“Why can’t we flip the scene order, move inside the club, and shoot the interior first? It’s all on the call sheet, so what does it matter?” Joey didn’t try to hide her frustration.
“Because we’re already set up out here.” Mack Porter, the first assistant director, stared over Joey’s shoulder, probably wishing she’d disappear. “The interior’s not lit yet, and we need to lay down another dolly track for camera. We can’t be randomly shuffling the schedule.”
“Mack, look at that sky.” Joey gestured to the dark clouds hovering overhead. “It’s going to start coming down any minute. We can’t have vintage gowns and furs from the 1930s getting drenched.”
The assistant director folded his arms, a sour look on his face. “I’d say clothing that’s been around for ninety years has already survived more than a few drops of rain.”
Joey bit back a sharp remark, only because she knew that wouldn’t help win her point. “We’ve been over this half a dozen times in the production meetings. These pieces are part of a priceless collection that’s never been onscreen before. We’re the first movie to have access to it.”
“If it’s so valuable, maybe you shouldn’t be using it out here, then.” Porter flicked his hand to indicate the dreary downtown landscape that surrounded them.
In principle, Joey didn’t disagree. The clothing was museum quality and would have a much longer life as historical samples used only for reference and study. But she was a seasoned costumer, and she took pride in doing her job well, which meant putting the best possible visuals on camera.
As key costumer, Joey worked closely with the costume designer, helping to choose and craft the look of all the clothing for the movie. So when the opportunity presented itself, she’d struck the deal to be the first film to use this collection of pristine vintage garments in production. And everybody above the line—from the head of the studio, to the director, to the two stars of the movie, who also happened to be executive producers—was ecstatic about having such exquisite period clothing to lend authenticity to the project.
She tried for a more cooperative tone. “Mack, we’re contractually bound to return the clothing in the same condition we rented it.”
The first AD’s stony expression hadn’t changed. “That’s not my problem.”
“It’ll be everybody’s problem when production gets the bill for hundreds of thousands of dollars in loss and damage,” she replied crisply.
“Sorry, Joey, I answer to a higher power—the one that cuts our paychecks. And I’m being paid to keep us on schedule,” Porter said as he moved past her. “I can’t stand around debating the issue with you all night.”
She stared daggers at Porter’s broad back as he strode through base camp toward the set, the exterior of the Ace Hotel on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles. The hotel’s facade had been tricked out by the art department to look like the entrance to a chic nightclub circa 1933. The movie company was in the first week of shooting a period film set in the Golden Age of Hollywood, a dream project in theory. But in practice it was shaping up to be another
story.
Joey blew out a breath as she tried to tamp down her irritation with the first AD. She knew she was more short-tempered than usual, and she found it difficult to summon up the kind of patience that had served her so well throughout her career.
For a moment, she wondered if she’d come back to work too soon. Her last job had tested her on every level—physically, mentally, but most of all emotionally. She’d had the misfortune to find the body of a murdered coworker, Courtney Lisle, on the Malibu beach where the movie they’d been working on was shooting. Because she’d found the body and Courtney was seeing Joey’s ex-lover, Eli Logan, she immediately became a suspect. Her professional reputation, her freedom, even her life was threatened.
Determined to prove her innocence, Joey made it her mission to find out what happened to Courtney, and in the process made herself a target when she discovered that Eli was the killer. All of that came to a head the night he cornered her in the big costume warehouse at Left Coast Costume Company, then set the place on fire. The warehouse burned to the ground, and in the end, Eli went to prison for a long list of felonies, including Courtney’s murder. Joey was grateful to have escaped with her life, but she was still dealing with the aftermath of the trauma, trying to find a way to live with the betrayal and loss.
As a freelancer, she had the option to take a break from work, and that’s what she’d done for almost four months, mostly because that’s the advice she’d gotten from people she trusted, people she knew had her best interests at heart. But she’d found the lack of structure more unsettling than helpful. Finally, Joey decided to go back to the work she loved, to look for the balm of purpose and activity she’d always found in her job.
At first, she’d worried about being the focal point of her coworkers’ morbid curiosity. But she’d soon realized others were absorbed by their own lives and concerns. A few had offered words of support in passing, and of course, her friends were firmly in her corner. But it seemed most people had moved on to fresher topics of gossip. The film community never lacked for new drama to draw attention.
