Backwash

[INT. FLOWER SHOP - DAY]

(BODIE enters through a glass door. A FLORIST finishes a phone call before addressing Bodie.)

FLORIST: Goodbye. Well... Something in particular?

BODIE: Funeral.

FLORIST: I'm sorry.

BODIE: Naw, a funeral, you know?

FLORIST: No, no, I mean, I'm sorry for your loss.

BODIE: Oh, yeah.

(Bodie eyes a floral arrangement)

FLORIST: That's a popular one. Who was it that passed, a relation?

BODIE: Naw, we worked together.

FLORIST: I see. A professional relationship.

BODIE: Yeah, professional. I mean, you know we wasn't that tight, but he was still my nigga, ya know.

FLORIST: I think I'm on it. Follow me.

(Florist leads Bodie into a back room. Flowers arranged to look like firearms are visible.)

BODIE: Hell yeah, see, this what I'm talkin' 'bout.

FLORIST: That gat-an-grip thing over there sells a lot. We can do that in white, or red, or pink carnations.

BODIE: Pink?

FLORIST: Your boy was too fierce for the pink?

BODIE: Naw, he wasn't all that. But damn, you know when you stand with a nigga, you stand with him 'til the end, otherwise... Otherwise you ain't nothing yourself.

FLORIST: True that. How your boy fall?

BODIE: Hung hisself. Over at the cut, man, strung himself up. Judge ran wild on his ass, gave him 20. I guess he couldn't handle all them years, you know? It's a weak-ass nigger when you think about it. But, ain't no reason to drag his name down no further, you know? I'll tell you what. Let me get something in strong colors, right. Red, black, whatever, but make it look like one of them towers down on Franklin Terrace, you know? The high-rises, right.

FLORIST: You want the arrangement to look like a high-rise housing project?

BODIE: Hell, yeah. Yeah. And put the numbers 2-2-1 in big-ass numbers on the front. Alright? He used to had that Fremont Tower for a while.

FLORIST: 2-2-1, alright. Anything else you want it to say?

BODIE: Like what?

FLORIST: "Rest in peace," "In remembrance," something like that? Something that says how you feel about the loss?

BODIE: Look, man, fuck it, a-right, just, uh... Just make sure the towers look like they do, a-ight? A-ight. Thanks.

[INT. HOMICIDE UNIT - DAY]

LANDSMAN: You cloned a what?

BUNK: A computer.

RUSSELL: We can watch how cargo comes off the ship in real time, try to follow the contraband, see where it leads.

LANDSMAN: We're running a 25-murder-a-month M.A.S.H. unit here and you guys wanna slow things down a bit and do a little bit of brain surgery. If Rawls comes walking through here and sees the two of you hunched over playing videogames on 14 open murders, he's gonna fuckin' blow!

BUNK: That is exactly why we asked Lieutenant Daniels to set us up at his off-site, over in the southeast. They're looking at the dock boys for other shit, drugs mostly.

LANDSMAN: Daniels, who used to be in Narcotics? If Daniels has a detail set up already, maybe he takes the murders, too.

BUNK: He ain't no fool, Jay. He's just giving us a room with no view is all.

(Landsman storms off.)

RUSSELL: That was approval, right? He just gave approval to go ahead with this?

BUNK: I don't know.

RUSSELL: So what's next?

BUNK: Next is for us to get them dock boys back to thinking that we've gone away. I mean, we spooked 'em right good with that grand jury shit. If we're gonna set up on 'em, they need to think that we ain't gonna be a problem no more.

RUSSELL: How are they gonna think that?

[EXT. SOUTH BALTIMORE STREET - DAY]

(NICK is discussing business with FROG, a young white drug dealer, who wears a tracksuit and a 'do rag)

FROG: Naw, see, that ain't the way it work, yo. It ain't. 'Cause like, I'm the one out here all day takin' the chance, right? I'm sayin', police roll up into this bitch, it ain't gonna be you that catch no charge. So, least-wise, the thing you need to do is lay all that good shit down on an even-split, yo. Come Friday, me and my niggas done sold all that shit off, you come past and get paid. That how I'm at with it.

