By May, we’d figured out the identity of the C.I. tied to the Brownsville breach. The P.I.’s report read like a hood novel.
There was a teenaged crimey from the neighborhood who knew all of the nosy little dirtbike kids who’d been hanging around the garage. They must’ve tipped him off that we were selling off a big inventory of M80s and cherry bombs. He probably found a way to get up with one of the little area crew heads, who might’ve broken him off with a little bit of change for the tip-off and sent him on his way. From there, I’m guessing the crew head outsourced labor to a mid-level B&E crew. That crew wasn’t thorough enough, and didn’t manage to catch onto the hidden safe, which is where I came in- had the safe been emptied there would’ve been nothing for the cops to hang on me, really.
Then, the original kid- the one who first ratted up the chain about the fireworks, got caught in possession of a loaded handgun while driving a stolen Honda Accord. This idiot had an extensive juvenile record and he’d just turned nineteen. So, in order to try and squirm out of his first adult arrest, this kid gave me up. Apparently, the kid started clocking me during that whole Fourth of July period, when there was so much activity happening around the garage. He knew I drove a brand-new green Mercedes SUV. He told the cops I was from either Bed Stuy or Crown Heights, and that my nickname was Cabrón.
How the P.I. got to this was sort of interesting to me. Hopeton worked his way down- from elders his age to mid-level crew chiefs. The P.I. chased leads starting from my comments about the little kids who'd been stalking the fireworks, and laddering up to Hopeton's list of people in power.
From there, my legal team found the right senior-level name to proffer- a person with organizational weight, someone who had a decent amount of dirt on them, but who couldn't be tied to me or Hopeton in any way, and wouldn’t be able to go through their own workback and figure out who got them busted.