She glanced up once more at the cold gray sky and shook her head. She knew she
had a lot to be thankful for—family, friends, good health. At age thirty-five, she owned a home and had a successful career. Objectively speaking, she was exactly where she’d chosen to be.
“Get a grip,” she said aloud.
She turned to climb the steps to the principal wardrobe trailer, the headquarters for the costume department on location. The fifty-three-foot custom-outfitted semitrailer housed the costumes for all the actors who had speaking roles, along with necessary equipment and supplies the costume crew would need to have handy for the shoot. On days that included big background scenes, such as this one, they also traveled with a second trailer devoted to the extras’ costumes and stock.
With fifteen years’ experience working on major feature films, Joey Jessop had the skills to meet most problems that came her way by virtue of the unpredictable nature of moviemaking. In fact, one of the things she liked best about her job was that each day felt new and different. Every film was a world unto itself with a unique set of challenges and personalities. The resulting chemistry was also unpredictable—sometimes good, other times not so much. The jury was still out about how this movie would stack up in Joey’s personal hit parade.
But Mack Porter’s indifference about the vintage clothing was a bad sign, and not only because his attitude contradicted everything that had been discussed in the production meetings. Like the canary in the coal mine, it was an early indicator that more trouble lay ahead. Promises and agreements were liable to be shrugged off when push came to shove. Joey understood now that she probably should have taken a more careful read on the situation before she made the deal to use the vintage costume collection. That lapse in judgment could come back to bite her, big time.
“Hey, Zeph,” she called as she came in the side door to the trailer. “How many umbrellas do we have on board?”
Zephyr Tomamatsu was the principal women’s set costumer on the movie, a twenty-eight-year-old firecracker with a shock of red hair to match her high-octane energy. She looked up from the notes and photos she was entering into the continuity book, the official record with all the information about what her actresses wore in each shot. Her notes also detailed the specifics about how every item of clothing appeared on camera: sleeves rolled up, three buttons open on the coat—that kind of thing.
Keeping the continuity book was a time-consuming project, but absolutely essential, given the piecemeal way movies are made. Each scene
is routinely created from of a number of separate shots, often filmed out of sequence and sometimes on different workdays. Compiling accurate photos and notes was the surest way to prevent mistakes that tend to show up in blooper reels, like the knot of a necktie that migrates up and down an actor’s chest during the course of one short scene.
“We’ve already got a dozen umbrellas and plastic ponchos loaded on the set rack and more in the jockey boxes,” Zephyr said, referring to the storage compartments under the trailer. “You want me to pull out another dozen or so to put on the rack?”
“Better have them,” Joey said. “If it starts pouring, we’re going to have a mess on our hands.”
“Roger that.” Zephyr started down the trailer steps.
Not that two dozen umbrellas would save the day if the powers that be insisted on shooting in a downpour. Why anyone would try to film a glamorous scene from the 1930s in the rain was beyond Joey’s understanding. If you get the shot and everybody looks like a drowned rat dressed in evening clothes, it’s not exactly the effect of glittering elegance the scene was meant to portray.
Joey’s key costumer job started early in preproduction and continued through the shooting schedule until the last new costume was established (appeared for the first time) on camera. Her responsibilities included overseeing the manufacture and fitting of all costumes that were made for the movie, as well as gathering and preparing any clothing pulled from existing collections.
She was a bulldog when it came to guarding the interests of her department to protect the quality of their work, but she knew it was important to play well with others, to collaborate and compromise with her coworkers. On the other hand, the unproductive conversation with the first AD was the kind of run-in that gave her heartburn.
Joey followed Zephyr down the steps. “You need my help with the jockey boxes?” she asked.
“No, I got it.” Zephyr was already loading the additional umbrellas and ponchos onto the rolling rack packed with supplies the costumers would take up to the set. “And I’m up to speed with everything until the ADs call for the actors. Anything I can do for you?”
Joey shook her head. “Thanks, I’m good, but I’m going to get a quick bite while I have a chance.”
“Caterers quit serving a while ago,” Zephyr said. “But I think Crafty is set up.”
It’s never hard to find food on a union film set. The caterers serve full meals every six hours and craft service has a spread that’s always available to the cast and crew. But Crafty is generally stocked with grab-and-go selections geared more toward convenience than nutrition, and Joey didn’t want to start the night that way.
