The Portrait He Meant to Burn
Seize the chance and get out of that dust-choked warehouse—or stay there regretting, and wait for another life. Fortunately, Baker wore the face of a man who had already decided.
"Fifty thousand dollars, you said."
"Yes."
"As a signing bonus... you can really put up that kind of money?"
I nodded.
"No—this isn't a dollar or two. Fifty thousand, and you'd just hand it over?"
I'd been feeling it for a while. We weren't quite reaching each other. Better to pin it down than keep talking past one another.
"I wasn't planning to put it this bluntly."
"......?"
"Sir."
"Yeah?"
"Do you even know what a rich man is?"
We wrote the contract on the spot. Fifty thousand dollars, paid directly to Sun Dongyeol. The price was a single painting.
"Worth more than I thought, then?"
"Probably."
"...Hm."
"Regretting it?"
"Regret, my ass. If it weren't for you, it'd have rotted in a warehouse my whole life. What's there to regret?"
Good. That settled that.
"Since I've decided to bet on baseball anyway—any decent hitters over in Korea?"
"There must be."
"A name comes to mind, but he's no Sun?"
More that I didn't know Korean baseball all that well. Ahem.
"Not right away. Within a few years, though."
"A few years?"
"There's a man they call the Son of the Wind. Land him, and the Grandson of the Wind comes in the same package. Quite a deal."
"......?"
"It's a thing."
"......"
"I'll call you when the time comes."
A question mark the size of a billboard floated over Baker's head. What could I do? All of this was the privilege of a second life.
"Nothing to do with baseball, but Korea must be a very nature-loving country."
"What do you mean?"
"Sun, and the Son of the Wind too. Names that sound like they walked out of the woods."
I scratched my head. So that's how it sounded. Anyway, enough of the jokes.
"We've signed. Mind showing me the painting?"
We headed for the warehouse. According to Jo Sudeok, Baker had seemed reluctant to come anywhere near the place. Not now. He walked the whole way at my side.
"This is it."
Dürer's last drawing. A woman cradling a child—a drawing. I already knew the future, and Jo Sudeok had sent photographs to confirm it. There was nothing left to check.
"Sir, could I look at some of the other pieces?"
"Sure. As many as you like."
The moment Baker agreed, Jo Sudeok drew me off to one side of the warehouse. The message in his eyes was plain.
This. Right here.
A fairly large canvas: the portrait of a nobleman. Just as in the photograph, one corner of the background had been left unfinished. The paint was cracked all over and crying out for restoration, and even so I froze where I stood. The eyes were not large. The irises were a faded brown. And yet, meeting those plain eyes, I felt every hair on my body stand on end.
In a museum you hear a certain line all the time—that an artist has carved a whole life into two pupils. I had always taken it for a handsome bit of rhetoric. In that moment it arrived through the skin. The work had succeeded. It held one man's entire life, and those eyes, of a depth you could not sound, were the proof. The painting's aura came from them. Anyone who met that gaze would lock in place, just as I had.
By the time I came back to myself, the thing had already bewitched me. I could have sworn it without hesitation. Who but Leonardo da Vinci could reach a height like this?
Those thoughts were still running without end when Jo Sudeok took a step closer.
Astonishing. Even seeing it again.
It's da Vinci. It has to be his hand. And even if it isn't him, I don't care. This painting—I'm getting my hands on it. No matter what.
A whole conversation, and not a word of it spoken. Whatever he read in my face, Jo Sudeok nodded as if the fate of the world depended on it.
All that remained was the deal with the painting's owner. I turned, slowly, toward Baker.
"Sir. This painting."
"Take it."
"...What?"
"If you need it, take it."
What was this, now.
"Leave it here and it's just more junk, isn't it?"
"Even so."
"I'm going to burn the lot of them eventually anyway. Just take it."
"B-burn them?"
"I've already burned a few."
"The paintings?"
"Yeah."
An absurd story. I looked at Baker, wondering if he was joking.
"......"
His eyes were more serious than I had ever seen them.
"Like you said, maybe I quit baseball because I hit the limit of what I could do. Even so, some days I hate my old man so much I could die. Haah. Not sure I ought to be saying this to a kid."
But he shook his head almost at once. He didn't see me as an ordinary child.
"When I get the feeling my whole life is ruined... when I can't stand how much I hate him... I take a painting he treasured, go outside, and light a fire in the yard."
"......!"
"This one's next."
Baker lifted a finger and pointed at the canvas.
"If I hadn't met you, I might have burned it when winter ended."
I had wondered. Why a work this great had never been known to the world. The day Baker died and Dürer's drawing turned up at a flea market—why hadn't this oil appeared? The question had nagged at me so hard.
What if Baker had been burning them all along? What if this one really was next?
Ha. Then burn the money, you old fool, not the art!
The shock passed quickly. I let out a small breath. The works already lost were a shame, but this was no moment to dwell on them. Better to secure what was still here. I forced my face into something else and spoke.
"Even so, I can't just take it."
"What are you talking about? You're already giving me fifty thousand. I'm telling you to take this."
