“I’ll say this much, Agent Gonçalves: 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 Gonçalves.”
“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,” Gonçalves 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 knows. They only begin to care about nobodies when they become somebodies. So one of the ways to get a new snowball rolling is to link the person you’re trying to promote with someone who’s already famous. A man with a man, a woman with a woman, a man with a woman, it doesn’t matter. Before long, the unknown person becomes known. Got it?”
“Got it. And in Cintia Tadesco’s case—”
“Leo Marques linked her to Marco Franco.”
Gonçalves scratched his head. “But Marco was already famous. Why did he go along? What was in it for him?”
“Two things: first of all, no matter how famous you are it never hurts to have a photogenic female on your arm. It generates more pictures.”
“And the second thing?”
“Timing. Marco Franco’s public was overwhelmingly female. There was a rumor going around he was gay. It could have killed him. He needed somebody like Cintia Tadesco.”
“And is he? Gay, I mean?”
“Let’s say he’s sexually confused.”
“Which means?”
“It’s never been clear, even to him, if he’s bisexual, or homosexual. But one thing’s for sure: there was truth to the rumor.
At the time, Marco was having an affair with a male tennis pro and the news was getting out and it was bad news for him because most of that huge female audience of his had fantasies about being in bed with him. There was no way they’d take kindly to a gay tennis pro being in there with them.”
“Understandable. So, as far as the press is concerned, Marco and Cintia became an item?”
“It started out that way, but before long, so the story goes, Marco is boffing Cintia and loving it. He buys her a BMW. He gives her a weekend place out in Granja Viana. He takes her on a tour of Europe. He rejects his old ways and becomes a raging tower of testosterone.”
“But?”
“But Cintia has no sense of gratitude. She’s hard as a diamond, and she’s always looking for ways to better herself. She’s introduced to the Artist. She doesn’t hesitate. She makes a play for him, and she snags him. He’s not only a step up; he’s a whole flight up. He’s famous all over the world. He can buy and sell Marco Franco twenty times over.”
“And he’s ugly as sin and dumb as a post.”
“That’s why I said I wouldn’t want my son to get involved with her. It’s obvious to everybody, as it was obvious to Juraci, that what her son has going for him has nothing to do with physical beauty or intelligence, both of which Cintia has in abundance. Of course, she might love the Artist for the kind and gentle soul he is. But how likely is that? Juraci didn’t buy it. She’d already pegged Cintia as a social-climbing, mercenary harpy. As far as I was able to learn, so has everyone else who’s ever had contact with her. Everyone except the Artist, that is.”
“And Franco? What happened to him?”
“She returned his letters, wouldn’t take his phone calls, told him to get lost. She humiliated him in public and in private, leaked to the press that the rumors about his being gay were all true. Then, when the reporters came to talk to her about it, she did this teary-eyed television interview saying that she really loved him until she found out he was cheating on her with the aforementioned tennis pro.”
“Which he wasn’t.”
“Which he wasn’t. That was all before Cintia came along. The tennis pro, though, felt jilted and wanted to get back at Marco.”
“So he said it was true.”
“He did, and the gossip press had a field day. They went on about it f
or weeks, every sordid exchange, every scandalous revelation. Well, the rest of the story is quickly told. Marco couldn’t get any more work. He’s still got money, but fame is an addictive thing. He misses it, and he’s drinking heavily. People in the know tell me he’s drinking himself to death and won’t last out the year. Cintia, sweet thing that she is, has allegedly said she doesn’t give a shit.”
“Did you report all of this to Juraci Santos?”
“I did. But think about it for a minute. What did I really get? Nothing, Agent Gonçalves, nothing that Cintia couldn’t easily refute. If she sticks to her side of the story, and if the Artist believes her, Juraci really has very little that she can condemn her for, nothing she can go to her son with.”
“When did you make your report to Juraci?”
“I called her the day before she was abducted.”
“No written report?”
“I prepared one. I was going to mail it this morning. But then there didn’t seem to be much point.”
