There was an incredible crime story in yesterday’s New York Times that you can read about here, here, and here. It’s a sinister goulash of fiction crossing into reality, confused identity, and bizarre coincidence: looking for Valium in a dead man’s apartment, a 28-yearold, off-duty cop shot down while investigating a burglary next to his home, Lillo Brancato, a 29-year-old actor from the Sopranos charged in the shooting, a shadowy man with a long rap sheet who stalked the neighborhood with a pit bull, and a child actor who used to live in the killed cop’s building and once played a younger version of Mr. Brancato in A Bronx Tale.

Yesterday afternoon, I fantasized for at least 15 solid minutes about spending six months on that fateful Arnow Place, home of the cop killed in his own driveway, the child actor who played a younger version of the character played by the real-life perp, and the Valium-hoarding dead man. And prowling Jones Beach (where the actor/alleged burglar was picked up by a talent agent for his impressions of De Niro and Pesci). And drinking with extras and bit players in the Sopranos. I’d probably get beat up. But the stories would make it totally worth the pain.