In September, the weather was not so hot, although it was still a bit hot, the wind was already a touch of austere coolness.
Two new branches were established one after another and achieved a notable trading volume, Lynch had already started instructing Richard to prepare for the Mobile auction of second-hand goods in the capital of the state, and as Star Trading Corporation gradually appeared in people's eyes more frequently, Lynch reaped a great deal of wealth, as well as prestige.
"Adelaide is the governor's chief of staff, as well as a relative of the governor ..."
Sitting in the car belonging to the mayor, the mayor was explaining to Lynch about this person they were going to interview next, and by the way, he was also going to explain Lynch some things to pay attention to.
The better Lynch's business did, the more it would prove that the mayor's policies were more successful.
The more successful the mayor's policies were, the more status he would have within the Progressive Party in the state, and it had already been suggested that there was a definite possibility that he might get a chance to run for governor.
This opportunity is not available to every mayor, and the vast majority of mayors are unlikely to get such an opportunity; the odds are that they will work into retirement as a state legislator or congressman, and some won't even get any of that, except for a party position.
Pushing a politician to run for governor is not going to be easy, with all the resources that go into it, so neither the Progressive Party nor the Conservative Party or the Socialist Party, which is always forgotten, would consider pushing anyone else into the race except for those who are pretty much a sure thing.
It is possible that the mayor will get that chance, but only if he pursues some policies, some ideas and practices that will actually be effective in making Sabine, and the state, do better than anyone else in the face of the economic predicament, while at the same time his policies will be able to lead the way for the Federation as a whole.
Only in this way could the tremendous prestige and appearances make up for his most important piece of shortcoming - he was not a member of the Freemasonry!
So he was now leaning heavily on Lynch, and the two of them rode together in his car to a small exchange meeting organized by Adelaide, the governor's chief of staff.
Sabine is not the only part of the entire state facing these troubles they've been having, all the cities are, and the Governor's staff team gets to work, they look around for solutions, and then try to find some that might be able to work out of that.
Why they didn't do it before is because they trusted their heads to come up with the right solution before.
Why they're doing it again now is because they're realizing that their heads aren't actually as good as they thought they were.
Getting Adelaide to Sabine was also the governor's bidding behind the scenes, and at least on the Sabine side the introduction of the second-hand goods cross auction proved to be a good policy - this was backed up by questionnaires done by a professional research organization.
One often sees people with questionnaires doing surveys on the streets, with small gifts for answering questions - these are the operatives of professional survey agencies, and each street questionnaire is worth a minimum of fifty cents, and as much as one or two dollars (when targeting different groups of people).
So the governor wants to know if the mayor of Sabine, or his sidekick Lynch, has some other, more constructive ideas.
"... Adelaide was born into a sacramentalist family, and he has a strong faith, although he often does things without it!" , the mayor made a small, casual sarcastic remark, and it was obvious that he was not a fan of Adelaide.
After the sarcasm, the mayor's tone became slightly lower, "This is a very cunning man, he has the appearance of being like a priest, but you shouldn't be deceived by his appearance, he is a cunning fox."
Lynch sounded amused, "No offense, is there ... a problem between you," he shrugged his shoulders complemented by a small movement of his hands to make the mayor understand what he meant.
The mayor was a little embarrassed to admit down, this is the "value" plays a role, Lynch has this value, so they will be very close, some more personal topics can be talked about.
But if one day Lynch has no value, they will be like strangers outside the car window again, obviously they can see each other, but no one looked at each other.
"He once proposed that I cross over to my current job and go straight to the state senate as a legislator, and those weren't out of any kind of pertinent advice either, he just wanted his nephew to do what I'm doing now!"
The mayor said with more of a smile on his face, "But I won this round!"
He didn't talk about the price he paid for the won round, that must have been very heavy I imagine.
He went into some more of Adelaide's habits and details, as well as telling Lynch again and again to never believe that asshole's bullshit, he was a liar.
In fact, everyone was a liar, it was just that some people still had some naivety left, while others had lied to themselves as well, and as for those who were not up and down, they were still struggling.
The venue for this exchange was set at an estate outside Sabine, owned by a Progressive Party member of the State Senate, Mr. Green, who had taken it upon himself to take the job when Adelaide was coming to Sabine.