“I think I’ll just head across the street and get some soup to go.” She pulled her jacket closed against the damp chill of the early evening. “Text me if anything exciting happens.”
“I promise,” Zephyr said cheerfully.
Joey trudged past the rows of trailers and grumbling generators that crowded the parking lot where the movie had its base camp. The surrounding neighborhood was a drab contrast to the golden age of film the studio was spending millions of dollars to recreate.
Directly across Broadway from base camp, a ragtag block of businesses shared the sidewalk with a smattering of dingy makeshift tents. In the past few years, an unruly network of homeless encampments had begun to appear throughout the heart of downtown.
Covid had only made the situation worse, despite the temporary safety nets like the eviction moratorium the government tried to impose. Many people who were living paycheck to paycheck lost their housing after the pandemic protections ended, and they had no jobs to go back to. And nobody seemed to have any idea how to begin to solve the problem, even as it continued to grow.
Those thoughts sent a shiver through Joey as she hurried across Broadway, headed for a hole-in-the-wall eatery she’d ducked into a couple of times while they’d been shooting at this location. The food wasn’t great, but it was cheap and convenient and cleaner than most other places in the area, although she didn’t want to think too hard about that either.
Inside the little restaurant the air was hot and dense, rich with the smells of food cooking in the narrow galley kitchen behind the order-up counter. The place was so tiny, there were only four tables, and only one of those was occupied at this hour, close to dinnertime for regular folks. The movie company was working nights, which meant they started shooting as soon as it got dark and continued filming until just before dawn.
Joey smiled at the Latina girl who worked the counter. Neither spoke the other’s language, but they’d managed to establish a friendly nodding acquaintance, and she’d seen the girl more than once watching the film crew from the doorway of the restaurant. The girl sent her a wave as Joey stopped to scan the menu tacked on the wall behind the cash register.
Keeping it simple, she ordered the albondigas, a savory Mexican meatball soup. She paid with her debit card, then pulled out a couple of dollars to hand the girl for a tip. “Thank you.”
The girl smiled and pointed across Broadway to the base camp parking lot.
“Trabaja en la pelicula.” A statement, not a question.
Joey nodded and gestured to the girl, then toward the parking lot. “You want to come watch?”
“¡Si, si!” The girl nodded enthusiastically.
An angry burst of Spanish erupted from the kitchen, and the girl winced. The older man who did all the cooking and always with a scowl on his leathery face, let loose another tirade Joey couldn’t understand, though his meaning was plain enough. He didn’t want his employees chatting with the customers.
“Lo siento,” Joey said to the countergirl, one of the few useful Spanish phrases she could muster.
She’d rather have given the cook a taste of his own bad manners, but she didn’t want to cause trouble for the girl. She stepped back and turned to look out the window while she waited for her order to go, hoping that would ease the tension. She noticed the couple who’d been occupying the one table was gone now, and by the looks of it, before they’d finished their meal.
Outside, the rain was still holding off, and she hoped that bit of luck would carry the movie company through the exterior work scheduled for the evening. She shook her head and sighed. Maybe she didn’t have her dream job with this project, but at least she wasn’t working under the thumb of a bully like the grumpy cook.
“Albondigas.”
Joey turned to see the countergirl holding up a paper bag. But at that moment there was a loud crash overhead, like a heavy box or piece of furniture had fallen on the floor above them. She looked up, startled by the noise, then heard a clatter of voices, muffled at first but getting louder, an argument waged in Spanish. A sharp female cry echoed nearby, and a door in the kitchen suddenly flew open, bouncing against the back wall with a bang.
Another young Latina staggered in, looking wild-eyed and feral. She tried to push past the cook, but he lunged to grab her. She dodged and spun just as another man charged through the same door she’d entered. He clamped his big hands on her arms, pinning them to her sides. The girl twisted to free herself, but she was as helpless as a rag doll in his grip.
Without thinking, Joey started around the counter. “Let go of her!” she demanded.
At the sound of her voice, the girl’s head snapped up, and they locked eyes.
“¡Ayudame!” the girl begged as the big man half carried, half dragged her back
through the door.
Stricken by the fear she saw in the girl’s eyes, Joey moved past the counter into the kitchen. “Stop him!” she shouted.
The cook grabbed a sawed-off baseball bat from the shelf above his head and stood with his feet spread, blocking Joey’s path. “Mind your business,” he growled.