"No."
"......?"
Take it for free, and then have it turn out to be something staggering? There would be a filthy fight over ownership. No question. Better to spend the money and tie the knot clean.
"Sir, shall we write a contract?"
"You don't have to go that far..."
"I'll give you a piece of information."
"Yeah?"
"On a player."
I'd brought up a ballplayer because money didn't move this man. Sure enough, Baker's eyes lit at once.
"Not just the information. I'll give you the money to bring him in, too."
"And for that, you want this painting?"
"Yes."
"Shall we write it up?"
"This kid's spending a lot of money today."
"I told you not to worry about a rich man's wallet."
"Forgot again."
Maybe because we'd already written one. The second went quickly. The sum I would pay came to a hundred thousand dollars in all, to be sent the moment I arrived in Seoul.
"All right. Talk. The information."
"This time it's an American."
"American? How do you know an American player?"
How. I'd seen him on television more times than I could count.
"High school. Six foot eight, at least. Left-handed, and he throws ninety-three like he's playing catch."
"A kid like that, the scouts would already be all over him."
"His control is a mess, so the reports on him aren't good."
And right now he was still throwing overhand—before that signature pitch of his was finished.
"Fast, but shaky?"
"Yes."
"Then why bring him in?"
"Change the delivery, and he can become an incredible pitcher."
"Change it how?"
"From overhand to sidearm."
"A guy over six-eight, throwing sidearm?"
I nodded.
"A man who can give you two hundred innings, twenty wins, and three hundred strikeouts every year."
"In high school?"
"No. In the major leagues."
"Does that even make sense?"
It did, as it turned out.
"Why not just say he'll win three hundred games for his career?"
"He probably will. More or less."
"Well, how about that. And you forgot the Hall of Fame."
"You're right. I should have mentioned that too."
"Ha!"
Baker let out a disbelieving laugh.
"So. Where is this friend of yours?"
"I don't know."
"What?"
"I don't know where he's playing right now. Luckily, I know the name."
"Find him on a name?"
"He's tall, I told you. About six-eight. And a lefty."
"How am I supposed to find him with that?"
"Why couldn't you?"
"......?"
"I didn't even know your name."
"Then how did you find this place?"
"I just looked. Poked around everywhere. I was desperate."
Baker turned to Jo Sudeok as if to test whether I meant it. Of course Jo Sudeok nodded.
"For crying out loud. So you flew from Korea to America without even knowing my name?"
"Yes."
"And you still managed to dig me up?"
"That's what I'm telling you."
Dumbfounded or not, what could he do? It was the truth.
"Lucky me. At least I've got a name."
"You do."
"Hah... put in a request with the association and something ought to turn up. He's tall enough that the same name won't mix anybody up."
"Sounds like you've practically found him already."
Maybe he'd gotten used to my jokes. A small grin. Baker smiled, just a little.
"All right. What's his name?"
"Randy."
"Randy?"
"Yes. Randy Johnson."
"Randy Johnson......"
He repeated the name, perfectly calm.
"For the Hall of Fame, it sounds a little ordinary."
"Sun's is much more striking, isn't it?"
"It is."
Anyway, sir. Randy Johnson was absolutely going to win three hundred games, and he would walk into the Hall of Fame without breaking a sweat. At that price, the painting was about paid for. Wasn't it?
The hand I held out—he seized it, hard and hot.
The deal I had waited so long for was finished like that.
In the car, on the way back to the hotel, I let out a long sigh of relief. With Dürer's last drawing in hand, twenty billion won was as good as secured. The unfinished oil would have to wait for an appraisal. What a complicated day.
I was quietly sorting through all of it when a voice came from the passenger seat.
"Sir."
Jo Sudeok. He had turned toward me.
"Now that it's over, may I say something?"
"Of course."
"When you called and told me to get a Boston uniform... I had no idea what that was. The question climbed all the way up to my throat, and I swallowed it back down."
"You didn't say a word, so I thought you didn't mind."
"Oh, come on. I'm human. I was curious. The instructions were a little unusual, weren't they? Mark Baker's name. Get autographs from the old stars, but leave the center blank. I kept wondering what any of it was for. And then... you used it like that?"
He mimicked me—the line I had given Baker.
"See that spot with no signature? I left it empty on purpose, so a player you find yourself can sign his name there."
"Kya!" The cry burst out of him, pure delight. "Sir, I swear I thought I was watching a movie."
Open flattery would have made me uncomfortable. This much, though—call it savoring the afterglow.
"But how did you come up with an idea like that?"
"Who knows."
"Do they just... come to you, even when you're sitting still?"
Nothing so impressive. All I had done was give Baker a story. A narrative fit for a man who had lived as a loser, so he could be born again as someone willing to challenge. Easy enough, for me. Still, one man's dream had come true. Taking my payment was only fair.
"The appraisal team gets here tomorrow, you said?"
"Yes. The morning flight, without fail."
Time, at last, to see what the labor was worth.
Leonardo da Vinci...
The name alone was enough. My heart began to hammer. Thump. Thump.