What He Kept in the Drawer
There had been no need to make an appointment. The company was small, and it kept no one whose job was to receive visitors, so they had simply turned up unannounced.
"Is this the place?"
"Well. So I'm told."
They stood before a squat five-story building that did not even have an elevator. Tennessee's face tightened with dismay, though the look did not last.
"Let's take the cheerful view."
"Sorry?"
"The smaller the operation, the easier the acquisition ought to be."
"Ah."
"After you."
Luck was with them: the office lights were on. Jo Sudeok knocked, waited, and knocked again.
"Anyone in?"
At last the door gave a long iron screech, the complaint of old metal, and a white man who looked to be in his forties put his head out. He was not tall, but he was solidly built, and though the night had turned sharp he wore only a short-sleeved shirt.
"Who are you?"
Jo smiled and offered his hand.
"A pleasure. You wouldn't happen to be Mr. Dmitri?"
"I am. And?"
"The energy drink... Mad Bull. That would be you?"
Silence was as good as a yes.
"Aigoo, so we did find the right door. We came tearing over from England in such a rush we never even managed a call. That's how badly we wanted to see you."
Dmitri only stared.
"The name is Jo Sudeok."
"And who is that supposed to be..."
"Oh, learning who we are won't be any trouble at all. Why don't we step inside, have a cup of tea, and talk it over nice and easy?"
Getting them through the door was as far as Jo's work went. From here, leading the conversation, smoothing every objection, and forcing a result belonged to Tennessee alone. Fortunately, he did not look as if he were shaking.
"I'll come straight to the point. We want to buy your company."
"Fine by me."
Tennessee blinked.
"As you can see, the place is one good shove from falling over. You take it off my hands and I'll thank you."
Up to there, he had thought it almost too easy — easy enough to feel wrong. The trouble arrived from a direction he had not expected.
"Offer too little, and I've no reason to sell. Pay me handsomely, and I've no reason to stay."
The first half was nothing. They could bury the man in money. The second half was the problem.
"Am I wrong? Hand someone a fortune and he retires that same day and lives soft. Why would he keep breaking his back?"
"What if staying on to run the company is a condition of the sale?"
"What is it you want from me?"
"I'm sorry?"
"What in the world are you expecting of me, that you'd steel yourself to put that kind of money in my hands?"
It was an absurdly simple question, and still Tennessee had no answer. The reason was simple enough. All of this had been Park Jihoon's idea. He had been told they were going into energy drinks; he had never once stopped to ask why Dmitri himself had to be won over.
"If it's hard to answer, you can just give me the money. On the condition that I don't stay. That works, doesn't it?"
He had gotten that far when Jo slipped in, smooth as oil.
"Aigoo."
Dmitri looked at him.
"Looks like the work has been eating you alive, sir."
The timing was exact. A moment later and the air would have gone from serious to ice.
"They're falling over themselves to look after you, and retirement is still the first word out of your mouth. You've had a hard time of it, haven't you? Well, of course you have, working at this hour. Sir, call it a night. Soak yourself in hot water and think it over slowly. Say what you like, it isn't a bad offer. Am I wrong?"
"The terms are generous enough to embarrass me."
"That's what I said! You'll catch yourself grinning for no reason before you fall asleep. So squeeze your eyes shut and sign. Deal?"
"You've done a lot of this."
"Only watched, coming and going. A great deal of watching."
Jo let out a small laugh.
"Sir, we'll be back tomorrow. Let's save what we didn't say tonight and have it properly then."
"Yeah. Sure."
"We'll be off, then."
"Ah. One moment."
Jo paused.
"You've come a long way. Take these with you."
Dmitri turned to a mini-fridge that did not even reach a man's thigh. He had packed it until the thing could hold no more, and the instant he opened the door silver cans spilled out in a clatter.
"Th-the ones from the back are clean, at least."
He drew two free and pressed one into each of their hands.
"Drink it. It'll put wings on your life."
In the car bound for the hotel, Tennessee's thoughts were a knot. He had not quite believed that money solved everything. Even so, he had never imagined being turned away after naming a sum like that.
"Do you think he meant it?"
"Hard to say. We'll have to watch a little longer..."
"If he doesn't want the work, isn't the sensible thing to negotiate how long he stays?"
"Yes. Usually."
Jo looked as if he had a great deal more to say.
"Uuuusually, yes. The people our boss handpicks, though — none of them work that way."
Tennessee was silent.
"Strange, isn't it. Maybe the strangeness is why they got picked."
"So there have been quite a few who didn't blink at money."
"Oh, more than a few."
"What did Jihoon do then?"
"Mm... it was different every time."
Even so, he was soon telling the story that stood for all the rest: Baker, throwing a fit that he didn't need the money, that he would burn every last painting.
"The boss sent me to that fellow's house, didn't he, and told me to look at everything. What newspaper he read, what was in the cabinet, even how high the clothes were piled in the laundry hamper..."
