I'll Just Put Up the Money
The next day, Tennessee left the hotel early in the morning, without a word to Jo Sudeok. Perhaps that was why. For this one matter, he wanted to come back with a result that was his alone. It might have been nothing but greed, but he meant to see it through. Coming all the way to Austria with him was already a kind of help, I suppose. Even so. Even so.
He climbed into a taxi with his notebook clenched tight. The destination, of course, was the Mad Bull office.
"Keep the change."
It had been too late the night before to see the place properly. In daylight the building looked even more worn. Did I get here too early? There was no Toyota 86 in the lot, and all at once he had time hanging on his hands. What would Park Jihoon have done? Wouldn't he have tried something—anything—to squeeze out one more scrap of information?
Hm. Tennessee set off at once in search of a real estate office. Most of them weren't open yet, but after circling several blocks he was lucky enough to find a door unlocked.
"Mind if I ask you something?"
At that, the old man pushed his glasses up his nose.
"You know the big building with the parking lot just up the road? The gray one, five stories..."
"What about it?"
"There's an office on the third floor. I was curious what the rent runs."
"Nothing in that building's come on the market, far as I know."
"Oh, I'm not looking to lease. I only wanted to know."
For a moment the old man's face went sour. Here was someone with no intention of renting, come to poke around with questions. A customer who wouldn't put a cent in his pocket was bound to be a nuisance.
"I ought to pay you for the advice, of course."
Tennessee drew a few bills from his wallet.
"Sorry. I came in such a hurry I don't even have an envelope..."
"Haste happens! What's a young fellow doing tying himself up in empty ceremony?"
Once the old man had checked the amount, his manner swung a full hundred and eighty degrees.
"Now, if we're talking about that building!"
And so the briefing began. The place was in about as poor a condition as a building could be, but if it had a single virtue, it was the generous parking lot. Because of that, businesses that did a great deal of meeting favored it in particular.
"Nowhere else has a lot at all. Most of them can't even park a car for the commute."
"The rent's steeper than I expected."
"That's the parking. What else would it be?"
If they'd had many customers, they wouldn't have kept the refrigerator the way they had yesterday. And yet they swallowed the steep rent and insisted on using the place. Why?
Is it really the parking? He must like cars an awful lot.
"Thank you for telling me."
"I only said a handful of words. Not sure I ought to take this."
"Keep it. I'll be back."
He left the office and was heading back toward the building on the street when, fortunately, he saw the Toyota 86 sitting in the lot. The far corner—the widest space, the one that got in nobody's way climbing in or out.
A fierce blast of rock was leaking from the office. Thanks to that—
Knock, knock.
"......"
Knock, knock, knock.
Knocking drew almost no response. Only when a gap opened between tracks did the door finally open.
"Huh? What brings you by so early..."
Instead of answering, Tennessee held out a takeout cup. Viennese coffee, Austria's pride.
"I felt as if I rushed things yesterday."
"Well, sure. Come in."
While Dmitri hurriedly cleared the table, Tennessee quietly took in the office. The first thing to catch his eye was a mountain bike caked in dirt. Five or so helmets sat on the shelf; he looked like quite the devotee.
"You like bicycles?"
"Anything with wheels."
"That's for the mountains."
"I don't get to the mountains often. Now and then I ride down places full of stairs, just for the fun of the drop."
So he was the sort who liked a thrill. Sure enough, the bookshelf held a fair number of model airplanes.
"Do you like flying, too?"
He asked it brightly, pleased to think he'd found common ground.
"I can't fly them. I only like jumping out."
Dmitri offered something entirely unexpected.
"You skydive?"
"Well, yeah."
"You've jumped quite a lot, then?"
Instead of answering, Dmitri gave him an awkward smile.
Meanwhile, at the Royal School, I was staring at the blackboard with my mind somewhere else. It was an expensive school, and I did want to pay attention in class. But sometimes, well.
What's the harm in drifting off a little?
Heh heh heh. I wondered whether Tennessee was managing all right. When he'd said he would handle the acquisition himself, I had honestly wanted to stop him. The founder of Mad Bull was known as a thorough eccentric.
A man mad for stimulus.
Once Mad Bull found its footing, Dmitri had poured money into extreme sports as if possessed. A successful geek, you might say. In the first year Mad Bull sold more than five billion cans, the founder had gone on the media himself and given an interview. He had said something so striking that I still remembered it in fair detail.
In short, it went like this. Day after day had felt worse than listless—meaningless. Life was simply like that, he supposed, and he had lived as if he'd already given up. Then one day the curtain on the wall looked like a rope. He walked toward it like a man under a spell, and when he came back to himself he was standing on a chair with his neck stretched out. He had never been diagnosed. Looking back, he said, it must have been a savage depression.
Sensing he was about to come to real harm, he fled the house with no plan and walked, and walked, until he was ready to drop. Perhaps some blessing had been caught in the hammering sunlight. By the time he had left the house every day for a week, he felt the hole in his chest had filled in, if only a little. That was when it started—when Dmitri began to fall into exercise. Once running, swimming, cycling, and most everything else had grown familiar, he chased a sharper stimulus and threw himself into extreme sports.