“Will you make me a copy?”
“If I must.”
“You must. Were you able to find out anything else about Cintia? Does she have other boyfriends?”
“I’m not sure.”
“But you wouldn’t rule it out?”
“My recommendation to Juraci was to put Cintia under around-the-clock surveillance.”
“Around the clock, eh? It wouldn’t have been cheap.”
“It certainly would not have been. But I think she was going to agree to it.”
“You could have earned a bundle.”
“I most certainly could have. If you catch those people, and it is my earnest hope that you do, would you do me a favor?”
“What?”
“Give each and every one of them a kick in the balls from me.”
Chapter Fourteen
“BACK SO SOON?” PEDRO Cataldo said. “What happened with Talafero?”
Silva told him.
“You believe him?”
“I’m suspending judgment. Meantime, what can you tell me about Miranda?”
“Captain Miranda? Now, there’s a piece of work. I’ve been after him for years.”
“How close are you to nailing him?”
“Not close. He’s a slippery bastard.”
“Why ‘Captain’?”
“Because he was.”
“Military?”
“An army officer. During the dictatorship, he worked in Section II.”
Silva’s mouth crinkled in disgust. Section II was a torture squad, the most notorious of them all. The Section’s members received monetary rewards for capturing, or killing, left-wing militants—and they’d sooner kill than capture. After the country reverted to democracy, it became known that many of Section II’s victims weren’t militants, or even left-wingers.
“While he was busy killing people for the government,” Pedro continued, “he also got involved in contraband.”
“Smuggling?”
Pedro nodded. “Whiskey and cigarettes, but it didn’t work out. He and a dozen of his buddies got busted.”
“He confessed?”
“He confessed, but when he got in front of a judge, he claimed it was beaten out of him.”
Silva snorted in disgust. “And?”
“His case was thrown out on appeal.”
“Grounds?”
“Torture, if you can believe that.”
“How’s that for irony,” Arnaldo said.
“In fiction,” Pedro said, “nobody would believe it. By the time he was acquitted, though, Miranda had become a persona non grata to his army buddies. They cashiered him.”
“So,” Arnaldo said, “the army promoted him for killing people, and threw him out for smuggling. What a country we live in!”
“So there he was,” Pedro said, “thirty-five years old, no marketable skills, and looking for something to do with his life. Apolidoro Nasca gave it to him.”
“Who’s Apolidoro Nasca?”
“Was, not is. He’s been dead for years, but he was a big man once, a crook who controlled the animal game in the four biggest towns in the state of Minas Gerais. You’re in a job like that, you need killers to work for you. Miranda was a killer with credentials, so Nasca hired him. For a while, so they say, Miranda only killed the people Nasca told him to kill. Rivals, deadbeats, people who were skimming money.”
“And then?”
“And then, one day, Nasca disappeared.”
“Miranda took over his operation?”
“Uh huh. What you’re thinking is what everybody thinks—but nobody can prove it. Then Uncle Scrooge—”
“Uncle Scrooge?”
“Nelson Catto, the chief bicheiro. His nickname was Uncle Scrooge. So Uncle Scrooge starts keeping a close eye on what Miranda is doing in Minas Gerais. Within a year, he doubles the income of the business, which means he doubles the cut for Uncle Scrooge. Within three years, the Captain is up there on the Council of Seven, the guys who run the operation for the entire country. As soon as they put him in the chair he moved from Belo Horizonte to São Paulo. It took him less than six months to consolidate the market.”
“Consolidate the market?”
Cataldo nodded. “Before Miranda came along, São Paulo was divided into three districts, all about equal in size. Now it’s just one.”
“How did he pull it off?”
“Easy. He was already on the Council. All he had to do was assign dead men’s territories to himself.”
“Except, first, he had to make them dead?”
“Exactly. By the early-nineties, he was into his golden years, having a great run, walking around dressed in expensive Italian suits. It annoyed the hell out of Lili Norunha. She spent years building up a case against him.”
