Chapter 83: One Fish, Four Meals!

"Uncle Carlos, mission accomplished! I've settled things with O'Neal."

Before meeting with Trifali, it was only natural to make a trip to the police station. Reporting back was one thing, but gathering information about Trifali's side of things was another.

Know thyself, know thy enemy, a hundred battles fought, a hundred battles won!

The police station wasn't deserted after hours. Upon confirming that Carlos was still at the station via phone, Carter headed straight to the door.

Entering the officers' office with ease, Carter approached Carlos's desk and casually pulled over a chair from a nearby officer's workstation, sitting down without ceremony.

"Haha, thanks, I knew you could handle it! Wait, you mean O'Neal agreed not to cause any more trouble? How did you talk to him?"

Observing Carter's actions, Carlos didn't seem surprised at all.

After all, without mentioning Carter's identity as a benefactor, just the fact that Carter could resolve issues now was impressive enough. Forget sitting across from himself, Carlos would have let Carter sit while he stood and listened!

"A little intimidation followed by a sweet incentive. Nothing much to tell."

Carter shrugged, then glanced at the box of cigars on Carlos's desk. Most people in the U.S. didn't smoke cigars, and Carter was no exception. But despite not being fond of them, trying one occasionally wasn't bad.

As for how he handled O'Neal, Carter didn't think there was much to boast about. Threatening with a big stick, then offering a sweet treat – it was a tactic so common that even the Chinese had mastered it. It was commonplace, hardly worth bragging about.

But what was routine for Carter seemed less trivial to Carlos. Noticing the hint in Carter's eyes, Carlos reached into the cigar box and handed one to Carter, then asked:

"What did you do? Teach me, won't you? We haven't settled things with Trifali yet."

"Next year isn't an election year, so I told O'Neal if he wanted to cause trouble, he could continue. If it escalates to the point where our esteemed President Carter knows about it, he can expect the National Guard to come in and suppress it. Then I told him, if he doesn't cause trouble, I'll give him a piece of land in that commercial district on the highway, rent-free for a year. Just that simple!"

"Well, you..."

After hearing Carter's words, Carlos was momentarily speechless. He might as well have said, "Are you kidding me?"

Threats of the National Guard could only work on O'Neal and his ilk. Trifali wasn't afraid of that. Or rather, he wasn't as afraid as O'Neal. The reason was simple – he was white!

Even if things did escalate to that point, Trifali was confident he'd fare better than O'Neal. Suddenly, the stick didn't seem so hard, not to mention the sweet carrot.

"Hey hey hey, Carlos, your efficiency at the station seems a bit lacking!"

Seeing Carlos's expression, a mix of words unspoken, Carter smiled as if casually suggesting:

"How about I go talk to Trifali?"

"What do you mean? Are you willing to offer Trifali the same deal as O'Neal?"

Carlos was momentarily stunned, then overjoyed, pulling Carter up:

"Let's go, let's go find the chief. You have to talk to him about this. Anything you need from our department, just say the word! Take care of Carter, Carlos."

"I will!"

After Carter and Carlos left, Chief William, full of enthusiasm, went straight to Douglas's mayor's office.

As mentioned before, the concept of "city" in the U.S. differs from that in China. The fundamental difference in administrative units directly leads to differences in the U.S. municipal system compared to China's.

In the U.S., municipal systems typically have a "mayor-council" form of government, the most common model, where the mayor is the executive head and the city council is the local legislative body. Apart from this, there are also "commission council" and "city manager" forms of government.

Douglas, like many small towns, has a typical "mayor-council" system. Now, let's talk about the mayor under this system – there are two types.

One type is the mayor elected by the council, with relatively independent decision-making power for each department – this is the weak mayor system. The other type, like in Douglas, is a strong mayor system, where the mayor is elected by the citizens and has absolute leadership over other departments, with the power to veto council proposals.

In Douglas, William, the police chief, was appointed directly by Mayor Robert Benjamin himself. If the mayor could appoint him directly, he could also dismiss him directly.

Faced with a mayor who held such life-and-death power over him, William didn't dare to slack off. Upon seeing the dawn of completing the mayor's orders, he immediately licked his way up, not daring to delay.

About half an hour later, after hearing William's report, Mayor Benjamin, smiling, spoke up:

"This young Blake is quite interesting. I've heard some things about the incident on Highway 23. Laura, please schedule a meeting with this young Blake for tomorrow afternoon. I'd like to meet him."