The Grudge in the Warehouse
Jo Sudeok had looked upon precious works beyond counting, and this was the painting he had named the finest of them without a moment's hesitation.
"When did you say the appraisers arrive?"
"I imagine they'll be in the country sometime tomorrow."
Fair enough. What was there to lose by having it confirmed?
"You did well. Thank you for seeing to all of it."
"Not at all."
"Let's get moving, then."
We made light talk on the way to the parking lot. I kept off the subject of da Vinci as best I could, trying to get my composure back, and Jo Sudeok, quick to the air in a room, read me at once.
"Chief, I think I got a little carried away. Whether the piece is genuine can wait. First we have to win Mr. Baker's heart. It's only because you held the center that we didn't come apart. Whew. I feel as if my head is only just clearing."
"Isn't that a rather quick change of front?"
"Heh heh heh. Working life, you know. It starts with a security detail for your superior's mood."
"A security detail for his mood?"
"In plain speech, reading the room. In nicer speech, showing a little sense. That sort of thing."
Life was never dull with Jo Sudeok around.
"Chief, in you get. This is the car."
"This is what you've been driving around in?"
"A bit shabby, isn't it?"
An old Ford van. The travel money ought to have been ample. Why this?
"Just because I can expense it, should I go parading around in something expensive? Every bit of it leaves the country as foreign currency. For the peace of the nation, and for your wallet, Chief, we start by being frugal."
"You might have spent a little, though."
"Mm. I'm here posing as a researcher, come to buy another man's painting. Looking prosperous buys me nothing."
"So an expensive car only gives them a flaw to seize on?"
"Exactly. They see the car and think, he must have some money, so why is this all he's offering for the work? Let them start in with that kind of whining and... heavens, it's horrifying."
Say this for the man: he was alive to the details. And it wasn't just talk. Jo Sudeok was in a worn suit and scuffed shoes, the very picture of a starving artist to anyone who looked.
"I'll drive," the chauffeur said.
"Then I'll take the front," Jo Sudeok answered at once.
Which left me, somehow, in the back seat. The one they call the boss's.
"It's a fair way to where we're going. We are staying at a hotel, but the place isn't much. We ought to find somewhere separate for you, Chief..."
"No. The same hotel is fine."
"It won't be comfortable."
Uncomfortable, at a hotel? Please. My last life was one long residency in a semi-basement.
The engine barked, and in the moving car we slipped into talk of work as if it were the natural thing.
"Could you get me a meeting with Mr. Baker tomorrow afternoon?"
"Yes. I'll try to push it through, but..."
"...?"
"This would be the third approach, so the odds are high he'll refuse."
True enough. He'd had no mind to sell, and still he had met them twice. That was because they had flown in from Korea. In the ordinary course, a door shut in the face would have been no surprise.
"You can reach him by phone?"
"Of course."
"Then pass him a word. Tell him the third generation of a company that owns a professional baseball team in Korea wants to see him."
"So you've decided to commit to... the baseball line?"
"I have."
Jo Sudeok seemed to look out the window, then soon leaned his head in toward me.
"If money could have settled it, that would have been a mercy. He's so particular that it's come to bringing you here, Chief."
"I get to see America out of it. That's good too."
I grinned, and Jo Sudeok found a smile to match. But I knew the unease caught at the corner of his mouth. Baseball-mad or not—
Mr. Baker never so much as flinched at money.
He had to be wondering whether baseball could move the man at all.
"You've got more questions than one, haven't you?"
"Oh, come. How many of us live with every curiosity cleared away?"
"Even so, we're partners. You have a right to know..."
"Partners, nothing! You paint the big picture, Chief, and I run the ground like a ballplayer. That's all it needs to be."
A man who would never step forward and ask unless I spoke first. The sort who, even with a doubt in him, followed and saw. Not a thing you'd say of an artist. Perhaps business was this man's true calling.
"Thank you for trusting me."
"Not at all."
With that sheepish smile, the old van began to gather speed. The road ran on without end. It was the moment I finally felt, in my bones, that I had come to America.
That night, at the hotel.
A knock came, and when I opened the door Jo Sudeok was standing in the hall. A phone call would have done. He had come all the way to my room, which meant the errand mattered.
"I've just finished a call with Mr. Baker."
"Oh?"
"As we expected, he wouldn't allow a visit. Said coldly that he had done all he meant to do. So I brought up the Hyeon-gang Lions, just as you told me, and in that instant even his voice changed."
"Did he show interest?"
"Interest... it was more than that. He let a clear eagerness show."
"So you fixed a meeting?"
"Yes. We did, only..."
Jo Sudeok hesitated, looking cornered, and then went on.
"He says he has to leave early tomorrow on business. He calls it business, but it sounded as if he were following Boston on the road. He'll be in Maryland four days at least..."
Which meant we wouldn't see him until the fifth day, when the trip was over.
"Then we meet him now."
"Now?"
"You said the trip is tomorrow. He's bound to be home at this moment, isn't he?"
"That is... true, but."
Eleven at night. Go looking for a man at that hour and you'd be lucky to do anything but fan his temper. I knew it. That didn't mean I could wait five days.
