with feline grace, shook Goncalves’s hand and gave him an appraising up-anddown look.
“Do you mind me asking how old you are?”
“Thirty-four,” Goncalves said.
“Really?” Marques’s voice conveyed disappointment. “You don’t look it.” He turned around and walked back to his chair.
Goncalves had the feeling that he’d been judged and found wanting. Instead of saying I know, his customary response to someone telling him he didn’t look his age, he said, “What difference does it make?”
“After thirty-five,” Marques said, “the camera becomes a hard mistress. She’s crueler to women than to men, but still…”
“I’m not here for a modeling job, Senhor Marques.”
Marques smiled an apologetic smile. “Sorry,” he said. “Of course you’re not. But when a fine-looking young man like you walks in here, my professional instincts kicked in. You’re not at all what I expected.”
“What did you expect?”
“Some grizzled veteran, I suppose. You know how it is. When your secretary says you have a visitor from the Federal Police…”
“I’ve don’t have a secretary, Senhor Marques, so I really wouldn’t know.”
“No. No, of course not. But tell me honestly, Agent Goncalves, have you never considered a career in modeling?”
“Never.”
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.”
“Perhaps you should have. Not now, but certainly when you were younger. Even now, you must still be quite a hit with the girls, or the boys, if your preference goes in that direction.”
“Girls.”
“I’ll bet you have to beat them off with a stick.”
“Well… not really.”
“No need to be modest. I’m an expert on these things. Coffee?”
“No, thank you. I had one just before I arrived.”
“Then what can I do for you, Agent Goncalves?”
“You can talk to me about your client, Cintia Tadesco.”
“Ex-client,” Marques said, the smile vanishing from his face. He looked like he’d just taken a mouthful of something sour.
“A recent development?”
“We parted ways a month ago.”
“Amicably?”
“Not in the least.”
“Two of my colleagues met her yesterday. They found her… difficult. Would you concur with that assessment?”
Marques leaned back in his chair and folded his hands over his grey waistcoat.
“In my line of work, Agent Goncalves, difficult goes with the territory. I often take on demure young beauties and mild-mannered young Adonises only to see them evolve into raging egomaniacs. It happens all the time and no longer surprises me.”
“But, with Cintia Tadesco, you got something that did surprise you?”
The agent stuck out his jaw, as if Goncalves had questioned his judgment.
“I’m good at reading character. Ask anyone. But for her, purely out of spite, to kill a goose that was laying golden eggs?
Well, that, I confess, I never expected.”
“The goose being?”
Marques’s belligerent attitude vanished in the wink of an eye. He broke into a sheepish grin.
“The goose being me, I suppose.”
His self-deprecation showed another facet of the man; Goncalves began to like him.
“It’s this way,” Marques said. “I don’t expect my clients to become intimate friends, but I do expect a modicum of loyalty.”
“And you didn’t get it from Cintia?”
“No, Agent Goncalves, I didn’t. Do you read Fofocas?”
“I’ve seen it around.”
“It’s trash, and it’s full of lies, but I find it a useful tool. I’m only asking because there was a recent article about Cintia’s new agent and his stable of clients. All of those clients, until last month, were clients of mine. Cintia was quoted as saying I’d been a good agent once, now become but an aged shadow of my former self. She went on to state that anyone truly concerned about their career shouldn’t consider employing me.”
“Ouch.”
“Ouch, indeed.”
“Do you think she believed what she was saying?”
“I do not.”
“Why, then, would she do it?”
“I have a supposition.”
“Nothing concrete?”
“No. Simply a supposition.”
“Something to do with money?”
“Money?” Marques scoffed. “No, Agent Goncalves. Nothing at all to do with money. Cintia is greedy. She loves money. She can never get enough of it. But, as far as our relationship is concerned, it’s no longer a factor. She has achieved what physicists call critical mass. She’s hot and getting hotter. She no longer needs external impetus to fuel her growth. Despite her disagreeable personality, Cintia is getting more offers of work than she can possibly accept. Money she could make with me or with any other agent. Money wouldn’t be a motive for her to switch.”
“What then?”
“I could be wrong, but I suspect a romantic liaison with her new agent.”
“If that’s so,” Goncalves said, “she’s being discrete about it.”
Marques smiled. “You’ve been talking to Caio Prado.”
“How did you know?”
“After that damned article appeared in Fofocas, the Artist’s mother came to see me. By that time, it was apparent there was no love lost between me and her potential future daughter-in-law. Juraci wanted to know if I had any dirt to dish, told me she’d hired a detective, told me it was Prado. Not a bad choice, by the way.”
“He doesn’t make much of an impression.”
“That’s one of his strengths. People don’t notice him; he fits in anywhere; he’s never perceived as a threat. Prado is a sly old fox. Lots of people in the entertainment industry use him, and he knows a good deal about it. Juraci could afford the best. In Prado, she got it.”
“So you told Juraci your supposition about this new agent of Cintia’s?”
“Actually, I didn’t.”
“Why?”
“I was still in a state of shock, still trying to understand why Cintia did what she did. Since then, I’ve given it a great deal of thought. Frankly, I can’t come up with any other explanation.”
“Who is this guy?” Goncalves asked. “This new agent of hers?”
“A young man by the name of Tarso Mello. Actually, his name isn’t Mello, or even Tarso, but it’s the one he goes by, a stage name, one that was chosen for him.”
“What’s the name he was baptized under?”
Marques scratched his head. “I’m not sure he was baptized. I think he’s Jewish, but that’s beside the point. He never uses his original name. Tarso Mello is the only name you’ll need to locate him.”
Goncalves made a note of it and said, “Okay, go on.”
