An Art Dealer's Debut
The next morning.
I had dropped so hard I couldn't even remember falling asleep. I remembered dragging my worn-out body into the hotel room, and after that—nothing. Just black.
Tch.
No surprise, really. I hadn't slept a wink on the plane, and the moment I set foot in America I'd gone straight to Baker's house. I'd been choking down a fatigue that had already climbed to my chin.
"Haaahm."
Maybe it was just being young. A yawn, a stretch, and my head seemed to clear. Heh.
I called Jo Sudeok at once.
It was an ordinary hotel, so breakfast was nothing to boast about—toast and jam, bacon, scrambled eggs, the usual. The same predictable spread you get at every business hotel.
"Boss, what if it doesn't suit you?"
"No. It's good."
"Mmm. I wouldn't have thought this would agree with you."
"Why? You think a chaebol starts the morning on lobster?"
"Nothing stopping you. It's a democracy. If you want it, forget lobster—caviar's perfectly available."
"Not for me."
"Nor for me. Heh heh heh."
I cleared my plate in no time, and Jo Sudeok was instantly watching my face.
"Shall I go back for another?"
"No. Let's talk business."
"Business, gladly!"
"First, I want the Dürer disposed of. What's the path to a sale?"
"The easiest is to consign it to auction. New York holds an art auction every month. As you said... if it's truly Dürer's last drawing, German-Americans will be all over it."
The real thing was certain. It had already been authenticated in my previous life.
"Is there a way besides auction?"
"Of course. Some people hate having a work exposed to the world. They hire an art dealer and do a one-to-one sale."
"An art dealer?"
"Yes. Easiest to think of them as a broker. You commission the Dürer, and they go find the magnate most likely to need it and close the deal."
"So the price changes with the dealer's skill."
"It does. A capable dealer sometimes pulls several times the fair price. The commission is steep, though. You'd have to pay about ten times what an auction takes."
Several times the fair price. The moment I heard that, my mind locked onto hiring an art dealer. There was a snag, of course.
Ten times the auction fee?
If they brought in that much money, I could hardly complain about them taking a matching cut. Still, ten times feels like crossing a line.
The thought carried my eyes, naturally, to Jo Sudeok.
"Boss? Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Mm. It's just... I'm not trying to force you."
"Yes?"
"It's only that our professor is so brilliant at business."
"I did get to show a little of what I can do this time. Heh heh heh."
"So I was thinking."
"......?"
"How would you like to debut as an art dealer while you're at it?"
At that same hour, in Park Yonghak's office.
"At Professor Jo Sudeok's request, a Dürer specialist is on the move in Germany, and a da Vinci appraisal team in Britain."
At the chief secretary's report, Park Yonghak's eyebrow twitched.
"Da Vinci? You mean Leonardo da Vinci?"
"Yes, sir."
"And what's a da Vinci expert doing up and moving?"
"They've secured two paintings in Boston. It seems an appraisal is required."
"And one of them's reckoned to be a da Vinci?"
"Yes. The young master appears to have judged it so, at least."
"...Ha!"
Park Yonghak had spent a lifetime gathering old art. His hunger for it was fierce, and the longer he stood before a work the sharper his eye became, until the collecting turned nearly manic. The result was a hoard of cultural treasures fit to appear in a textbook. Stretch the truth a little, and it was on the order of a national museum.
Even so, a da Vinci had never entered his imagination. The man had left so few works, and every one of those belonged to a state. Money could not buy them.
And yet... his grandson had called in a da Vinci appraisal team?
Park Yonghak had been through every battle there was. He had been sure nothing ordinary could make him blink.
"Hnnn."
The name da Vinci had plainly shaken the chairman's composure.
"How likely is it the real thing?"
"Close to zero."
"No unpublished work at all?"
"There is talk that he left a portrait called Salvator Mundi, but nothing has ever actually been confirmed."
"And besides that?"
"Now and then, they say, he took a commission and fled before finishing it..."
"So the odds that picture's Jihun's are basically nothing?"
"The experts say the chance of an unknown da Vinci turning up is... lower than winning the lottery twice in a row."
"Then let me ask just one more thing."
"Yes, Chairman."
"Since we're on probabilities anyway."
"......?"
"What are the odds an eleven-year-old squirt sweeps four papers in the New Spring Literary Contest?"
"Sir?"
"What? Didn't think to ask that one?"
"Ah... well."
The chief secretary fumbled. The chairman did not.
"That rascal Jihun made a pile in a few days and flew himself off to America."
"......"
"He lands, grabs the pictures first thing, and calls in an appraisal team. That means the boy's got something he's sure of, don't it?"
"Th-that's right."
"Did I say one word that wasn't so?"
"No, sir."
Perhaps it was the helplessness written all over the chief secretary's face. Park Yonghak waved him off as if that were enough.
