Forging America: My Campaign Manager is Roosevelt-Chapter 90 - 65: Jackal

The air in Pittsburgh always carried a distinct smell of rust.

To build the center of this industrial empire, engineers had once flattened Grant Mountain.

They moved millions of tons of earth and rock, filled in ravines, all to clear level ground for power and capital to stand upon.

Grant Street stretched through this man-made canyon.

It cut through Pittsburgh’s heartland, linking skyscrapers, bank headquarters, and courthouses to form the city’s spine.

Shrouded in night, a great stone beast crouched at the heart of this major artery.

Pittsburgh City Hall.

It was a neoclassical building from the early twentieth century, constructed from massive granite blocks.

Soaring Roman arches, heavy stone pillars.

When the designers built it, they sought to express not just beauty, but majesty, an oppressive presence, an unshakeable order.

It was like a silent Leviathan, resting quietly over the three rivers.

Over the past century, countless politicians had passed in and out through those heavy doors.

Some fat, some thin.

Some greedy, some idealistic.

Some rose to prominence here and went on to Washington; others saw their reputations ruined and ended up in prison.

The building didn’t care.

At this very moment, Martin Carter Wright was sitting in that office on the third floor.

Perhaps next year, or maybe in a decade, Leo Wallace would be sitting there.

But to the stone beast, there was no fundamental difference between the two names.

They were all just temporary tenants.

Only the building, this vast bureaucratic machine, was the eternal master.

It had its own respiratory rhythm, its own digestive system.

It devoured taxes and excreted documents.

It operated in the darkness, emitting a low hum, sustaining every heartbeat of this city of three hundred thousand people.

Carter Wright sat in the heart of this behemoth, staring up at the crystal chandelier on the ceiling.

He had operated in Pittsburgh for over a decade.

From a prosecutor, he had climbed step by step to district councilman, finally taking the mayor’s throne.

’I always thought I was the master player in this city.’

’I thought Morganfield and I were equal allies. I thought I had a place in the eyes of the big shots in Washington.’

Now he understood.

In their eyes, there was no difference between him and that young upstart, Leo Wallace.

They were both consumables, pawns that could be discarded at any moment, bargaining chips used to balance interests.

Morganfield had chosen neutrality. Washington had chosen to pull its hands away.

Everyone had made a rational choice.

Only he was left in a dead end.

’If I lose this primary, I’ll lose everything.’

’No more title of Mayor, no more fawning entourage, no more flattery from businessmen.’

’Even those I’ve crossed in the past, those who have dirt on me, will descend like vultures and tear me to shreds.’

Prosecutors would reopen the case files he had buried. The media would expose his family’s assets.

This wasn’t about winning or losing an election.

This was about survival or destruction.

A long-forgotten feeling crawled up his spine.

It was fear.

But immediately after, the fear transformed into something else.

Something cold, hard, and reeking of blood.

Twenty years ago, Pittsburgh didn’t have its modern glass curtain walls. It was all coal dust and rust.

Back then, he wasn’t called Mr. Mayor. The people on the street called him "Hammer Martin."

He remembered walking single-handedly into that smoke-filled, violent underground Union hall, slamming a loaded pistol on the table, and forcing the Union boss—a man even the police didn’t dare to cross—to sign a compromise.

He remembered using every trick in the book to kick his rivals out of the game, one by one.

Anyone who could take the mayor’s seat in this steel city was no pushover.

It was just that in recent years, he had started wearing expensive, custom-made suits.

He had learned to hold a champagne flute at charity galas and flash a proper, fake smile for the cameras.

He had learned to use complex administrative procedures and obscure legal rules to solve problems without shedding blood.

He had disguised himself as a respectable politician.

’I almost forgot. I’m a jackal that crawled out of a pile of corpses, a beast that has torn out countless throats.’

’If the rules no longer protect me, then I’ll tear the rules to shreds.’

’If respectability can’t bring victory, then to hell with respectability.’

Carter Wright’s gaze fell on the phone on his desk.

He stared at it. After a few seconds, he made his decision.

Carter Wright walked back to his desk and pressed the intercom button.

"Get Miller, O’Malley, and Reed to my office. Immediately. Now."

「Half an hour later.」

Three men walked into the Mayor’s Office.

Police Chief Dave Miller, a burly man with a brutish, fleshy face.

He was the enforcer Carter Wright had personally promoted, a man who controlled Pittsburgh’s machinery of violence.

Finance Director Tom O’Malley, a lean, bald accountant.

He controlled City Hall’s purse strings and held the tax records of countless businesses as leverage.

Campaign Manager Scott Reed, a young strategist.

They looked at Carter Wright, who sat behind his desk.

The Mayor hadn’t turned on the overhead lights. Only a single desk lamp was lit, its shadows concealing half his face.

"Sit," Carter Wright said.