NICK: Hey, Frog. Come here. No, seriously. Come here. First of all, and I don't know how to tell you this without hurting you deeply, first of all, you happen to be white. I'm talkin' "raised on Rapolla Street white", where your mama used to drag you down to St. Casimir's just like all the other little piss-pants on the block. Second, I'm also white. Not "hang-on-the-corner, don't-give-a-fuck white," but "Locust Point I.B.S. Local 47 white." I don't work without no fuckin' contract, and I don't stand around listenin' to horseshit excuses like my cousin Ziggy, who, by the way, is still owed money by you and all your down, street-wise wiggers. You go in your pocket, come up with 500 in advance and the 210 that you owe to Zig, you can work my package.

FROG: I'm sayin', this is the shit you had out here last week? The dimes that Moochie was slingin'? The shit was good. Moochie sold out quick. Alright. I'm sayin, I'm gonna send my man 'round with the dollars. Keep it real, yo.

NICK: Whatever. Yo.

[INT. STRINGER'S SUV - DAY]

D.C. CONTACT: Everything to your satisfaction?

STRINGER: Yeah, you on it.

D.C. CONTACT: Prison people taking it that that boy hung his own self, right?

STRINGER: Seems so.

D.C. CONTACT: My cousin always work clean. None of my business, I know, but did your man Avon even knew about it? You're on your own here, huh?

STRINGER: You're right. It ain't none of your business and if I were you, I wouldn't want a word of this mess up in Avon's ear.

D.C. CONTACT: Baltimore niggas off the hook. I swear. All y'all.

[INT. PRISON - AVON'S CELL - DAY]

(WEE-BEY is eating KFC that a guard smuggled in for AVON, who sits nearby, uninterested in the food)

BEY: You better get up in this 'fore it get cold. This shit is good. My man, that bullshit ain't on you. It ain't, man. I mean, up in here, Dee knew he had to stand on his own. You know this.

AVON: Man, fuck him. He knew when he hung himself how we was gonna carry it. He knew when he did that that we was gonna be in a moment, like this, right now. He knew that. That nigga did that shit to hurt me, man. But, you know, man, Dee was just fuckin' weak. I tried to crimp him along since he was a shorty, nigga, you see me. I try to bring him up, man, bring him along.

BEY: You was good to him, you was real good to him.

AVON: I was.

BEY: Yo, man, it's sad what happened. That shit is sad, it is. But the boy almost rolled on you that one time. And you know, he get to thinkin' he can't do the years in here, he might've could've rolled again, who knows? I'm just sayin', it might've been for the best, you know?

[INT. SPY SHOP - DAY]

(HERC tries on some sunglasses and strikes a pose, CARVER eyes him)

CARVER: His name is Head. Dick Head. Whoa, check this out. Put your finger right there.

(Herc puts his finger to the device Carver holds out. It beeps.)

CARVER (cont'd): Huh?

HERC: Nice.

CARVER: Nice, right?

STORE OWNER: Fellas.

CARVER: We need a bug.

HERC: Something that can stand up to the pressures of the modern urban crime environment.

STORE OWNER: Let me show ya. Okay, fellas, this is the real deal. Smaller than a .22 and it's got a clear channel, sturdy as hell. You get this bad boy within ten feet of any conversation, it sounds like Chuck Thompson doing play-by-play.

CARVER: How much?

STORE OWNER: Fifteen hundred. But seeing as you're sworn officers, the police discount drops it to twelve-fifty.

HERC: You in?

CARVER: Am I in? The man just said twelve-fifty, Herc.

HERC: Can we give it a test drive?

STORE OWNER: A test drive in the modern urban crime environment? Yeah, leave me a credit card and take it for 48 hours. Change your mind, bring it back. No problem.

HERC: Let me consult my partner.

STORE OWNER: Of course.

HERC: You got a credit card?

CARVER: Don't you?

