The following days, nothing was out of the ordinary. Jack went about talking with the artists for the gallery and went about making talks in fashion shops and libraries, the latter only if they would allow him to break the unspoken law of total silence among books. Not once did he have any further trouble with Margorie or the Slingers.

Simon did keep coming back, working for him, and there was no indication that he might quit. Jack went time and again to the Goldfish to talk to Lady who not only had eyes and ears everywhere but also relieved him of his stresses in the best way she could being a prostitute. Although, it was always a bit of a scuffle for him, trying to keep away from touching her left side.

Jack never stopped having the migraines from time to time. He just tried not to focus on them too much when they happened. The coming Tuesday was slowly turning into being the biggest day of his life.

Frank Palestone was interested. The Palestone. It was a long string of events, one leading to another in the span of the three days that allowed this to happen.

First, there was Johnny the tailor. Johnny's brother George was a banker, and it was a bank that Jack used. He knew George as much as he knew Johnny—just an old Gutherfellow. Not friends at all. George happened to be dealing with a woman named Sally when Jack had gone to deposit some checks to get ready for the gallery.

Sally was one of the many women helping Palestone with his campaign. Jack just happened to know that like he happened to know many people who always introduced him to everyone they knew. It helped to be known.

"George, ah, your brother was telling me of an airship?" he said, knowing well that it was a secret. George looked a little embarrassed when Sally's eyes widened in shock.

"How do you come to know about that Mister..."

"Ogswold. Jack Ogswold, Missus." Jack took her left hand and kissed it.

Oh my! How sweet. Sally thought. Wait a moment.

"The Jack Ogswold? The Kaleidoscope?" She beamed. "My husband always looks forward to your showings! Impeccable taste for a young man he always tells me."

Jack smiled. "It is he. What a small world."

"Indeed! Let us not talk here. Would you care for tea or coffee, perhaps?"

"Coffee, thank you."

Sally led Jack to a café next to the bank and he quickly discovered that her husband was the fourth-hand man to Palestone. "He's not that important, but he does do a lot of things for him. I'm not told the details, but this campaign is very important. He comes home late at night." She sipped her tea with her pinky sticking out. He noticed a bracelet around her wrist. A.S. was written on it. It was everywhere.

"Is that an Ann Smithe?" Jack pointed to the bracelet. Sally blinked at him and for a second, she hid the bracelet with her other hand as if ashamed to be wearing something so pricey for a most-likely middle-class middle-aged woman.

"My husband gave it to me. I didn't care much at first, but it's light and fashionable. Not like those heavy ore bracelets you see everywhere these days." She shook her head and adjusted her frilled collar. "Those things may well weigh a ton."

Jack knew he caught a good fish. "I'll be showing Craig Baldwin, Samual Baker, and Ann Smithe this coming Tuesday. She has agreed to be there despite a busy schedule," he said, lying about the busy schedule. It just made her sound rare and like an opportunity to seize.

"You talked to her?" Sally said and her eyes widened. "Oh, well, I must tell my husband. If Palestone would let him, I know he would love to take me, mostly so he can go." She laughed and flicked her graying bangs from her face.

"Well, do tell him then. I shall look forward to seeing you there," Jack said. "Why don't you let me know, so I know to look for you." He handed her his card. She pressed it to her chest like it was bestowed-upon gift and treated him to cake.

On Sunday, he got a phone call from Sally saying that Frank Palestone had overheard them talking about Ann Smithe and turned out to be a fan himself. The whole lot would be showing up—Sally, her husband Hank, and Frank Palestone the current and possibly future Minister of Endil.

What a chance! Jack sat back in his office chair, smiling so much it almost hurt his cheeks. He couldn't wait for Tuesday to come rolling around. He had everything ready. It was just a matter of Tuesday. If the minister came, he would definitely buy something. Maybe Samuel's one-hundred thousand fellings painting of 'Endil as Seen from an Airship' would finally get a buyer. 

That meant Samuel would owe Jack fifty percent. No one wanted that painting because it took up an entire wall and was just brown with splotches of green and some dark jagged stripes on it. 

But Jack had seen it for himself. Endil looked like that from above. People who hadn't, thought the painting was a joke.

When it didn't sell the tenth time, Samuel told Jack that if he was able to find a buyer, he would pay Jack half the cut.

"I just want to get it off my hands now," he'd lamented. It was so hard to take the painting off the wall and bring it back home that it was now a permanent showpiece and covered up when Samuel wasn't one of the sellers.

Jack licked his lips. He would sell it to Palestone, he decided. He would use his skills of talk and sell it him.

"Jack silver tongue." He caught a reflection of himself in the window and stuck his tongue out. "Fifty thousand will get me land," he said. "I'll buy up all of Guther." 

