Lost Light

4

The morning after I spoke to Alexander Taylor I sat at the dining room table in my house on Woodrow Wilson Drive. I had a pot of hot coffee in the kitchen. I had filled my five-disc changer with CDs chronicling some of Art Pepper’s late work as a sideman. And I had the documents and photographs from the Angella Benton file spread in front of me.

The file was incomplete because the case was taken by RHD just as my investigation was beginning to come into focus and before many of the reports were written. It was merely a starting point. But after almost four years removed from a crime scene it was all I had. That and the list of names Alexander Taylor had given me the day before.

As I readied myself for a day of chasing down names and setting up interviews, my eyes were drawn to the small stack of newspaper clippings that had yellowed at the edges while closed in the file. I took these up and began looking through them.

Initially Angella Benton’s murder rated only a short report in the Los Angeles Times. I remembered how this had frustrated me. We needed witnesses. Not only to the crime itself but possibly to the killer’s car or getaway route. We needed to know the victim’s movements before she was attacked. It had been her birthday. Where and with whom had she spent the evening before coming home? One of the best ways to stimulate citizen reports is through news stories. Because the Times decided to run only a short that was buried in the back of the B section, we got almost no help from the public. When I called the reporter to express my frustration, I was told that polling showed that customers were tired of stories about death and tragedy. The reporter said the news hole for crimes stories was shrinking and there was nothing she could do about it. As a consolation she wrote an update for the next day’s edition which included a line about the police seeking the public’s help in the case. But the story was even shorter than the first report and was buried deeper inside the paper. We got not one call from a citizen that day.

All of that changed three days later when the story hit the front page and was the lead story for every television station in the city. I picked up the first of the stories clipped from the front page and read it once again.

REAL-LIFE SHOOT-OUT ON FILM SET

1 DEAD, 1 HURT AS COPS AND ROBBERS

INTERRUPT CELLULOID COUNTERPARTS

By Keisha Russell

Times Staff Writer

A deadly reality intruded on Hollywood fantasy Friday morning when Los Angeles police and security guards exchanged gunfire with armed robbers during a heist of $2 million in cash being used in the filming of a movie about a heist of $2 million in cash. Two bank employees were shot, one of them fatally.

The armed robbers escaped with the money after opening fire on security officers and a real-life police detective who happened to be on the set. Police said that blood found later in the abandoned getaway vehicle indicated that at least one of the robbers was also hit by gunfire.

The film’s star, Brenda Barstow, was inside a nearby trailer at the time of the shooting. She was unhurt and did not witness the real-life shoot-out.

The incident occurred outside a bungalow on Selma Avenue shortly before 10 a.m., according to police spokesmen. An armored truck arrived at the filming location to deliver $2 million scheduled to be used as a prop in scenes to be shot inside the house. The film set was described as being under heavy security at the time, though the exact number of armed security guards and police on hand was not disclosed.

The victim who was fatally shot was identified as Raymond Vaughn, 43, director of security for BankLA, the bank that was delivering the money to the film set. Also shot was Linus Simonson, 27, another BankLA employee. He suffered a bullet wound to the lower torso and was listed late Friday in stable condition at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

LAPD Detective Jack Dorsey said that as two guards were moving the cash from the armored truck into the house, three heavily armed men jumped from a van parked nearby, while a fourth waited behind the wheel. The gunmen confronted the guards and took the money. As the suspects were retreating to the van with the four satchels containing the cash, one of them opened fire.

“That was when all hell broke loose,” Dorsey said. “It turned into a firefight.”

It was unclear Friday why the shooting started. Witnesses told police that the robbers encountered no resistance from the security people on the scene.

“As far as we can tell, they just opened up and started firing,” said Detective Lawton Cross.

Police said several security guards returned fire, along with at least two off-duty patrol officers working as on-set security and a police detective, Harry Bosch, who had been inside a movie set trailer conducting a seemingly unrelated investigation.

Police yesterday estimated that more than a hundred gunshots were fired during the wild shoot-out.

Even so, the crossfire lasted no more than a minute, witnesses said. The robbers managed to get into the van and speed away. The van, riddled with bullet holes, was later found abandoned near the Sunset Boulevard entrance to the Hollywood Freeway. It was determined that it had been stolen from a movie studio equipment yard the night before.

“At this time we have no identities of the suspects,” Dorsey said. “We are following a variety of leads that we think will prove useful to the investigation.”

The shoot-out brought a sobering dose of reality to the encampment of moviemakers.

“At first I thought it was the prop guys just shooting blanks,” said Sean O’Malley, a production assistant on the film project. “I thought it was like a joke. Then I heard people screaming to get down and real bullets started hitting the house. I knew it was real. I hit the deck, man, and just prayed. It was scary.”

The untitled film is about a thief who steals a suitcase containing $2 million from the Las Vegas mob and runs to Los Angeles. According to experts, it is highly unusual for real money to be used in film productions, but the film’s director, Wolfgang Haus, insisted on the use of real money because the scenes being shot in the Selma Avenue home entailed a variety of close-ups of the thief, played by Barstow, and the money.

