came in here and rented a camera. There was a letter of authorization from somebody associated with the show. He said he was on temporary assignment and he’d need it for a week. I’d never seen the guy before.”

  “You checked with the production company?”

  “I’m sure we did. Guy paid rental in advance plus insurance. Let’s see,” he scanned the screen. “Company credit card. CA Productions.”

  Clint Anders.

  “How much is rental?”

  “This cam? Fifteen hundred.”

  “For five days,” Em asked. “Wow.”

  “Per day. Fifteen hundred per day. Plus, fifteen hundred insurance.”

  “Nine thousand, up front?” She seemed surprised. I knew I was.

  “That’s one reason productions are so expensive these days. But,” he added, “he didn’t have to buy it or maintain it. That’s where it gets really expensive.”

  “You never heard of this guy before?”

  “We know most of the locals. Jerry Clemens has worked out of here before, but this guy apparently came in from L.A.”

  Em looked at me. “Company credit card.”

  We’d have to track that down.

  “Hey, why all the questions? And you mentioned cops.”

  “Scott, Mr. Howell, this Greg Handler, did he give you any I.D.?”

  “Driver’s license. Why the questions?”

  “Do you have a copy?”

  Keying in a few more letters, he turned the screen toward us, and there was Greg Handler’s California license photo, with dark hair over his ears, a Tom Selleck bushy mustache, and a rather large nose. Not just long, but bulbous. He looked like someone right out of central casting. To top it all off, he had on a pair of tinted glasses. Not sunglasses, but tinted like they were custom made. But they hid his eyes very well. Prescription probably.

  “One more time, kids, what’s with all the questions?” Scott Howell sounded somewhat irritated.

  “He’s got what? Two more days on the rental?”

  “Two.”

  “Maybe there’s nothing to worry about.”

  “And why should I consider worrying?”

  “Because he disappeared after Londell died.” Em broke the bad news.

  “Disappeared.” He said it as a statement, not a question.

  “Disappeared.” I echoed his word.

  “Hasn’t been heard from since,” Em said.

  There was a moment of awkward silence.

  “My camera?”

  “Maybe it will turn up at the end of the rental period,” Em said.

  “Maybe it won’t,” I countered. “The camera and a film of that final leap are missing along with Mr. Handler.”

  “When I first saw you,” he nodded to Emily, “I thought this was going to be a good day. A very good-looking lady walks into my business, things brighten up. And now you bring me this.”

  “I learned something a long time ago, Scott.” Emily had a cynical smile on her face. “And you being in the film business, you should have learned it too.”

  “What’s that?”

  I waited for the drumroll.

  “Looks can be deceiving.”

  Bada boom.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  “There’s got to be a reason the cops haven’t called on this Howell guy. Jerry Clemens turned his shoot over to the cops. They know there’d been another shoot. They’ve got to be looking for the other camera.”

  Em nodded as she drove. “I’m sure they are. And assuming Howell is telling us the truth, they’ll have the same obstacle that we have.”

  Maybe, just maybe, we were thinking faster than the cops. Howell had to be on their radar.

  “The guy looked weird.”

  “Scott Howell? I thought he was very attractive. I could go for a guy like that. Very Hollywood.”

  “No,” I snapped. “Not Howell. Greg Handler. Weird.”

  “Well, he’s a different Hollywood.”

  “There’s that.”

  Without warning, Em wheeled into a 7-Eleven, pulled between the parking lines, and stopped the car. Reaching into her purse, she pulled out her iPhone.

  “Greg Handler,” she said. “I’m going to Google him. What do I put in? Camera guy? Cinematographer?”

  “Both.”

  She keyed in something and stared at the tiny screen.

  “Nothing. Doesn’t recognize the name.”
>
  “I would guess that Deadline Miami is a union production. I’m certain that CA Productions is union. I don’t see how you could work in Hollywood if you weren’t. See what organization he and Jerry would belong to.”

  In seconds she had it. “American Cinematographers Association. ACA.”

  “So Google search ACA with Handler’s name.”

  She did.

  “Here he is. Name: Greg Handler. Cinematographer. Location: Los Angeles, California. Member since 1999.”

  “Any other background?”