HERC: It's maxed to the max, man. Hey listen, we been doin' hand-to-hands for a while now and we ain't no higher up on the ladder on those corners. We're just gonna use it for a couple days, get what we need and bring it back.

[INT. HOMICIDE UNIT - RAWLS'S OFFICE]

(DANIELS stands before RAWLS, seated at his desk)

DANIELS: I gave your man some room is all.

RAWLS: You gave him a home. Detective Moreland's target is the same as yours.

DANIELS: No.

RAWLS: Yes. You could take these 14 homicides and turn that half-assed detail you got going into something that matters. And I'll be honest, you solve the murders, I'll love you for the stats. And if you don't, I've made it so the homicide unit doesn't have to bear the whole brunt of a lower clearance rate. It's win-win for me.

DANIELS: No.

RAWLS: C'mon, Lieutenant. A good turn here won't be forgotten.

DANIELS: I'm trying to dig myself out of the basement with something simple and clean here. Drug arrests, maybe a prostitution bust if I get lucky and I'm out from under with Burrell. Sorry, Colonel. You keep the murders and my ass stays covered.

(Daniels salutes and exits)

RAWLS: Smarter than he looks.

[EXT. PATAPSCO TERMINAL - DAY]

(SOBOTKA exits the Union office as RUSSELL drives up in her old patrol car, once again wearing her uniform)

[Whistling]

[Latin music on car radio]

SOBOTKA: Where's your friend?

RUSSELL: Who's that?

SOBOTKA: The black fella, the Homicide guy.

RUSSELL: Case is done for all I know.

SOBOTKA: Yeah?

RUSSELL: Yeah, you all didn't go for nothin' and no one on the ship did neither. So, they sent me back and moved on to new business.

SOBOTKA: So you back to the usual then?

RUSSELL: Yeah, the usual. Except I won't be around Patapsco or Northpoint much.

SOBOTKA: No?

RUSSELL: Starting tomorrow I'm down at the Fairfield terminals.

SOBOTKA: Fairfield?

RUSSELL: Yeah, bosses want another car patrolling the chemical plants. 'Cause of terrorism, I guess.

SOBOTKA: You're too pretty for the Fairfield piers, darlin'. You need to be uptown here with us.

[Latin music on car radio]

(Russell smiles at Sobotka and drives away)

[INT. VACANT ROWHOUSE - DAY]

HERC: You got stripes in the southeast and can't pull Valchek's spy van to work his own fucking detail?

CARVER: Man, I've never seen that thing.

(They cut a tennis ball open with a knife, and insert the bug from the previous scene)

HERC: Snug...

CARVER: As a bug...

HERC: In a rug. Let's go.

[INT. DETAIL OFFICE - DAY]

(BUNK, FREAMON, and RUSSELL are watching a computer screen, little digital containers come off the silhouette of a cargo ship, move onto virtual truck beds, and drive away)

FREAMON: Shit's hypnotic.

BUNK: Boring, too. You make a show of it?

RUSSELL: Let everyone working see me in that radio car. Is that the Valiparaso?

BUNK: Mmm-hmm.

RUSSELL: It ain't a Talco line ship, doesn't have Horseface working, probably wasting half a day watching it offload.

BUNK: Yeah, we should be at the bar by now.

FREAMON: Nothing's wasted. I'm getting a feel for this shit. How it plays and works without the dirt.

RUSSELL: So when they lose a can...

FREAMON: I see it go.

[INT. A CONFERENCE ROOM - DAY]

(SOBOTKA and NAT are in a room with a dozen or so people. A PITCH MAN addresses them)

[Chattering]

PITCH MAN: Gentlemen. Ladies. The future is now.

(The Pitch Man starts a video presentation)

VOICE OVER: To bring goods to an exploding global economy, and to deliver those goods faster, cheaper and safer, modern robotics do much of the work in the world's largest seaport, Rotterdam. Moving cargo is a traditional strength of the Dutch who shuttle more freight and fewer man hours than any port in the world. And now, the Dutch have modeled the future of cargo management, completely containerized cargo arrives and departs on ships a third of a mile long, 24 hours a day with short turnaround. Smart card technology provides greater security and improved accountability with no need for unreliable human surveillance.

