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on hand for the filming of the rather routine scenes, he was exercising his newfound muscle. He had the power to ask for and get the $2 million on the set. Just another story about Hollywood ego. Only this time it involved murder.
    I moved on to a follow-up story published two days after the robbery. It was a rehash of the first day’s stories with little new information on the investigation. There were no arrests and no suspects. The most notable new information was that Warner Bros., the studio backing the film, had pulled the plug, canceling financing seven days into production after the film’s star, Brenda Barstow, pulled out, citing safety concerns. The story cited unnamed sources within the production who suggested Barstow pulled out for other reasons but was using a personal safety clause in her contract to walk away. The other reasons suggested were her realization that a pall had been cast over the production that could shroud the film’s box-office appeal as well, and her disappointment with the final script, which was finished after she signed on to the production.
    The end of the follow-up story swung back to the investigation and reported that the investigation of the robbery and shooting had grown to encompass the murder of Angella Benton and that the Robbery-Homicide Division had taken over the case from Hollywood Division. I noticed that a paragraph had been circled near the bottom of the clip. Most likely by me four years before.

    Sources confirmed to The Times that the shipment of money stolen during the robbery was insured and contained marked bills. Investigators confided that tracing the cash may offer the best chance of identifying and capturing the suspects.

    I didn’t remember circling the paragraph four years before and wondered why I had-by the time the follow-up had been published I was off the case. I guessed that at the time I remained interested, whether on or off it, and was curious as to whether the reporter’s source had given her accurate information or was simply hoping the robbers would read the story and panic over the possibility of the cash being traceable. Maybe it would make them hold on to it longer and increase the chance of a full recovery.
    Wishful thinking. It didn’t matter now. I folded the clips and put them aside. I thought about the trailer I was in that day when it began. The newspaper stories were just a blueprint, as distant as an aerial view. Like trying to figure out Vietnam in 1967 by watching Walter Cronkite at night. The stories carried none of the confusion, the smell of blood and fear, the searing charge of adrenaline dumping into the pipes like paratroopers going down the ramp of a C-130 over hostile territory, “Go! Go! Go!”
    The trailer was parked on Selma. I was talking to Haus, the director, about Angella Benton. I was searching for anything to grab on to. I was obsessed with her hands, and suddenly in that trailer I thought maybe the hands had been part of the staging of the crime scene. Staged by a director. I was pressing Haus, pushing him, wanting to know his whereabouts on the night in question. And then there was a knock and the door opened and everything changed.
    “Wolfgang,” a man in a baseball cap said. “The armored truck’s here with the money.”
    I looked at Haus.
    “What money?”
    And then I knew, instinctively, what was about to happen.
    I look back at the memory now and see everything in slow motion. I see all the moves, all the details. I came out of the director’s trailer to see the red armored truck in the middle of the street two houses down. The back door was open and a man in uniform inside was handing money satchels to two men on the ground. Two men in suits, one much older than the other, stood nearby watching.
    As the money carriers turned toward the house, the side door of a van parked across the street slid open and three armed men in ski masks emerged. Through the open door of the van I saw a fourth behind the