Two Hundred Billion, Unappraised

I stood stock-still in a corridor of the college of fine arts. What could they possibly have needed to say that was worth sending me out of the room?

Knowing Chairman Park, he would long since have had Jo Sudeok's personal particulars in hand. If ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠he cared to look, he could shake a man from crown to sole — account balances, assets tucked out of sight, whether there was a woman he was meeting on the quiet. And still he had kept Jo Sudeok behind, alone.

Something he means to confirm with his own eyes.

Hmm. However long I turned it over, I wasn't going to know. So what was the use of fretting? Better to set my mind at ease and wait.

I looked slowly along the corridor. It had been a long time since I'd stood blankly in a school hallway. In my last life I had played human scarecrow to guard a high-school lunch line. Now the name of the school, my station, my purpose — all of it had changed.

Just as that sentimental thought began to lift its head, a lock clicked. The big door opened, and Chairman Park came out of the studio.

"Let's go."

"Yes, Grandfather. Oh, but—"

"What."

"I just wanted to say goodbye to the professor."

"You looked at him the whole time in America. What do you need another goodbye for."

As if none of it concerned him, Chairman Park started off ahead of me. I had to poke only my head into the studio and get the greeting out in a hurry.

"Professor?"

Jo Sudeok was somewhere else entirely. He barely managed to turn my way. What on earth had he been told? He looked half out of his body. That slick, unctuous way of his — with words, there had never been a man who could get the better of Jo Sudeok.

Oof.

I had never seen him picked this clean. But what could I do? The Chairman was already a long way down the hall.

"I'll call you."

I ducked my head. Even dazed, Jo Sudeok folded at the waist. I clicked my tongue, and only then hurried after Chairman Park.

Meanwhile, Vice Chairman Park Jongin had been shut inside his office for days. Whenever his mind grew tangled he had a habit of taking machines apart and putting them back together, and sure enough the wide room was littered with disassembled circuit boards.

Finished products all looked different from one another, yet break them down and mix the pieces and they might as well have been the same thing. Park Jongin distinguished them with uncanny ease, and the reason was simple: each product's schematic lay unfolded, whole, inside his head. Not a schematic anyone else had drawn for him. These were the ones he had worked out himself, grease worked into his hands — drawings that did not exist in the world, and yet functioned, unmistakably, in his mind. Refining them one by one, with ever greater care, was his only pleasure.

So why, today, would the work not hold him? Something creaked. The reports of the past several days kept lining up behind his eyes.

Geumyeong, which ought to be shoring up its own house, throwing money around?

The thing he had hardly been able to believe had broken ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the surface at last. Geumyeong Electronics had convened a shareholders' meeting and declared that it was entering the semiconductor business. Their first objective was the acquisition of Yuwon Semiconductor.

Isn't this a declaration of war against Hyeon-gang?

Park Jongin thought he had to move at once. Lose Yuwon Semiconductor, and Hyeon-gang would be forced the long way around.

The Chairman's mind ran another way.

Chairman Park was a man who decided faster than anyone. A man like that would not have told him to wait for no reason. There had to be a way through; that was why he had said it. The head understood. The nerves would not.

"..."

He was forcing that stifled feeling down and clinging to the machines alone when the telephone screamed, loud and shrill. Afraid the report he dreaded was coming up, he lifted the receiver with a heavy heart.

What came through was nothing he had expected.

"Jihun's back? There wasn't so much as a call."

The surprise had not even settled before a more absurd report landed on top of it.

"All right. I'll be right there."

Park Jongin set the receiver down in a hurry.

In front of the Hannam-dong house, Chairman Park had not opened his mouth once on the ride back. I had no way of knowing what he and Jo Sudeok had said to each other.

And then, for some reason, he stopped. The Maybach rolled all the way into the garage, and still he stood unmoving before the front gate.

"Grandfather? What's the matter?"

"That painting."

"Yes?"

"The Da Vinci. What do you mean to do with it?"

Do with it? Was he talking about the appraisal? A question mark had just risen over my head when he went on.

"I let the Dürer go, one way or another. I'm not about to let a Da Vinci slip past me too."

"Ah, that one hasn't even been appraised yet..."

"How about you hand it over to your grandfather?"

"Pardon?"

"What. You don't want to?"

"No. It isn't that."

I quietly studied his face. I had already kicked up more than enough dust. Of course the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Chairman had taken a deep interest in what I could do. At a time like this, the sane thing was to keep my mouth shut.

A perfect chance to take a margin.

What kind of creature was I, still angling for a profit even now?

Not that it's necessarily the wrong choice.

Change my manner all of a sudden, just to dodge suspicion? Suspicion would only harden into certainty.

