“It’s not going to get out,” Goncalves said.
“Isn’t it?”
“No. We’re quite accustomed to dealing with confidential sources. You can count on me not to go bruiting your name about.”
“Can I?”
Goncalves’s patience was wearing thin. He threw aside the carrot and picked up the stick.
“Listen to me, Senhor Prado. Let me make something clear. We, and by we I mean the Federal Police, have got everybody in the goddamned hierarchy right up to the President of the Republic on our backs. I’m not asking you anymore, I’m telling you: you’re going to brief me on everything you know, and you’re going to do it right now.”
Prado shook his head. “What I know is of no relevance, no relevance whatsoever, to your case.”
“You’re not listening. Now, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way. You decide.”
Prado was probably an ex cop, certainly knew how the system worked. He was going to have to give Goncalves something, but he made a last attempt to give him as little as possible.
“Here it is in a nutshell: Juraci Santos neither liked nor trusted her prospective daughter-in-law. She asked me to investigate her background. I found nothing incriminating. That’s it.”
“That’s nowhere near enough. I want more than the nutshell, I want the nut. Let’s start at the beginning. How did you acquire Juraci as a client?”
Prado gave a deep sigh-and crumbled.
“The Artist’s mother was recommended to me by one of her friends, a lady who’d employed me in a divorce action. Juraci called me and asked me to drop by her home to discuss a matter she described as being highly confidential. I told her I’d consult in my office for free, but a house call was something I’d have to charge for. She told me money was of no import. It was a statement, I confess, that aroused my immediate interest. Clients like that don’t come along often.”
“What was her brief? Exactly.”
“To discover whether the Tadesco woman was doing, or had done, something that might damage the Artist in any way. A romantic liaison with someone other than Tico, for example, or if there was something in Cintia’s past that might engender a scandal.”
“Do you think Juraci was simply being cautious, or did she give you the impression she’d be pleased if you could come up with something negative?”
“The latter. It was evident from the way she spoke about Senhorita Tadesco that she’d taken a dislike to her.”
“So her true objective was to find some way to encourage the Artist to break off his engagement?”
“I believe that to be the case, yes.”
“And your investigations revealed… what?”
“I told you. Nothing. Nothing she could use.”
Goncalves took note of the qualification and pounced.
“But there was something.”
Prado paused to consider his words.
“I’ll say this much, Agent Goncalves: I wouldn’t want my son to contemplate a marriage with the likes of Cintia Tadesco.”
“Explain.”
“I’m about to. I do a good deal of my work with people in show business. In the course of time, I’ve learned a lot about it.”
“So?”
“Do you remember Marco Franco?”
“Franco, the actor?”
“Him.”
“He was pretty big once. Whatever happened to him?”
“Cintia Tadesco happened to him. Marco had an agent by the name of Leo Marques. Marques is every performer’s dream. He’s not only a shark when it comes to negotiations; he’s also adept at making stars.”
“The public does that.”
“I disagree.” Prado had turned a corner from laconic into loquacious. “The public most definitely does not do that. Manipulators like Marques do that. There’s no truth to the expression a star is born. Stars are made, not born. Stars are constructed article by article, sound bite by sound bite. The more an actor is exposed to the public, the more famous he or she becomes, the more press coverage they get. It’s a snowball effect, but somebody has to get the snowball rolling. That’s what people like Marques do, they get the snowball rolling. Am I boring you?”
“Not in the least. Keep talking.”
“Essentially, actors and sports stars are little more than entertainers, but many of them, deluded by the adulation of the masses, become convinced they’re much more. They begin to believe their opinions have validity in realms that go beyond their area of expertise, that they’re authorities on government, culture and art, and that they’re qualified to give advice on everything from child-rearing to where you spend your vacation. The public, by and large stupid, and the press, who earn their daily bread by pandering to the public, lap up their advice like dogs lap up vomit.”
“That’s pretty distasteful, Senhor Prado.”
“Divulging asinine pronouncements as if they’re gospel truth is even more distasteful, Agent Goncalves.”
“What’s all this got to do with Cintia Tadesco?”
“I’ll get back to Cintia in a minute. At the moment, I’m still talking about Marco Franco. Franco, then, largely due to Marques’s efforts, achieved star status. People admired him, people took his advice. He did testimonials for everything from toothpaste to cars, and the masses went out and bought whatever he recommended. For Leo Marques, who got ten percent of every centavo he earned, Marco Franco was a gold mine.”
“I still don’t-”
“Bear with me. I’m almost there. Now, actors come and go. They age; they lose their charms; they fall out of fashion.
Marques is an old fox. He’s been around a long time. He knows his continuing success depends upon constantly developing new people, getting new snowballs rolling. He spotted Cintia Tadesco at some party or other and told her to drop around and see him.”
“Sexual interest?”
“Not at all. Leo Marques is of an age where the only thing that gives him a hard-on is money. So Cintia shows up with her book… you’re familiar with the term book?”
“Portfolio?”
“Right. She shows up with a book which has only a few photos in it, and second-class photos at that. He leafs through it. They have a little conversation. He tells her she’s got the basics, and if she does exactly what he tells her, they’ll make a lot of money together.”
“You know this for a fact?”
“I’m making a few assumptions, but I’m not far off the mark.”
“Okay. So Cintia agrees.”
“Cintia agrees. Marques orchestrates a campaign to get her picture into Fofocas and all the other magazines and tabloids. He gets her into gossip shows on television. He gets her invited to parties where she’s photographed next to the rich and famous.”
“But you can’t just mandate that kind of stuff,” Goncalves said. “Why should the magazines and television shows go along? Why should they give her free publicity? I mean, there must be hundreds, maybe thousands of people who are clamoring for it. There are probably tens of thousands of beautiful women in this country. The competition is fierce.”
“It is. But that’s where Marco Franco came in. In him, Leo Marques was representing a well-established personality. The readers of Fofocas like to read about who’s courting who, who’s divorcing whom, who’s running around with someone else behind whose back. But all those whos have to be people the readership already