  “Wow,” she said. “Loads of movies. Casino Royale, Borat.”

  “His picture looked like Borat with that bushy mustache.”

  “Hope Springs, The Devil Wears Prada, and what does DP mean?”

  “Director of Photography. He supervises the other camera guys.”

  “Or camera girls.”

  “Yeah. And every hot girl who can aim a camera thinks she’s a photographer. Ooh, look at me, I took a picture of a lawn chair and it’s all shadowy.”

  “What is that all about?” she asked.

  “Never mind, it’s just a quote from that cartoon character, Stewie, on Family Guy.”

  “Are you ever going to grow up?”

  “What were you watching a couple of weeks ago when I visited you? Jersey Shore?”

  Em pouted. “Okay, point taken.”

  “Why the question about DP?”

  “Well, Handler was DP on a couple of TV series. Scrubs, How I Met Your Mother, so I guess his qualifications are pretty good.”

  “So why did he split?” I asked. “He shoots the jump, then disappears. It doesn’t make any sense. Especially since he’s got a really stellar track record.”

  We sat in the car, both of us wondering where Greg Handler had disappeared to. Wondering what had happened on that catwalk.

  “I’ll do some looking when we get back,” Em said, still staring out the windshield. “If he’s listed on the union page, I should be able to contact him through there.”

  “Good idea.” And then I remembered. “Randy told me his agent got him this gig. So maybe you have to go through an agent. That’s great if the agent knows where Handler is, but if he got him this gig and then loses touch for a while it may be difficult to run him down.”

  “We’ll see when I get back.”

  She started the car and the quiet purr of the engine reminded me this wasn’t my in-the-shop 2003 Chevy. This was a refined machine, and driving it was a, for the most part, refined woman. Except when she wasn’t.

  “Was there a photo on that union page?”

  “No. I looked,” she said. “You know how they use a blank silhouette if someone doesn’t post a photo on Facebook?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s what it was. Blank.”

  “Well, if we run into him, I think I’d recognize him.”

  “Distinctive.”

  She drove me to the set, and I met James at the trailer.

  “Late shoot tonight, pard. We’ve got to be on duty at eight. It may last until midnight.”

  As we walked, I talked him through the afternoon’s activities, and he told me about his day’s work.

  “The key grip was up there. Chad somebody, I’ve got it written down. Anyway, this guy met the cameraman. You said Greg Handler? Chad says the guy was pleasant and told him that he’d worked this kind of shot before. Filming a fall. Very confident. Chad and his assistant were a yard or so back from the camera when Londell jumped, fell, whatever he did. He told me that they were shocked still for about three or four seconds, then scrambled down the ladder as fast as they could. They never paid any attention to this camera guy and forgot him in all the commotion.”

  I tossed a photocopy of Greg Handler’s driver’s license onto the small kitchen table. James glanced at it.

  “James, I have to admit it all sounds strange.” I pointed to the piece of paper.

  “What’s that?”

  “We had Howell make us a copy of the guy’s California license so we’d recognize him if we ever ran into him.”

  “This is Greg Handler?” James picked up the paper, studied it for a second, and shook his head.

  “That’s the guy. I told Em he looks like Sacha Baron Cohen in Borat.”

  “Chad, my grip, he said the guy was slender, blond, and about thirty-five. Good looking, well spoken—”

  “We’re talking the camera guy on the scaffolding?”

  “The same.”

  “Only different,” I said. “This guy is not blond, not slender, and he passed thirty-five ten years ago.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Clint Anders was on the set. Second time I’d laid eyes on him. According to Bill Purdue, our head of security, Anders hadn’t been seen in three weeks. The show seemed to survive without his daily presence.

  This time he had his arm around Ashley Amber, brushing her hair with his free hand, and talking to her in a quiet voice. They walked by me on the set and neither one seemed to notice. They appeared to be lost in one another.

  Anders had come in the day before Londell died to do some technical advising, and was to fly back to L.A. today. The advising sounded like a tax write-off to me, an excuse to see his friend Londell, but I only know what I learned in business school. James and I had never had to worry about tax write-offs.

