“He was an actor once, a bad one, but he was extraordinarily good-looking when he was younger, and he had a reasonably good run as a photo model. But then, when he started pushing thirty-five…” Marques held out two hands palms upward.
“His bookings started to dry up?”
“Indeed they did, and he was without a single prospect of a role in television or cinema, so he started casting about for another career.”
“And that’s when Cintia and Mello started a relationship?”
Marques nodded.
“That’s not a fact, mind you,” he said, “only an assumption. All I can tell you with certainty is that Cintia came to me and asked me to take him on as an assistant. I said I didn’t need an assistant. What I didn’t tell her was that, even if I had needed an assistant, I would never have considered Mello. To be a good agent you have to have a modicum of sensitivity, and you have to be intelligent. Mello has no sensitivity at all, and he’s astoundingly stupid.”
“Cintia took it badly? Your refusal to hire Mello?”
“She got nasty, as she always does whenever she doesn’t get her way. But I stood firm. I thought, and I continue to think, that Mello would do me more harm if I accepted him than if I rejected him, even if Cintia did get her nose out of joint.”
“Even if you lost her as a client?”
“That aspect of it didn’t enter into my deliberations. I thought the storm would blow over.”
“Had you known then what you know now, would you have acted differently?”
“I would have acted in exactly the same way. My days have been less lucrative since Cintia left, but they’ve been far more peaceful. At this stage in my life, peace is of more value than money.”
“From everything I’ve heard of the woman, I can understand why you’re happy to be rid of her. But I detect a certain inconsistency.”
“What’s that?”
“You’re telling me she switched her business for emotional reasons. That doesn’t sound like the Cintia Tadesco I’m learning about. From everything I’ve heard, she’s nothing if not calculating. She doesn’t let emotion get in the way of her goals.”
Marques leaned back in his chair. “We humans are complex creatures, Agent Goncalves. We’re hardly ever one hundred percent this or that. Cintia Tadesco may be largely a calculating bitch, but she’s still capable of an emotional act. In this case,” he said, “I think she’s committed two of them. I think she did what she did to favor Mello-but also to spite me.”
“To spite you? Simply because you wouldn’t give her what she wanted?”
Mello nodded, and a lock of mane tumbled in front his eye. He lifted a hand and brushed it aside. “When Cintia Tadesco doesn’t get what she wants, she reacts like the spoiled child she is. She’s extraordinarily impulsive. I’ve seen her turn on people in a heartbeat. One moment she loves you, and the next she’s ready to destroy you. It happened to me. In time, it will happen to Mello.”
“Convinced of that, are you?”
“I am. And for Mello it will be worse than it was for me. She brought him all of his clients. When she takes them away, it will destroy him.”
“Could she do that?”
“Of course she could.”
“Doesn’t he have them under contract?”
“Big clients, Agent Goncalves, the ones that really matter, resent signing contracts. It makes them feel constricted. They want to be free, at the drop of a hat, to distribute their largesse to whomever they wish.”
“Do you continue to manage Marco Franco, Cintia’s former boyfriend?”
“I do. Not that it’s doing either one of us any good. He’s quite unemployable at the moment.”
“Took it hard, did he?”
“Terribly hard. And with good reason. She hurt the poor bastard in just about every way she could hurt him. He not only gave her his heart, he also gave her a BMW, one of the big ones, and a house. She kept the car and the house, stabbed him in the heart and went on to torpedo his reputation.”
“I think I know the answer to this, but let me ask you anyway.”
“Yes?”
“Why is Cintia Tadesco hanging around with the Artist? Do you think she loves him?”
“Certainly not. She’s with him for what he can do for her, and for what she can take from him.”
“Do you think she might be involved in this kidnapping business?”
“I think not.”
“Why?”
“Why would she be? She can get everything she wants from the Artist without involving herself in a crime.”
“Just bear with me for a minute. Suppose Juraci had the goods on her. Suppose she could prove that Cintia was betraying Tico, and she was planning to go to him with the information.”
“Then you’d have to assume that Cintia knew ahead of time that Juraci was going to do it.”
“Okay, assume that as well.”
Marques reflected for a moment. “Perhaps. But…”
“But what?”
“But I hope, for the Artist’s sake, that Cintia Tadesco had nothing to do with the disappearance of his mother.”
“You hope? Why?”
“Because, if Cintia is involved, I’d virtually assure you that we’re not going to see Senhora Santos again in this life. And that’s the truth.”
Chapter Nineteen
“I’m gonna need your guns,” Captain Miranda’s chief bodyguard said. “Nobody who’s carrying gets in to see the boss.”
Silva and Arnaldo were in an anteroom accessible only through two steel doors. One led to the elevator, the other to Miranda’s inner office. The bodyguard was a tall black man wearing a single gold earring and a blue pinstripe suit of impeccable cut. His number two was a thug with a low forehead, nowhere near as well dressed, and missing an ear.
Arnaldo and Silva surrendered their pistols.
“And now,” the black man said, “my partner here is going to frisk you.”
“We’re federal cops, for Christ’s sake,” Arnaldo said. “You saw our goddamned IDs.”
“If you are who you say you are, then you know how easy it is to fake IDs. The rule is I gotta frisk you. You don’t want to submit to it, that’s okay. But then you leave without seeing the boss.”
Arnaldo turned to Silva. “I think he’s outsmarted us. This calls for a change in plan.”
“What plan is that?” the black man said.
“We were gonna walk in here, shoot your boss and go to lunch.”
The black man smiled. “Never gonna happen,” he said. “Not on my watch. Put your hands on the wall and assume the position.”
“Been with him long?” Silva asked as the guy without an ear frisked him.
“Eleven years,” the black man said.
“Good job?”
“Boring. The boss hardly ever sends me out to kill people any more.”
“I can understand how you’d miss it,” Arnaldo said. “Why not do it in your spare time? Kind of like a hobby?”
“I only do it for money.”