To learn his tastes? Because the man had said he didn't need money, Jihoon had scraped together every scrap of information he could, hunting for whatever it was the man actually wanted.
"Maybe our boss's greatest gift is winning people's hearts. Why wouldn't it be? You can hunt down talent all you like. If they dig in the way this one did tonight, there's no answer."
And yet Park Jihoon did more than persuade. He made the person his. Jo Sudeok, sitting right there, was living proof, and James Faber went without saying. Above all, so was the proud heir of the House of Grosvenor.
When the thought reached that far, an awkward smile touched Tennessee's mouth.
Winning hearts.
For someone born to Grosvenor blood, it was a thoroughly unfamiliar aim. A ducal house was always the one that chose. When had it ever stood where it waited to be chosen? If the task were simply to press a man down with power, that would have been easier.
"This is a bind."
"Hm?"
"Business, in the end, is winning the customer's heart."
Jo nodded along.
"And I'm particularly hopeless at that..."
"Oh, please. Who's any good at it from the start? You learn from here."
Tennessee said nothing.
"In this one field our boss is the top of the top of the top! Keep your eyes wide open beside him and you'll come away with something. I guarantee it."
True enough — and how had the man even thought to inspect a laundry hamper? Tennessee was still clicking his tongue over it when something struck him.
...Ah!
"Turn the car around."
He said it to the driver, urgent.
"You remember where you picked us up? Take us back. Hurry!"
The lights in Dmitri's office were already out. Damn it. Too late? He had just let out a low breath when he saw the man coming down the stairs.
Oh!
Dmitri stretched, weary, and headed for the lot behind the building.
"We're getting out."
"Sir?"
"I'll settle up. Keep the change."
Tennessee strode off without hesitation, and Jo hurried after him in surprise. It was past midnight. The street, of course, was dead still. Just as the two of them reached the lot, a heavy engine bellowed from a little way off — a sound like hoofbeats.
A moment later the blue car pulling out of the lot did indeed have Dmitri at the wheel. He must have seen them. He slowed at once and rolled the window down.
"You're still here?"
Tennessee did not answer.
"Leave something behind?"
"We haven't settled on a place to stay."
"There are plenty of decent hotels nearby."
"Yes. We were just about to head over."
The talk was soulless because Tennessee's whole mind was nailed to the inside of that car. After a house, an automobile is a person's most expensive possession. Study it carefully enough and you can sketch the owner's character. That was why he had spun them around. He had to see Dmitri's car.
"Mind if I go?"
"Of course. We'll see you tomorrow."
The engine blared, far too loud for the size of the car. Tuned, no doubt. Only after it had gone a good distance did Tennessee turn to Jo.
"Do you happen to have a notebook?"
The hotel. Tennessee's room. The notebook was packed tight with everything he could remember about the car. Make and model: a Toyota AE86. A classic fun car, built around the pleasure of driving — a so-called drift machine, and a model hardly known in Europe. The interior had been just as extravagant. The handbrake, for a start, had been rebuilt. You know the kind: pulled out to an absurd length, the better for drifting. The seat was not stock either. To drop his driving position as low as it would go, he had fitted a racing bucket.
At this point, isn't the man unwell?
The tires were the highest-performance rubber Pirelli made. Unless you were actually racing, why put rubber like that on a Toyota 86? His guess was plain enough.
The man is mad for driving.
Yes. That much, at least, was certain.
Hm. Up to here he had managed, somehow, to imitate Park Jihoon. And the conclusion was what, exactly? Whether Dmitri drifted his Toyota 86 through intersections or not, how did knowing it help them buy Mad Bull?
When the thought got that far, a long sigh escaped him. Right. If copying were enough, the world would be full of Park Jihoons. Tennessee smiled bitterly and lay back on the bed. Staring at a notebook was not going to produce a solution. Sleep, then. Enough for today. Tomorrow could have the rest.
Sleep would not come. Damn it — was it the energy drink, this late? He closed his eyes and stayed awake.
Was I a fool to swagger in and say I'd buy it?
Jihoon would have settled the thing in a moment. Had he only stepped forward and snarled it?
He scratched at his scalp.
What good is regret now?
After that, too, he lay with his eyes open, turning the problem over and over.
Copying may not be the whole answer.
But right now, what else did he have?
And so he felt his way carefully back through everything that had passed between him and Park Jihoon.
How did I end up friends with him?
The reason was not complicated. There had been a desire he wanted sealed in the deepest drawer, locked where no one would see it. Jihoon had drawn it out and made him show it. He had not laughed at a lofty ducal heir for liking such a thing. Far from laughing, he had understood, and liked it with him. That was probably when it began — when Tennessee started to open the door of his heart.
Wait.
A desire locked deep in a drawer. Draw it out, like it with him, and the heart opens? In other words, if he could learn what another man kept in his drawer—
Then I could open Dmitri's heart too?
Tennessee sat bolt upright. He snapped on the light and looked down at the notebook again.