  We’d heard that Anders was staying in Miami a couple of days while the coroner’s office dealt with the body. When they released it, he was going to fly back to Los Angeles for the funeral. I wondered if consoling Ashley was part of his plan. They seemed very cozy.

  As I approached James, he gave me a short wave and started in immediately.

  “Problem is,” he said as he stood on the sidewalk by the street, making sure no one got onto the grassy area where filming was about to begin, “Ashley was apparently right. They found a foreign substance in Londell’s body. A foreign substance.”

  “What is it?”

  “No one is saying, but it seems pretty serious.”

  “So he was high on drugs?”

  “Could be.”

  “Unless this wife, Juliana, personally injected a needle into his arm, I don’t see any guilt,” I said.

  “They found something, partner.”

  “How do you know?”

  “The buzz. Over in the dinner tent. About an hour ago when I grabbed a sandwich people were talking. I mean everyone.”

  “And rumor becomes fact?”

  “Remember, Ashley said she had it on good authority.”

  “Ashley Amber doesn’t seem to be the most reliable person out there, you know?”

  “People seem pretty sure, partner.”

  I just shook my head. If Londell was high on something and sailed off that scaffolding assuming he could fly, then the murder theory flew away with him. We were desperate for facts, but instead, were ingesting rumors and half-truths. None of it was helping us get any further with the case.

  “Em’s working the other end, right?” James asked.

  She was. We’d made a decision that since James and I were being paid by the Anders organization as security, we couldn’t let him know we were moonlighting on his set. It was almost like double-dipping, trying to prove Jason Londell’s death was not suicide. So Em was going to interview Clint Anders tonight. Em wasn’t on anyone’s payroll so she was safe. She’d tell him she was a part-time investigator and ask him about his relationship with Londell. From what we could find on the Internet and through conversation with some of the crew, Anders and Londell were good friends and had worked a number of projects on the West Coast. We assumed he knew Londell’s wife, Juliana, and Em was going to go for details on her. She’d get what she could and report back to us. She was also going to see how a cameraman that no one seemed to know had access to a CA credit card.

  Behind us, about twenty yards, bright lights beamed through the dark of night, and extras in formal suits, black tuxedos, and brightly colored ball gowns were walking down a staged
white staircase that pretended to empty into a fancy outdoor cocktail party, complete with champagne glasses, a full-service bar, and white-jacketed waiters offering hors d’oeuvres. It was the kind of party that James, with his culinary degree, would probably want to cater.

  “Action,” I heard Randy Roberts shout through his bullhorn as the scene began. “Slower. Take your time, stretch it.”

  I could see him in his canvas director’s chair, holding his signature aluminum coffee mug and I was half tempted to ask him if I could have a sip of whatever he was mixing in there, but security can’t drink on the job. Apparently, a director can and did drink all day long.

  After several retakes he yelled, “Cut,” and things came to a halt.

  When the lights were switched off, James and I took our scheduled break as Roberts shouted, “Fifteen minutes, people.”

  “Hey, pard, there’s Chad. Let me grab him for a brief chat.”

  A minute later the tall, lanky black man walked over and shook my hand. He was fairly young, but was going bald and compensated with a mustache and goatee.

  Chad Rich had been a grip for ten years. He’d started working in Hollywood on the TV show Vegas. He told me it wasn’t that easy to get work in this business.

  “Man, we’re scrambling for jobs. Always. You find a good vehicle, you stick with it. Reality shows are sucking up the money. If it’s not a reality show, it’s sports networks and movie networks. Shows like Deadline Miami are scarce, man, and I am lucky to be where I am.”

  Chad Rich, James, and I were sitting at a picnic table outside a long gunmetal gray trailer. This trailer housed five members of the crew. I don’t know how long it was, but it contained five small housing units lined up next to each other. They were for the grips, scenery, prop, camera people. The actors had a bigger trailer, and the four stars of the show had monster trailers all to themselves. Of course, James and I had a rundown Airstream that had seen much better days. The pecking order was everything.

  Everyone except for a couple of security guys was on this short break, and I was enjoying the cool evening breeze and the laid-back Miami park atmosphere. The grassy area was on the water, and I could smell the salty air and the odor of iodine and rotting seaweed. Not that unpleasant, but I guess you would have to be here and breathe it in yourself to understand.