He hadn't thought of this before, but now that he had, he began to envision it. All those old shops he would tear down. The world was moving forward but Guther was stuck in the past. And people were so poor and wading in goat dung. He would lift them up. He would be the philanthropist. They would erect a statue of him. They would even make a holiday in his name. The 'Jack Ogswold Day' had a nice ring to it. But what would they celebrate?

"Am I getting ahead of myself?" He wondered out loud with a laugh. Since it was Sunday, Simon was off work. Jack was just talking to himself alone in his office. Even the artists, he knew, were taking the rest.

Then the doorbell rang.

"Effin' bastard, it's Sunday!" Jack groaned and went to answer it.

On the other side of the glass door stood a silhouette of a broad-shouldered man. When Jack opened the door, a fist came hurtling his way. He dodged to the side and kicked the man in the crotch. The man grunted and fell over twisting his legs together, protecting his credentials.

Jack recognized him from his thinning gray hair and the ears that stuck out like a monkey's. "Rocky Howards."

"It's Rocky Hollows." The gruff man's freckled face still contorted in pain.

"Right. Howards." Jack smirked as Rocky frowned.

"We know you have the money. Pay up, and we'll keep low 'bout your double life."

Jack, noticing people on the street had begun to turn his way, bent down to come eye level. "Sorry, sir," he said in a loud voice, "I did tell you to move, sir. The door has been stuck all morning. I didn't mean to kick you, sir." Then he lifted his head. "Can someone come help me? I've accidentally kicked a man in his legs!"

Rocky scowled as another man came over and help him to his feet. The other man turned his back. Rocky was glowering at Jack. Jack, seeing that no one else was looking, stuck out his tongue with a wink and flipped him off.

"Why you dungshit—!" Rocky said and lurched forward, but he wasn't completely better. He fell over and hit his head on a fire hydrant, knocking himself out. Jack rushed into the building when the man who had tried to help, dialed for the ambulance. Rocky Hollows was rushed off to the hospital.

Dungs and apples, Jack thought as he returned to his chair. But now he was agitated. He couldn't concentrate on thinking about his successful future no matter how happy it made him feel. Clicking his tongue, he saw that it was noon and decided to go out to get some lunch at a café somewhere.

And cappuccino. He shook his head. The Slingers have got to go.

He took out his taser gun, pressed a button that released a few latches. Flipping one this way and another that way, the taser gun soon transformed into a knife. He swiped through the air and felt awkward. Jack had never used the knife feature. He'd always knock people out instead, not kill them. Killing was the one thing he never did, and he stayed true to it.

Until now? Do I dare? But the thought of erasing someone's existence from the face of the earth and seeing that happen before his eyes and by his own hands did not sit well with him. If he would do it, Jack would rather hire someone. An assassin, perhaps, although he didn't know where to go to find one and it wasn't exactly something to put an ad in the newspaper for.

He was staring at the knife, wondering what killing someone really felt like and what made one to make it a profession, when the doorbell rang again. Putting the weapon away in his pocket, he sighed and went to the door. The silhouette, he recognized this time.

"Well, well, what brings a rumtuckin like you to a place like—"

"He's dead, Jack, he's dead!" Margorie leapt into his arms and sobbed in his shoulder. "And this!" She shoved a crumpled piece of paper into his hands. Stunned, Jack shrugged her off and led her inside. He sat her down on his chair and got her a cup of water. He didn't feel like making anything.

"Dead who?"

Margorie looked like she swallowed a frog—paler than pale. "Pop, you dimwit!"

It just wasn't registering. Pop was dead? But how? When? Why? He glanced at his hand, holding the crumpled paper. At first, he thought it was the will, but when he opened it up, it had the royal seal on it and said 'CONTRACT' in big bold letters. He read through it and now he felt the blood in his face rush away somewhere else. He sat on the desk.

"He sold it to the king?"

"He said, he, he," Margorie sobbed, "would g-go out and sounded like normal. I let him. H-he he came back late and seemed happy and went to bed. I found this," she whispered, pointing a shaky finger at the contract, "with yesterday's date this morning and the shredded will. Pop wouldn't wake up. The doctor pronounced him—"

"Dungs and apples, bullcrap!" Jack swore. He walked to the window, running his hand through his hair. His father sold the land to the king. Jack read through the contract again. It said the land was now royal property and the money would go to the successors, Jack and Margorie Ogswold.

"He's dead?" Jack heard himself shrieking. "You're lying!"

"It's the truth. He's gone. In his sleep. He looked so happy."

"You left him there alone?" He grabbed his jacket and gear. "We're going home." 

Even though he didn't really care outwardly, Jack cared inwardly. 

His sister had just left their dead father alone in a house now on royal property. The royals were ruthless or known to be. They would cremate him instead of burying him like he would have liked. Emmett was a believer in 'the dead are not useless as they can feed the earth' and made it clear to Jack from a young age that he was to bury his father, not cremate him. 'For what good are my ashes?'