She flinched and took a step back, then found herself flanked by the countergirl. The Latina shook her head, her mouth set in a tight line. She held out the bag with the soup and nodded toward the front door.
“You go now.”
Feeling shaken and confused, Joey turned and pushed blindly through the door. She stumbled as she hurried across Broadway to the refuge of base camp, already wishing she hadn’t been so quick to turn her back.
But what should she have done? Tackle that brute of a guy who’d chased the girl into the kitchen, then square off with the cook and his baseball bat? Not a shrewd choice. And if she called the police, what could she tell them? That she’d been upset by a scuffle that might or might not be a domestic dispute? They’d probably side with the cook and tell her to mind her own business.
She continued to move quickly through base camp, trying to forget the desperate look on the girl’s face. As she started up the steps to the principal wardrobe trailer, Zephyr appeared in the doorway at the top of the stairs, lugging her set bag.
“They’re starting to place the background in front of the club,” she said. “I’m heading up there now.”
Joey tried to refocus, to get her mind back on the job. “Is Gregory here yet?” she asked, referring to the costume designer. It was only then that she realized she hadn’t heard from him for several hours.
Gregory Bentham was an Oscar and BAFTA-winning production and costume designer from the UK who was doing his first movie in this country. Joey had admired his work for years, and she was flattered when he’d contacted her for this job. She liked working with people who had different backgrounds and experience; she thought that was the best way to sharpen her own skills. Besides that, Gregory was proving to be as intelligent and kind as he was talented.
“He hasn’t been to base camp, and I haven’t heard anything about an ETA,” Zephyr
said as the two women began walking up Broadway toward the Ace Hotel. “Maybe he’ll come straight to the set.”
Joey frowned, wondering what had held him up. The designer usually liked to be on location well before set call. She was concerned she hadn’t already heard from him and annoyed that she’d been too distracted to notice before now, but she decided to wait till she got up to the set before reaching out to him.
Broadway was still thick with traffic. Joey had to shout so Zephyr could hear her over the noise of passing cars and buses. “Aren’t they going to close off this block before we shoot? We can’t have modern cars roaring past the actors while they’re getting out of 1930s limos.”
“Beats me,” Zephyr said, “but I wouldn’t put anything past this group. They might think they can steal the night shots without the expense and hassle of shutting down the street.”
Through the gathering gloom, Joey could see the entrance of the Ace Hotel dressed up by a sleek metal awning painted with bold black and white stripes. Giant potted palms flanked the front doors, and the whole of it was bathed in a brilliant glow generated by stands of floodlights stationed on the other side of Broadway.
Despite the threat of rain, the lights and activity of the movie crew had begun to draw a crowd. The locations department was hurrying to set up a row of sawhorse-style barricades along the sidewalk opposite the hotel, in an effort at containment. Joey guessed word had spread that both Gillian Best and Andrew de Rossi were going to be on set this evening.
The two stars were box office gold, though they could hardly have been more different, both personally and professionally. De Rossi was a serious actor and social activist, a climate change warrior who raised money through his foundation to promote environmental conservation and education around the world.
Gillian Best was strictly a face. She was beautiful and a movie star for sure, but not much of an actress. Now in her early forties, she was still cast in romantic leading roles, though in recent years she’d begun to spend most of her time and energy on the Blest Best lifestyle brand she’d founded. She was rumored to have ambitions of following the example of stars like Jessica Alba, Rihanna, and Gwyneth Paltrow to become a global entrepreneur.
As they approached
the hotel, Joey saw Scott Stern, the second AD, usher a group of background players onto the sidewalk and begin to place them around the entrance. She broke into a trot.
“Hey, Scott,” she called. “This group was dressed to be used for the club interior only.”
“Mack says we need more of a crowd out front, so he told me to pull a couple dozen more for the exterior,” Scott replied. “It’s really no problem for continuity. We can still use them inside too.”
“But none of these people have been assigned coats or hats,” Joey said. “They wouldn’t be arriving for a fancy night out looking like this in the 1930s. If you’re going to use them outside, I need to take them back to the trailer and get them some proper outerwear.”
The second AD shrugged. “I’m just following orders,” he said. “Take it up with Mack.”
“Oh, I will,” she said, gritting her teeth. “Get him on the radio.”
This was Scott’s first time working as a second AD, so Joey was willing to cut him some slack, but Mack Porter had no excuse, and he was rapidly becoming a regular thorn in her side.