"Get us ready. Right away."
"Ah—yes. Understood."
At my word Jo Sudeok hurried off.
The streets stood empty in the dark. They said it was a neighborhood where the middle class gathered. There were certainly a great many fine houses, and the car stopped before one that looked larger than the rest.
"This is the place."
Light leaked through the windows. He hadn't gone to sleep.
"The materials, please."
"Yes, young master."
They were things he had gone all the way down to Gwangju to scrape together, every last scrap. This time I turned to Jo Sudeok.
"You remember what I asked for?"
"Of course."
Jo Sudeok took a black shopping bag from the glove box. The preparations were done. Now it was time to meet Baker.
He led, and the chauffeur and I followed. He pressed the bell. Nothing. He pressed it again, and then came the pound of feet, a clack of the lock, and the door snapping open in a temper.
"Who's out here at this hour..."
Is that Baker? A tall white man, somewhere in his late forties. An age when a little carelessness settles into spare flesh, and yet he seemed fond of exercise; the body he carried was solid enough. He had been a breath from letting his temper fly.
"Now see here... what am I meant to do if you bring a child in the dead of night?"
One look at my face, and he was plainly laboring to choose his words. Everyday English, so I could follow the gist. Speaking it myself was another matter entirely. Nothing for it. Jo Sudeok would have to interpret.
"Mister, I'm sorry to come so late. They said you were leaving on a trip tomorrow, first thing, so... I came running without a plan."
Baker looked from me to Jo Sudeok and back. When the interpreting was done, he asked,
"Don't tell me the magnate who owns the pro team is..."
"Yes. That's me."
"I don't believe this."
Had he assumed that however young I was, I would at least be in my twenties? Baker scratched his head, plainly at a loss.
"Mister, I'm sorry, but could we talk inside?"
"Agh... I can't very well throw a squirt out."
So this was when being a child came in handy.
"It's cold. Inside. Hurry."
"Thank you."
The moment we stepped through the entry, the living room was the first thing in view. Just as Jo Sudeok had said, the display cases stood in a row, baseball gear kept in them like something precious.
"The painting, I mean. Didn't you say it was for research?"
Baker closed the distance on Jo Sudeok as he asked.
"A professor, fine, I'd expect that of him. But what's this kid all of a sudden?"
"Oh, I'm the one who commissioned the professor's research."
"You, kid?"
"I may not look it, but I have a fair amount of money."
"Right. The magnate. I forgot."
Baker shrugged, as if it had slipped his mind.
"And what am I supposed to do about that? I don't care about money. Not at all."
"I heard."
"You knew that, and you still showed up? On what nerve?"
"Hard to say."
"Come to lay down a sum no rich man could refuse, the way rich men do?"
"Please... I'm hardly the New York Yankees."
"The Yankees?"
"Yes. Buying people with money is a grand old Yankees tradition."
"Hahaha!"
As if the answer had pleased him, Baker broke into a great open laugh.
"Don't tell me the Yankees' money-madness is gossip all the way out in Asia?"
"It is. Famous enough that even an eleven-year-old knows."
"Puh-ha!"
Two good, clean laughs, and the chill in the room had mostly thawed. We sat facing each other with the sofa table between us.
"Been a while since I met a little guy I actually liked. Trouble is..."
"...?"
"Christmas is nearly on us, and I'd like to give a good boy a present myself. I'm sorry, though. The paintings in the warehouse and I have a deep grudge."
"A grudge?"
"There's history there."
He knotted his brow hard, as if he didn't even want to think of it.
"Then, mister. If the grudge were cleared, you could hand the paintings over, couldn't you?"
"What?"
"It's the grudge that makes you refuse, so we only have to settle that."
At that Baker smiled without humor. His face asked what sort of talk this was, to be holding it with a child.
"Kid, this isn't a problem that can be solved."
"Why not?"
"Let's stop. It'll only sour the mood."
He let out a long sigh, and then—
"Mister. That grudge of yours."
"..."
"If a man could live his life twice... wouldn't that solve it?"
At that point even Jo Sudeok, midway through interpreting, cocked his head.
"You know it's true. If you got to live once more, you'd never give up baseball."
"What?"
"Then you'd never have had cause to resent those paintings."
"What... are you talking about?"
"You love baseball, but your parents were art lovers, and they pushed you to be an artist. Isn't that it? You managed to play for a while anyway, and then a falling-out with them made you give baseball up for good."
"You dug into my past just to get your hands on a few miserable paintings?"
"As if. Who would I ask? I don't know a soul in America."
Maybe he didn't believe me. A flame came up in Baker's eyes. I was not the sort to be cowed by that.
"But, mister. Even if you quit baseball because your parents were against it... you could have played once you got to college. As a hobby, at least. And yet every piece of baseball gear in this house is youth size."
"..."
"What if your parents' opposition was the excuse... and you really quit because you felt, all the way down, the limit of your talent? This is America. Never mind the pros. Even a baseball scholarship isn't easy."
The moment Jo Sudeok, hesitating, finished putting it into English—
"Shut up!"
The shout came with it.
"What the hell do you know, running your mouth!"
Baker kicked up out of his seat and rose.