[INT. VACANT ROWHOUSE - DAY]

(HERC and CARVER listen to their bug)

ON POLICE BUG: Hey, yo, Frog, man, we light five caps is all, man. I'm sayin', you gettin' all ridiculous over bits and pieces. Ya feelin' me?

OTHER MALE: Naw, nigga, it's the principle of the thing. I mean, it's like you in a fuckin' store workin' the register and at the end of the
day, the shit just add up. Mad Dawg gonna roll up through here tomorrow with the re-up and I want to have the package right for once.

FROG: Alright.

HERC: Hey, Carv. Isn't technology the fucking bomb? Huh?

[INT. A CONFERENCE ROOM - DAY - CONTINUOUS]

VOICE OVER: And global positioning systems guide each container to its proper spot on board or on the docks, while state of the art computers track shipments in every part--

PITCH MAN (turns off video): Some of the systems you're seeing have already been upgraded. Rotterdam now works 350 million tons of cargo annually, leaving Singapore a distant second.

SOBOTKA: What kinda man hours are the stevedores clockin' over there?

PITCH MAN: You know, um, I don't have those figures handy. I'm sorry. But Rotterdam does employ 4,000 people.

NAT: 4,000 people to move 350 million tons a year?

PITCH MAN: That's right.

SUIT: That's efficiency, Nat.

PITCH MAN: By eliminating some of the most dangerous work, the Rotterdam technologies have reduced employee work-related accidents and injuries by 60%. I think we can all be pretty happy with that, can't we? Question, yes?

MAN IN THE AUDIENCE: Yeah, the G.P.S. readings, are they exactly...

SOBOTKA (quietly, to NAT): You can't get hurt if you ain't workin' right?

PITCH MAN: No, no, they work with all kinds of cargo, in all kinds of weather.

[INT. BRIANNA'S HOUSE - DAY]

[Doorbell rings]

JACKIE: Coming.

(JACKIE opens the door to reveal STRINGER, who holds a tray)

STRINGER: Hey, Jackie.

JACKIE: String. You, too, huh? We got enough food for three wakes right now.

(Jackie takes the food from Stringer)

STRINGER: How's Brianna? She back there? What's up, little man? How you holdin' up? Bri. Brianna.

[Sobbing]

[INT. DOLORES'S BAR - NIGHT]

HORSEFACE: Nicky boy, you get days this week?

NICK: Nah.

SHAVED HEAD DOCKER: Four ships on Thursday. You could've pulled a day for sure.

NICK: That's your half on the last two packages, plus what Frog owed you on your own shit. It's all there, cuz. What the fuck is wrong with you, smiley?

ZIGGY: Nothing.

NICK: Zig...

ZIGGY: What'd Frog say? Here's a couple hundred extra, make the little goof happy. The packages were my thing, Nick. Fuck if you ain't handle that business better, too.

NICK: Zig, we're making money.

(Laughing)

ZIGGY: It's your move, Nicky. Fuck it. I got other issues right now.

(ZIGGY holds up a letter, NICK takes and reads it)

NICK: Paternity? Priscilla Katlow? Oh Jesus, Zig. You knocked up Prissy Katlow?

ZIGGY: I only fucked her once.

NICK: Christ, everybody down the point fucked her the once, Zig. How you know it's yours? You call this lawyer?

ZIGGY: Figured I'd get drunk first.

NICK: That's a good plan.

[INT. CAR - OUTSIDE STRIP CLUB - NIGHT]

[Dance music]

(PREZ enters the car, having left the strip club)

GREGGS: Russians?

PREZ: Lotta girls. Pretty ones. Most of 'em had some kinda accent anyway.

GREGGS: I guess Shardene's friend hooked us up good. Who's in charge?

PREZ: Well, you got the club people, I guess. And there's some woman I seen go into the back room. She looks a little bit older. I couldn't get close enough to say much about her. She looks about 40.

