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Chapter 15: The Post-Mortem Meeting
As they stepped out of City Hall, the sunlight outside was blinding.
Leo and the community residents stood on the steps, silent.
The same group that had been full of determination just moments ago now wore faces etched with disappointment.
"I knew it," Frank broke the silence first, his voice seething with anger. "Talking reason with those suits is useless. They’re all in this together."
"What do we do now? Are they really going to sell off our center?" Rosa’s voice quivered, close to tears.
"That lawyer, Wexler—he was too good," George sighed. "We couldn’t even argue against him."
Murmurs of discontent began to ripple through the group.
"We shouldn’t have put our hopes in some greenhorn kid."
"Yeah, all he knows how to do is spout pretty words."
These comments, neither loud nor soft, carried just enough for Leo to hear.
He sank into a deep well of self-blame and defeat.
This was his first real taste of the cold, brutal reality of politics.
Here, justice and morality were worthless.
He had thought his passion and knowledge of history could change something.
But reality slapped him hard across the face.
Margaret walked over to Leo and patted his shoulder.
"Don’t take it to heart, child," she said gently. "They’re just disappointed. It’s not about you. You did your best."
Leo said nothing.
He knew "doing your best" was the weakest excuse of all.
He had led these people who trusted him into a losing battle.
That night, Leo returned to his apartment alone.
He collapsed onto the couch, staring at the ceiling.
A wave of failure washed over him like an unrelenting tide.
Roosevelt’s voice echoed in his mind.
This time, there was no encouragement—only harsh criticism.
"You made a rookie mistake today, the kind only a green soldier makes on their first day on the battlefield!"
Roosevelt’s voice exploded in Leo’s consciousness.
"You turned the courtroom into a church, the hearing into a sermon. You tried to appeal to morality to reform wolves who only recognize profit!"
Leo felt a surge of indignation and resistance.
"Aren’t we on the side of justice?" he retorted. "Everything we’re doing is to protect this community. How is that wrong?"
"Justice?" Roosevelt’s voice dripped with sarcasm. "At the table of power, justice is what the victors use to write history. The defeated? They are defined and forgotten."
"You think the law is your shield? You prayed to it like a Bible, hoping it would protect you. You’re wrong! Dead wrong!"
"The law is a weapon! An iron bar to shatter your opponent’s kneecaps! You must know the rules better than them, exploit them better, and dare to walk the edge. Otherwise, the rules themselves will crush you into dust!"
This scolding jolted Leo out of his self-pity.
He sat up and turned on the light.
"Now, dry your tears and put aside your cheap sense of failure," Roosevelt’s tone grew calm again. "Let’s hold a post-mortem meeting."
"Go through every detail of today’s hearing in your mind, frame by frame, like replaying a movie."
Under Roosevelt’s guidance, Leo forced himself to calm down.
He closed his eyes and began to recall.
Every scene from the hearing room appeared vividly in his mind.
"Start from the beginning," Roosevelt instructed. "What was Wexler’s first move when he walked in?"
"He stood up, smiled at us, and nodded."
"That was a show of dominance," Roosevelt analyzed immediately. "He used his politeness and refinement to highlight your rudeness and amateurism. Psychologically, from the very start, he wanted to define you as a group of ignorant intruders."
"What was his reasoning when he interrupted your first statement?"
"He said my statement was irrelevant to the topic."
"That was a trap," Roosevelt said. "Through the chairman, he boxed you into a battlefield most favorable to him. He successfully narrowed a public issue about the community’s survival into a dry debate about legal procedure. And in this arena, he’s the expert—you’re the novice."
"Now, think again. What was Chairman Jennings’ expression when Wexler presented that receipt?"
Leo strained to remember.
"He just glanced at it and immediately accepted it."
"This means they were in cahoots—the receipt was their first line of defense. No matter what you said, they’d use it to shut you up."
In this way, Roosevelt, like the top-tier mentor he was, guided Leo through every word, every gesture Wexler made, and every micro-expression and glance exchanged between the municipal officials.
The more Leo analyzed, the more alarmed he became.
He realized that what seemed like a mundane hearing was actually riddled with countless carefully designed traps and psychological games.
And he, like a naive child, had walked right into them without a second thought.
The post-mortem meeting lasted for hours.
Leo’s brain was pushed to its limits. Just as he felt he couldn’t take anymore, Roosevelt suddenly stopped him at a specific moment.
It was the moment when Chairman Jennings announced the final decision at the end of the hearing.
"Repeat the last sentence he said," Roosevelt commanded.
"He said... unless we can present decisive new evidence of significant flaws in the auction process," Leo recalled.
"That’s it!" Roosevelt’s voice carried a hint of excitement. "Didn’t you notice? When he said that, he instinctively glanced to his left. That’s a micro-expression of guilt and self-protection—he’s leaving himself an escape route."
"Why would he need an escape route?" Leo asked, puzzled.
"Because he knows the entire process isn’t as airtight as Wexler made it seem. There’s bound to be something they can’t completely cover up."
"Our breakthrough lies here."
Under Roosevelt’s direction, Leo reopened his laptop.
He pulled up Pittsburgh’s City Asset Disposal Ordinance—a lengthy document filled with dry legal jargon.
"Don’t bother with the general clauses. Jump straight to the section on ‘special nature assets,’" Roosevelt instructed.
Leo found the relevant section.
"Now, read Article 11B carefully."
Leo saw the provision:
"For non-profit institutions with a ‘community public service’ nature, the city hall must publish a disposal notice in at least three local public media outlets at least 60 days prior to deciding on a public auction."
"Three public media outlets..." Leo murmured.
A ray of hope pierced through the darkness of his late-night apartment.
He immediately dove into frantic verification.
He found the auction announcement on the city government’s website—it had been published 45 days ago, failing to meet the 60-day requirement.
He then searched through the archives of all local newspapers.
Ultimately, he discovered that besides the city government’s website, the notice had only been published once in a small community newspaper with a circulation of less than 1,000 copies.
It clearly didn’t meet the "three public media outlets" requirement.
This was a minor but fatal procedural flaw.
"We found it!" Leo exclaimed, nearly jumping out of his chair in excitement. "I’ll draft a document right now and submit it to the city council’s oversight committee first thing tomorrow!"
"No."
Roosevelt stopped him.
"Not yet."
"Why?" Leo asked, confused. "This is decisive evidence!"
"A procedural flaw will, at most, delay them by a week, forcing them to redo the notice process," Roosevelt’s voice remained calm. "We’re not after a delay."
"What we want is total victory."
"Before the next hearing, we need to prepare them a gift—one that will utterly destroy them."
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