As the car was about to arrive at the estate, it suddenly started to rain heavily, and this sudden downpour lowered the temperature a bit, and made Lynch, who was dressed for the occasion, feel a little cooler.
In fact, his back has been about to sweat wet, but the summer dress in order to ensure that the wearer will not be because of the problem of sweat loss of decency, they will be in the pony clip to do some "tricks", wet will always be the pony clip, but will not affect the dress.
The timely rain cleared the air, but of course the driver's experience may not have been so good, as everything became slightly blurred in the rain and the car slowed down considerably.
The two arrived at the estate roughly ten minutes or so after the scheduled arrival time, and the estate's butler immediately had the two guests, namely Lynch and Mayor Landen, taken to their solo guest rooms to get fixed up, reminding each other in the process that because of the heavy rain the exchange had been delayed until the start of the meeting at 9:00 P.M., and that they still had roughly forty minutes of rest time.
The unplanned downpour had left them probably a bit lousy, so this time wasn't really for them to take a break and get some sleep, it was for them to work out some of the problems they needed to solve.
For example, if their clothes got wet, there were special servants in the manor who could help the guests dry their clothes.
For example, if the leather shoes were stained with a lot of mud, the servants were able to help them deal with it very quickly.
Even if the socks were stained with mudsmiths and the cuffs were not so clean, all of these could be solved before the meeting started.
In fact, no one would say anything even if they didn't fix these problems, much less sing in front of the people in an opera-like cadence, "Aha, look at that stupid ass, is it covered in mud or shit poop?"
But people always want to preserve their face, especially on important occasions.
Once Lynch and the maid arrived at the guest room, the maid raised the need to help him clean some of his dress code, Lynch considered it for a moment before taking off his tuxedo and looking at it, there wasn't much dust or rain on it, instead his pant legs were a little damp, but not noticeable.
He changed into a pair of shoes and had the maid help him clean those splatters of dirt off his leather shoes, then sat down in his room to enjoy some light refreshments, some aromatic coffee, and some newspapers.
Ten minutes or so later, his shoes were returned, dusted off by the maids, re-oiled and polished with lambskin to make them look as good as new.
Lynch spent the rest of the day reading the newspaper, or watching TV, after eight o'clock when the TV programs were at their peak, many people chose this time to lie in the sofa and eat cheap goodies full of fat and sugar, pursuing a rare spiritual enjoyment.
Lynch casually flipped through a few channels, and not much content that had anything to do with the current current situation appeared, instead, several institutional sections in the Trade Newspaper coincidentally raised the exchange risk of various war bonds, and the situation deteriorated at a very fast pace.
Many people may feel that if they have not bought war bonds, the matter has little to do with them, and if they just look at these things as isolated matters, they obviously cannot be wrong.
But the question is how many isolated events actually exist in this world, and how many of them can be truly and completely isolated?
It was hard!
Lynch walked over to the window, in the distance the earth and the sky were mixed together, it was no longer possible to tell where the sky was and where the earth was in the downpour, they were both pitch black, swallowing up all the light.
At eight fifty, the butler himself came and knocked on the door of the room, prompting Lynch that the exchange meeting would be held later in the manor's conference room, and arranging for a special person to lead Lynch there.
While walking through the long corridor, Lynch noticed that there were some oil paintings hanging on the walls of the corridor, he didn't know much about oil paintings, but he could also tell that these oil paintings were not too cheap.
Art was resonant, as true art itself was an expression of emotions.
It was evident that Councilor Green was more than just a councilor, he was also rich.
In the conference room, after Lynch said hello to the mayor, the two of them sat in the first row, because today that they were the protagonists of the protagonists.
At 9:01 PM, very punctually, as the seconds slid past the fifty-ninth second and the minute hand moved forward a fraction of a second, the door to the conference room opened once again, and a man with a smile on his face and a head of silver hair walked in from outside the room.
He was dressed in relatively plain clothes, and sensually he looked more like a teacher than a politician; there wasn't much in common between the two.
One was a teacher, telling people the necessity of truth and teaching them how to pursue it.
One is a smooth talker, making up as many stories as possible to suit his own interests.
But the two traits were paradoxically blended into one in this man, and Mr. Adelaide was, as the mayor had said, like a pastor, or a teacher, who could make people let their guard down.