Right. Do it the way I've been doing it.

"Have you already forgotten what you said, Grandfather?"

"A truly sure thing is something you share with somebody else. Isn't that what I told you?"

I nodded.

"But it hasn't been appraised yet. Look at it objectively and it isn't certain — it's bleak. Even the man from Oxford said it isn't genuine."

"You know all of that, so why do you ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠want to buy it?"

"What?"

"The best experts say it isn't. Is there a reason to spend a fortune on a work by an unknown hand?"

For an instant, Chairman Park's eyes went thin.

"The whole world knows what an eye you have. And then you look at it yourself and tell me to sell it on the spot... my heart's pounding."

"Our boy makes a pile of money in America, and now he's drinking the kimchi broth before the rice is even on the table?"

"Kimchi broth?"

"Your grandfather hasn't said a word about what he'd pay, and your heart's already racing. Is that how it is?"

"My heart isn't racing because I mean to sell it to you for a fortune."

"Then what."

"I want the appraisal back, quickly. If it interests you, that means it's worth hoping for, doesn't it?"

Chairman Park quietly drew his brows together. The look of a man thinking, The brat's turned into a merchant already. Even so, he didn't seem to dislike bargaining with his grandson.

"Let me ask you one thing."

"Yes."

"If that thing comes back a fake, what do you mean to do with it?"

"It simply isn't a Da Vinci. On its own, it's still a fine painting."

He wouldn't be able to deny that part.

"An unattributed Renaissance work. Wouldn't we have to put it up at auction to know what it's really worth?"

"And if it is a real Da Vinci — have you thought about what you'd sell it for then?"

"Well. Wouldn't that have to go to auction too?"

One thing I had felt in America: the richer a man truly was, the more the word auction made him break out in a rash. Chairman Park was no exception.

"Don't go stirring the world up for nothing. Real or fake, sell it to your grandfather."

"Mm."

"What. Afraid an auction would pay more, and too stingy to let it go?"

"Hehe."

"When has your grandfather ever pinched pennies buying his grandson's pictures?"

"Not so far, you haven't."

"You think I will from now on?"

"But a Da Vinci is a different order of money. If it's genuine, a hundred billion is only the starting line..."

"What. You think your grandfather can't pay that?"

"A hundred billion, somehow, you could manage. But I'd still like about twice that."

"What?"

Chairman Park's eyes went round. Of course they did. The highest price ever paid at auction was somewhere around two hundred billion, and here I was asking for that sum when no one was even sure whose hand had made the thing. I said it with the most brazen face I could manage.

"It might be a Da Vinci."

"Even so, two hundred billion..."

"There is exactly one Da Vinci on the American continent. None in Asia, of course. If you bought it, it would be the first in Asia."

The first in Asia. Da Vinci was a name even Japan's famous collectors did not dare reach for. Well, of course. There were hardly any works to reach for.

"Europe might have about ten, but every one of them belongs to a state. Whoever holds this painting becomes the only private owner of a Da Vinci in the world. Isn't that kind of symbolism worth investing two hundred billion?"

"Do you even know how much two hundred billion is?"

"I didn't know how much thirty billion was, either. Turns out you can still make it without knowing."

"Ha!"

He looked as if the breath had been knocked out of him. Well — a child rattling off sums like water. It would have been stranger if he weren't shocked.

"Can you really give me two hundred billion? Then I'd be proud to sell it to you, too. Hang it in the Hyeon-gang Art Museum and tourists will come from overseas."

A salesman's little touch, folding the museum into the pitch as if it had only just occurred to me. Chairman Park would already have run those numbers. Still, it never hurt to underline them once more.

"Of course, these are empty hypotheticals. It hasn't even been appraised..."

For a moment I thought I had misheard.

"Sorry?"

"What. Do I have to pay the tax on top of it, too?"

"You're... really going to buy it?"

"What, you think I'd talk nonsense just to string my grandson along?"

A turn I had not imagined at all. If the Da Vinci proved genuine, I had expected Chairman Park to start watering at the mouth. I had not expected him to force a settlement on the very day I came home. This was well outside the plan.

"Speak up. Do I have to pay the tax as well?"

"No. Family shouldn't do it that way. I think it would cause trouble under the law."

"Then shall we write a contract?"

"A contract?"

"Deposit of fifty billion. If it comes back a fake, you pocket the deposit and we're done."

"You mean you'd buy it for fifty billion even if it's a fake?"

"If it's confirmed genuine, I wire another hundred and fifty billion. Well? Shall we write it up like that?"

Two hundred billion.

At Chairman Park's words, I went still and swallowed on a dry throat.