“I don’t know if anyone else has noticed, but there’s a new branch of The First People’s Bank on Manzanita, next to the mayor’s law office. It just opened today. It was just built last night!” He shook his head. “How that’s even possible, I’ll let someone else figure out. But my question to you—” He pointed at the council. “—is how can you let them open another one? The first one wasn’t even legal!”

Men and women in line behind him nodded in agreement and there were more than a few declarations of “Yeah!” and “That’s right!”

“The council may not be doing its due diligence,” Fred continued, “but I’ve been talking to people around town and doing my own research. Did you know that First People’s charges different people different overdraft fees and different monthly service fees? When my friend Tully’s son tried to open a savings account, they told him there was a required minimum balance of two hundred dollars. They told his daughter she had to have a minimum balance of three dollars. Three!”

There were shocked exclamations from the gathered townspeople.

“Different people are also getting different interest rates on their accounts. This cannot be legal. And yet here you guys are letting them open up a second branch!”

“Time,” Lacy declared.

Derrick raised a hand to quiet the crowd. “Fred, that’s not our purview. We’re the Montgomery town council. We have no say over federal banking regulations.”

Derrick blinked.

Did he really just say that? He thought of his experience in the bank this morning. Why was he defending those bastards?

He didn’t know, but he was, and he couldn’t seem to stop himself.

“Maybe you can’t control what First People’s does in a business sense,” Fred said. “But you can control whether they’re allowed to flout our building codes, or whether they’re allowed to have multiple branches in a town as small as ours. That is your purview. In fact, that’s exactly what you were elected to do.”

A chorus of voices shouted in agreement.

Derrick banged his gavel.

“Time!” Lacy repeated.