"You've had a rough one. Go on."
Hoo. He had spoken hard, but the chairman himself did not believe the picture was a da Vinci. Then why? Had it stung him, the feeling that someone was slighting his grandson? For heaven's sake.
The things a man lives to see in his old age.
Left alone, Park Yonghak could only manage an awkward smile.
Meanwhile, in Boston.
The case for Jo Sudeok's debut as an art dealer was simple.
"I'd do it myself, but I'm far too young."
"Th-that's true."
"And my English is much too short. If you can't talk, there's no answer. That's all."
"That... would be right?"
"So if somebody absolutely has to do it, it seems better that it be you, Professor."
"Aigoo, me... I only ever fall in step with whatever you think, Boss."
Jo Sudeok wore the face of a man who had slipped back into his graduate-school days. The doctoral course, specifically.
"Mm, but Boss, if I may say one word out of an old man's worry—this is a terribly specialized field. I wonder whether I can produce a result you'd be satisfied with. What if I fail to get a proper price and only do you harm..."
"The proper price is already set."
"Yes?"
"Twenty billion won. I won't sell for less."
"Guh—!"
Of course he was shocked. Even if it was Dürer's last work, it was only a drawing. For an oil painting the sum might have been plausible, but a bit of underdrawing, and he meant to take twenty billion?
And yet it did sell...
I had seen the future. Anything less was absolutely unacceptable. He must have read the resolve in me. Jo Sudeok put that famous sense of his to work and raised no further objection to the price.
"If your mind is set, Boss, then I have no choice but to follow. That's right. From now on it's twenty billion coming or going! Awake or asleep, that will be the only thought in my head."
"You don't have to wrestle with it alone."
"Do you have a plan, the way you did when we were getting the uniforms ready?"
Nothing grand.
"What's a famous German company?"
"The first that comes to mind is still Allianz."
Ah. An insurance company. I hadn't known that. Ahem.
"There's Adidas as well."
Right—there was Adidas too. Still, didn't people usually think of cars first when they thought of Germany? Hmm. Maybe the 1980s were different. Anyway.
"You mean to sell it to a German group?"
"Dürer is a painter Germany is proud of. Wouldn't they show more interest on that side?"
"True. Interest and affection turn into money soon enough."
Jo Sudeok nodded, and I went on.
"Allianz is fine, and Adidas is excellent, but if we can manage it, I'd rather see German groups in the same field set against each other."
"You mean to start a competition and drive the price up."
"Yes."
"For a proper fight, it would have to be the same industry. Fierce rivals."
Bingo. Now we were speaking the same language.
"Contact the German big three—Schultz, B&W, and Gaudi. Tell them we've found Dürer's last drawing, and ask them to join the auction."
"An auction? A moment ago you said you'd sell it one to one..."
"We're only casting the line. Before long they'll call. How much do you want? I'll buy it, so don't hold an auction."
"Ah... Boss, it isn't that I'm raising a doubt, but..."
"You can doubt me."
"Mm, it's less a doubt than simple curiosity. That is... even granting it's Dürer's last work... is there any reason a car company would spend that kind of money?"
"You only have to make a reason."
"Sir?"
"I'll build them a story worthy of the question—why they need this picture."
He didn't seem to understand me at all.
"Ah. I see."
Jo Sudeok gave the soulless answer and only nodded, very still.
An hour later, at Boston airport, he looked as if he still couldn't quite believe the situation.
"Boss? The appraisal team is supposed to arrive. Will it be all right if I'm not here?"
"The appraisal is their job anyway."
"Th-that's true."
"Your students will take good care of them, Professor."
"Likewise. Yes, I was thinking the same. Haha."
An awkward laugh.
"You've had a hard time of it in America. Think of this as stepping out for some air."
"Some air... in Germany?"
"If you'd rather not, shall I go?"
"N-not want to? My heart's already pounding at the thought of being of use to you, Boss."
"I'm grateful for the words alone."
Jo Sudeok gripped the plane ticket in both hands. It wouldn't feel real yet. Soon enough it would be time to pass through the gate. Ahem.
"I've written the story you gave me carefully into my notebook. I'll turn it over and over for the whole flight."
"If it feels thin, add to it as you see fit."
"No, no. No more and no less... exactly the lines you wrote... I won't miss so much as a particle."
Hearing him go that far, I could tell. So the sum of twenty billion does worry him.
Ordinarily this was the moment for at least the empty comfort of the money's fine, go without the burden. But I was different. I put on a face sterner, graver, and more dead serious than usual.
This was a deal where tens of billions of won would change hands. Let him carry the weight, and bring the money home.
In exchange, if he brought back a fortune, I'd shave off a reasonable (?) cut for him.
Having sworn to administer a little financial therapy, I saw Jo Sudeok off.