Haus said the film’s script called for the thief to dump the money on a bed and roll around in it, throwing it into the air and celebrating. Another scene involved the thief covering herself in a bathtub filled with the money. Haus said fake money would easily be noticeable in the finished film.

The German filmmaker also insisted that using real currency helped the actors perform better in scenes containing the money.

“If you are using play money, then you are playacting,” Haus said. “We needed to get beyond that. I wanted this woman to feel she had stolen two million dollars. It would be impossible to do it any other way. My films rely on accuracy and truth. If we were to use Monopoly money, the film would be a lie and everybody who watched it would know it.”

The film’s producers, Eidolon Productions, arranged for a one-day loan of the cash and a phalanx of security guards to go with it, police detectives told reporters. The armored car was scheduled to remain on the scene during shooting, and the money was to be returned immediately after filming was completed. The largesse was entirely comprised of one-hundred-dollar bills wrapped in $25,000 packets.

Alexander Taylor, owner of the film’s production company, declined comment on the robbery or the decision to use real money during the filming. It was unclear if the money was insured against robbery.

Police also declined to reveal why Detective Bosch was on the set when the shoot-out erupted. But sources told The Times that Bosch was investigating the death of Angella Benton, who was found strangled in her Hollywood apartment building four days earlier. Benton, 24, was an employee of Eidolon Productions, and police are now investigating the possibility of a connection between her murder and the armed robbery.

In a statement released by her publicist, Brenda Barstow said, “I am shocked by what has happened and my heart goes out to the family of the man who was killed.”

A spokesman for BankLA said that Raymond Vaughn had been employed by the bank for seven years. Formerly he was a police officer who worked for departments in New York and Pennsylvania. Simonson, the injured employee, is an assistant to bank vice president Gordon Scaggs, who was in charge of the one-day cash loan to the movie set. Scaggs could not be reached for comment.

Production of the film was temporarily suspended. It was unclear Friday when the cameras would roll again, or if real currency would be used in the filming when it begins again.

I remembered the surreal scene of that day. The screaming, the cloud of smoke left after all of the shooting. People on the ground and me not knowing if they’d been hit or were just taking cover. No one got up for a long time, even after the getaway van was long gone.

I skimmed through a sidebar story that focused on how unusual it was to use real money-and so much of it-on a movie set, no matter what precautions had been taken. The story reported that the volume of the money took up four delivery satchels and correctly pointed out that it was unlikely that all $2 million would ever be contained in a single camera shot. Yet the producers of the film acceded to the director’s demand that real money be used and that all $2 million be on hand for verisimilitude. But the unnamed insiders and Hollywood watchers quoted in the story seemed to suggest that it wasn’t about the money or verisimilitude or even art. It was simply a power play. Wolfgang Haus did it because he could. The director was coming off of back-to-back films that had grossed more than $200 million each. In four short years he had risen from making small independent films to being a powerful Hollywood player. In demanding that $2 million in real cash be 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 wheel. My hand went inside my coat to the gun on my hip but I held it there. The situation was too volatile. Too many people around and in the possible crossfire. I let things go.

The robbers came up behind the money carriers, surprised them and took the satchels without a shot. Then, as they backed into the street toward the van, the inexplicable happened. The cover man not carrying a satchel stopped, spread his stance and leveled his weapon in a two-handed grip. I didn’t get it. What had he seen? Where was the threat? Who had made a move? The gunman opened fire and the older man in the suit, his hands raised and no threat, went down backwards on the street.

In less than a second the full firefight erupted. The guard in the truck, the security men and the off-duty cops on the front lawn all opened up. I pulled my gun and moved down the lawn toward the van.

“Down! Everybody down!”

As crew members and technicians dove for ground cover I moved in closer. I heard someone start screaming and the van’s engine begin revving. The smell of spent gunpowder invaded and burned my nostrils. By the time I had a clear, safe shot the robbers were to the van. One threw his satchels through the open door and then turned back, drawing two pistols from his belt.

He never got a shot off. I opened up and watched him fly backwards into the van. The others then dove in after him and the van took off, its tires screaming and the side door still open, the wounded man’s feet protruding. I watched the van round the corner and head toward Sunset and the freeway. I had no chance of pursuit. My Crown Vic was parked more than a block away.

Instead, I opened up my cell phone and called it in. I told them to send ambulances and lots of people. I gave them the direction of the van and told them to get to the freeway.

The whole while the background screaming never stopped. I closed the phone and walked over to the screaming man. It was the younger man in the suit. He was on his side, his hand clamped over his left hip. Blood was leaking between his fingers. His day and his suit were ruined but I knew he was going to make it.

“I’m hit!” he yelled as he squirmed. “I’m fucking hit!”

I came out of the memory and back to my dining room table as Art Pepper started playing “You’d Be So Nice to Come Home To,” with Jack Sheldon on trumpet. I had at least two or three versions of Pepper performing the Cole Porter standard on disc. On each one he always attacked it, tore its guts out. It was the only way he knew how to play and that relentlessness was what I liked best about him. It was the thing that I hoped I shared with him.

I opened my notebook to a fresh page and was about to write a note about something I had seen in my memory of the shoot-out, when someone knocked on the door.