No one could deny that Dmitri was a genius of marketing. And yet a question mark hung over why he had been so earnest about it. Had it only been to raise sales? Perhaps the business was nothing but an excuse. Trying to introduce the thing he loved to other people in the most dazzling way he could, he might simply have become a legend of marketing without meaning to. Hobby and calling, one and the same. The most successful geek in the world. That was exactly the image Dmitri called up in me.
That's only how I see him, though.
Tennessee, who had no way of knowing any of this—what impression would he have come away with? Expectation and worry tangled together until, for no good reason, I raked a hand up through my hair.
Hmm.
He had gathered what he could about Dmitri. Now it was time to weave it together and open the door to the man's heart, the way Park Jihoon had made Jo Sudeok, James Faber, and Tennessee himself into his own people.
I really want to do the same.
Damn it. It wasn't as easy as it sounded. He knew Dmitri liked a thrill. But so what? How, exactly, was he supposed to connect that to a buyout? No decent answer came to him, and so—
"......"
Tennessee kept steering toward other subjects.
"The Toyota 86 is rear-wheel drive, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"Letting the tail step out through a corner must be pretty fun."
They were conversations that couldn't run long. Perhaps the silence grew uncomfortable, because Dmitri, unable to bear it, opened his mouth.
"How do you know something like that?"
"Ah. I've driven a little."
"Aren't you a minor?"
"It's allowed on a circuit."
"......?"
"I've been at it steadily since go-karts. I have a circuit license."
"A go-kart circuit?"
"No. F3. A real circuit, the kind professional drivers use."
In that instant, curiosity caught in Dmitri's eyes. A response like the first rain in a drought. Tennessee hurried the conversation on.
"Have you ever been to a circuit?"
"Well, sure. I've been to the well-known ones now and then."
"What about Silverstone?"
"Only F1 drivers can get in there..."
"If you get the chance, would you like to try a lap?"
"Sorry? What... try what?"
"A real race car."
Dmitri only blinked. His face said he had no idea what he was being told.
"I mean it literally. At Silverstone, where only drivers are allowed in. You'd drive a car the professionals drive."
"A car the professionals drive..."
"An F1 car. Last year's, but still."
"Th-that's possible?"
Tennessee nodded.
"How?"
He had wanted, if he could, to manage without his family's help. Was this the moment to be precious about it?
"Come with me, and anything is possible."
"......!"
"You don't have a license, though, so you'll have to be gentle with the throttle."
That afternoon, at Silverstone in England, Dmitri still looked dazed. Through the briefing, through pulling on the gear, right up to the moment before he climbed into the car.
"......"
His face still said none of it felt real.
"The cockpit's tight, so sit in the seat first. I'll fit the wheel on after."
"...What?"
"If the wheel's already in, it's hard to get in."
"Ah. Right, right."
"I'll run ahead of you. Absolutely no overtaking. In the corners you have to slow to under a hundred kilometers an hour. No exceptions."
"But this is really an F1 car?"
"Yes. It ran last season."
"Uh... the one Aiden Senna drove?"
"That's right."
"But how is this possible?"
"I told you."
"......?"
"With me, anything is possible."
"Ah..."
A moment later Tennessee got into his own car. A safety car led the way, and Tennessee and Dmitri followed behind it. They weren't professionals, so there was a speed limit. Even so, Dmitri couldn't manage half the permitted pace. The savage rush of air made it hard just to hold his head up. The drivers did fifty-two laps.
"......"
Dmitri managed exactly five—about twenty-five kilometers—and immediately declared he was done. Tennessee, too, had to come in on the sixth.
"You're stopping?"
"Yes..."
"Stay out a little longer. A chance like this won't come often."
"I know. That's why I drove like I was trying to die."
"......?"
"Honestly, I wanted to quit from the second lap."
He looked utterly spent, but he'd had some fun of his own, it seemed.
"I don't think I'll ever forget this."
"Come with me sometimes."
"Sorry?"
"When I can't stand the sight of any of it, I come here and put my foot down too."
He didn't mean reckless driving. Top speed. A course at the limit. Give your body over to instinct and drive yourself to the edge, and your head goes white. Every feeling evaporates, as if it had been a lie. For that moment he would run ten laps, twenty, without thinking. Tennessee had only told his own story, calmly.
"......"
Dmitri's expression was no longer what it had been.
"You come when you feel boxed in?"
"Yes."
"But however far you drive, it doesn't solve the problem at the root, does it?"
"Even so, on that strength I can hold out for a few days."
"Then the thing underneath..."
"You have to hope time takes care of it."
Dmitri stood where he was for a while, helmet in hand.
"Time..."
Murmuring to himself, he turned to Tennessee.
"If I want to borrow the circuit now and then... I suppose I'll have to get to know you."
For the first time, Dmitri showed him a smile.
W-wait. Did it work? This meant he'd come along, didn't it? Right?
But far from savoring the joy, Tennessee could only stare, dumbfounded.
No—why? What made him change his mind?
Not knowing the reason meant he couldn't repeat the process. In plain terms, he had gotten lucky. He had wanted to settle it cleanly, the way Park Jihoon would have. Nnngh. What could he do?
Forget management! For now, I'll just put up the money...
Sick of the whole business, Tennessee shook his head.