“I knew Lili well,” Silva said. “I liked her. A lot.”
“I did too. She told me, before she died, that she’d managed to implicate Miranda in sixty-two murders. But in the end, the whole thing fell apart. He only got six years.”
“Wait a minute,” Arnaldo said. “This guy kills sixty-two people and he only gets six years in prison?”
“Miranda got to the jury. And then he went after Lili. I know it, but I can’t prove it.”
Judge Lili Norunha had been found in her apartment, shot dead, on the 27th of November, 1998. Her husband and two sons were murdered with her. Officially, the case had never been solved.
“Uncle Scrooge died in 2001,” Pedro went on. “Natural causes, they say. Maybe it’s even true. Miranda stepped up, became the boss of bosses. He still is.”
“Still wearing his Italian suits?”
“No more. He learned his lesson. These days, he keeps a much lower profile. But he’s the one guy nobody screws with. Not that anybody would want to. He’s making lots of people tons of money. He’s the best manager the bicheiros ever had, the head of the whole rotten organization.”
“So, when you finally get him, you’ll be able to stamp out the game?”
Pedro laughed. “I’m not that naïve, Mario. The game is here to stay; it will be with us forever. As soon as Miranda is out of the picture, some other bicheiro will step up and take his place.”
“If it isn’t going to change anything, why are you so set on putting him away?”
“The game is secondary compared to the other stuff he’s up to.”
“Murders?”
“The murders don’t bother me all that much, because the people he kills are mostly crooks. I’m focusing on the other stuff.”
“Corruption?”
“Big time. Everybody knows the bicheiros have a deal going with the civil police. They’ve had one for years. There’s no way they could operate if they didn’t, but Miranda has taken it to a whole new level. He’s gone beyond bribing cops and judges. He’s investing in political campaigns, fattening the bank accounts of senators and deputies. He’s even got the governor of São Paulo on his payroll.”
“Jesus. I had no idea.”
&nb
sp; “Most people don’t. Since Miranda took over, it’s not just the game anymore. Now it’s bingo parlors, casinos and slot machines. Every day it’s something new, every day it’s something worse. The man’s greed is monumental.”
“You try going after him for his taxes?”
“I did, and he’s covered. He now makes his living, he says, as a”—Pedro used his fingers to make quotation marks in the air—“financial consultant. He takes in upward of a halfmillion a month in so-called commissions from people he claims to be advising on investments. And he pays taxes on every centavo. Meanwhile, he’s squirreling away millions in Uruguay, or the Caymans, or some other place I don’t know about.”
“But you’re trying like hell to find.”
“You bet I am.”
“Getting back to Talafero for a minute, do you buy into his story about Green Mangos?”
“No, I don’t. Bicheiros like Miranda are supposed to support samba schools. People expect it of them. When Miranda inherited the São Paulo bank, he inherited the obligation to support Green Mangos along with it.”
“So it’s not like his heart is in it?”
“Miranda doesn’t have a heart. Green Mangos, for him, is a cost of doing business. He does it to generate goodwill, keep his customers satisfied. That’s what I think. Mind you, I could be wrong.”
“Talafero was pretty convincing.” Arnaldo sounded doubtful. “You shoulda heard him.”
“If I had,” Pedro said, “I still wouldn’t buy it. Since you guys were here last, I’ve been doing some digging about Talafero. There’s a reason why he might want to sick you guys onto Miranda.”
“Which is?”
“To distract Miranda, get him off his back.”
“Why would that be necessary?”
“Talafero’s setting up a new business, one Miranda doesn’t like.”
“What is it?”
“Making book on football games.”
“What’s new about that? You can do that now.”
“Not the way he’s doing it. With the lotto you have to bet on the outcome of a series, and with the Internet you have to use a credit card.”
“Uh huh. So?”
“So, if you want to bet on an individual game, and you don’t have a credit card, which most people in this country don’t, you can’t do it. And you can’t bet small amounts.”
A Vine in the Blood Page 9
