Early in the summer of 2012, Hernandez gave Alexander Bradley $350, which Bradley used to buy a .357 Magnum. Silver, with a brown handle, the gun had a couple of rounds in the chamber when Bradley bought it. The next time that Hernandez came down to Bristol, Bradley handed the firearm over.
“It’s straight,” Aaron said as he inspected the gun, meaning that he thought the firearm looked good.
A few weeks later, on July 15, 2012, Hernandez met Bradley at Bradley’s place.
It was a Sunday, their favorite night to go out.
The two friends had a few drinks, a couple of blunts, and talked about where to go: West Hartford, Providence, Boston. They settled on Cure. As they walked to their car, Bradley noticed that Hernandez was holding a silver revolver.
Aaron did not have his club clothes with him, so Bradley had loaned him jeans, a T-shirt, and a Cardinals hat. They walked out to Aaron’s Toyota 4Runner, an “endorsement car” that the Jack Fox Toyota dealership in Providence had lent him. Popping the hood, Hernandez stuffed the gun down into the engine block. Then, with Bradley driving, they set out for Boston, pulling into a parking garage on Tremont Street after midnight and walking around the corner to Cure.
Just ahead of them, a group of five friends—all of them Cape Verdean men—were trying to enter the club. One after the next, Daniel de Abreu, Safiro Furtado, Aquilino Freire, Raychides Gomes-Sanches, and Gerson Lopes took out their IDs and paid the entrance fee. At the same time, Aaron and Alex stepped into a special entrance for VIPs, skipping the line and the $20 cover. But Cure had a no-hats policy. There were no exceptions, not even for VIPs. Hernandez and Bradley both had to give their hats up to the bouncers.
Aaron was not happy about it. As he went in, he gave one of the bouncers a hard time.
Then, he and Bradley went straight to the bar.
Daniel de Abreu, who was twenty-nine, and Safiro Furtado, who was twenty-eight, had both been born in Cape Verde, an archipelago off the African coast, but they had met in America.
Furtado, who worked as a tour guide in Cape Verde, had been in the US for less than a year. He’d come to visit his mother and sister, who lived in Dorchester, and earn a bit of money before returning to Africa. In Massachusetts, he worked the overnight shift, cleaning offices with one of his cousins from ten at night until two in the morning. On Sundays, Furtado cleaned a local YMCA, alongside Daniel de Abreu.
De Abreu, who also had family in Dorchester, had arrived in the US in August of 2008. “He served five years as a police officer in Cape Verde and migrated here, looking to better his life and provide for his family,” de Abreu’s widow, Auriza, would say.
According to family members, neither man had wanted to go out that evening. Both of them had worked long weeks. Both were tired. But Sunday was the one night when de Abreu and Furtado got to see friends. They had changed into their club clothes and rallied, piling into a silver BMW that belonged to de Abreu’s sister and driving to Cure Lounge. There, out on the dance floor, Daniel de Abreu bumped into an already agitated Aaron Hernandez.
When Cure was crowded, Hernandez and Bradley would order their drinks two at a time—“a shot of something and another mixed drink,” Bradley would say. That’s what they did on this night. Then, after downing the shots, they brought the cocktails out onto the dancefloor.
The music was pounding. The dancefloor was packed, and de Abreu had to hold his drink high as he danced his way out from the bar. As he did so, he bumped Hernandez with his hip. Bradley would say that the bump was intentional: “He bumped him in rhythm,” as if it was part of the dance. But intentional or not, the jolt caused Aaron to spill his drink. As a few drops splashed onto his borrowed shirt, the Patriot became enraged.
According to Bradley, Hernandez turned and eyeballed de Abreu: “He turned angrily, in a manner in which he was going to make a confrontation out of the issue.”
De Abreu, who was not a football fan and did not recognize Hernandez, smiled at the Patriot. That made Aaron even more angry. Playing the peacemaking role he’d grown used to, Bradley “got on top of it, fast.” Grabbing Aaron’s shirt, he said, “Nah, let’s just get out of here.”
“I knew something was brewing,” Bradley would say. “His temper, the way he was…I just knew what would happen.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he told Hernandez. “It’s nothing.”
Hernandez allowed himself to be convinced. He and Bradley left the club less than ten minutes after they had entered it. But, outside, Aaron started to vent. “I hate it when people try me, try to play me,” he said as they walked back down Tremont Street, toward the garage.
Bradley heard him out, then told him they couldn’t get into that type of trouble.
Both of them had too much to lose, Bradley said.
Just then, a promoter who worked at a club called Caprice recognized Aaron and invited him in. He offered the men table service. They declined, but entered the club, walked up to the bar, and ordered drinks. Then, turning around, Hernandez told Bradley that the men they had run into at Cure had followed them into Caprice.
“See, see!” he said. “There they go!”
Hernandez was wrong: Daniel de Abreu, Safiro Furtado, and their friends were still at Cure, where they would stay until closing time. But Aaron was sure that he’d seen what he’d seen. Now, Alexander Bradley would have to convince him to leave the second club they had gone to that night.