“Mack, what’s your twenty?” Scott spoke into his headset, asking for the first AD’s location. He turned to Joey. “You want to get on and talk to him yourself?”
Half a block away, a car horn blew, loud and harsh, then another. Joey turned to see a slight figure darting through traffic, head back and legs pumping. A gentle rain was just beginning to fall, but even in the fading light of dusk, she recognized the wild-eyed girl from the restaurant, racing barefoot across Broadway as if her life depended on it. Joey’s throat closed in horror, but she couldn’t allow herself to look away, willing her gaze to tractor-beam the girl to safety.
The nasty cook pushed through the front door of the restaurant with the big man who had dragged the girl from the kitchen right behind him, but both stopped short on the east side of the street. The cook shook his fist and bellowed at the running girl as a car swerved to avoid her.
More horns blared, a chorus of urgent blasts. The girl didn’t seem to notice or care as she dashed, hellbent, across four lanes of traffic.
She almost made it.
Ten feet from the curb, a silver Lexus SUV nailed her. She pitched up onto the hood without a making a sound, and the Lexus braked hard, veering sideways as it skidded to a stop. The girl slid off, her body slack and boneless, to lie still in the street as the rain began to come down in earnest.
Joey stood rooted to the spot, too stunned to react. Shouts and cries from the crowd gathered on the sidewalk echoed across Broadway as traffic on the street slowed, then crawled to a standstill.
The bright glow from the movie’s floodlights that were focused on the Ace Hotel bled across the accident site two blocks to the south, casting patterns of light and shadow that only added to the confusion.
Across the street, Joey spotted the nasty cook in front of the restaurant, peering toward the place where the girl’s body lay. Reluctantly, she tracked his sight line and noticed the silver Lexus SUV was stopped at the side of Broadway.
Joey squeezed her eyes shut, then turned to look back toward the restaurant. The Latina countergirl had come outside and now stood behind the cook, hugging herself as if for comfort. Joey thought she might be crying. The cook pivoted abruptly and made a shooing motion, hustling her back inside. He followed her in with only a brief glance back at the street. The big man who’d dragged the girl through the door in the kitchen was already gone, though Joey hadn’t seen him leave.
She felt someone tugging on her arm and turned to find Zephyr beside her, with tears streaming down her face.
“Come on, we need to get inside,” Zephyr insisted. “They’ve already taken the background to their holding area in the hotel, and we should go in too. You’re drenched, and it’s freezing out here.”
Joey realized that Zephyr wasn’t crying; they were standing in the middle of a downpour. Some of the onlookers drawn by the film shoot scuttled past them toward the accident. Through the rain, Joey saw a police patrol car, with lights flashing, pull to a stop on the west side of Broadway near the girl’s body. Her legs felt rubbery, but she knew she had to tell the cops what she had witnessed earlier in the restaurant. That thought pushed her to join the crowd rushing down the block.
“Joey, wait!” Zephyr cried.
But Joey made her way through the growing throng of spectators until she stood directly behind the cop car. She waved to get the attention of a young policeman who was just getting out of the passenger side of the vehicle.
“Officer, I’m a witness,” she called to him. “I saw the accident happen.”
He nodded and held up a finger. “Ma’am, please step back and wait. We’ll get to you when we can.”
Just then, she felt a tap on her shoulder, and she turned, expecting to see Zephyr. But it was the DGA trainee for the movie, who stood next to her, holding an umbrella aloft. “Ms. Jessop, they’re looking for you,” he said urgently.
“Who’s ‘they’?” She squinted at him in consternation.
“Ms. Best and her assistant.” He beckoned her to follow him. “They’re in Ms. Best’s trailer.”
“Is there a problem?” Joey felt a flash of resistance to being pulled from the shock of the accident back to her job.
“They asked me to find you.” He shrugged. “I think they have some questions.” The kid functioned as an apprentice to the AD department. He was in his early twenties and pleasant enough, but he never seemed to be quite clued into the work going on around him.
Joey looked over her shoulder. Another patrol car had just pulled up, and the officer she’d been speaking to was trying to establish a perimeter around the accident site, directing people to move back. His partner knelt beside the girl’s body, but it seemed clear she was beyond help. Joey felt torn, but she couldn’t afford to ignore a summons from the star and executive producer, ...
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