GREGGS: So... Grab any ass, Prez?

[Laughing]

[INT. THE DANIELS HOME - NIGHT]

DANIELS: What I'm saying is I've sorted it out for us. I have.

MARLA: For us?

DANIELS: When I was in the basement, it made sense to quit. It did. But once Burrell reached out--

MARLA: But Burrell is the one that you crossed. And he's not likely to forget that, is he? Not to mention what he knows about you from the bad old days. Oh, Cedric, fools half your age are gonna be major and colonel and you'll still be thinking that scratching out a case or two will save you.

DANIELS: It isn't about casework, I know that. Just today, Rawls calls me up to C.I.D. Asks me to take his homicides from the dead girls in that shipping container. I told him, no shot. That case is a loser. And if I'm looking out for number one, I'm gonna bring Burrell exactly what he asked for, and exactly what he needs to make Stan Valchek go away. No more, no less. I'm playing their game this time.

[INT. PATAPSCO - UNION OFFICE - NIGHT]

NAT: Look, it's one thing you taking a run at this dredging thing. Fucked-up as you are we can let that slide for a while, but now, man, you asking too much.

SOBOTKA: One more year, Nat. Not for me, for the fuckin' union.

NAT: The elections' been scheduled. And you knew last year when we gave you the votes that this time was gonna be Ott's turn. You knew that.

SOBOTKA: So Ott runs next time he'll take that year and the next.

NAT: It's our turn, Frank.

SOBOTKA: Black, white, what's the difference, Nat? Until we get that fuckin' canal dredged, we're all niggers, pardon my French.

NAT: Or Polacks, pardon mine.

SOBOTKA: You know what I'm sayin', this ain't about Ott. I just want one more year to finish what I started here. One more year. Then Ott stays secretary-treasurer for the next two, no problem. Think about it.

[Phone ringing]

DIBIAGO *on the phone*: Hello?

SOBOTKA: Brucie, baby.

DIBIAGO *on the phone*: Frankie Sobotka, how's it hangin'?

SOBOTKA: You talk to the presiding officers yet?

[INT. CAR - OUTSIDE STRIP CLUB - NIGHT]

(PREZ and GREGGS watch as the girls are moved from the Strip Club into a van, shepherded by several large men]

PREZ: Lotta girls. Lotta muscle.

[INT. DOLORES'S BAR - NIGHT]

("Love Child" by the Supremes plays on the jukebox)

GIRL: Zig, Jesus. Off me, you jerk.

NICK: Yo, Zig. When did you get served with these?

ZIGGY: I got 'em in the mail this morning.

NICK: In the mail?

ZIGGY: Yeah, this morning.

NICK: When Pokey Barber got hit with paternity, a sheriff had to come to his house and serve him with papers.

[Laughing]

NICK: Hey, Dolores, can I use the bar phone?

DOLORES: The fuck are you callin'?

NICK: The lawyer on this fucking piece of bullshit.

ZIGGY: What? Ain't no fucking law firm open in the middle of the goddamn night.

[Cell phone ringing]

MAU (answering): Shyster, shyster and shyster.

[Laughing]

NICK: He got ya, Zig.

ZIGGY: Who got me? Maui?

MAU AND BUDDIES (singing): Love child, never meant to be, Love child, born in poverty, Love child, never meant to be...

[INT. HOTEL LOBBY - NIGHT]

(GREGGS is talking to HOTEL CLERK, while PREZ stands by the elevators)

HOTEL CLERK: There's no restroom in the lobby and if you're not an approved visitor, I just don't have the authorization.

GREGGS: Oh, okay. Um, tell me something, when you have to go, where do you go?

HOTEL CLERK: Excuse me, sir? Are you a resident?

PREZ: Sorry, I um... Wrong building. (quietly, to Greggs:) Sixth floor, all of them.

[INT. DETAIL OFFICE - NIGHT]

FREAMON: Thomas "Horseface" Pakusa. Slated to be the shiprunner on Talco line's Esmeralda. E.T.A. noon tomorrow, berth six, Patapsco terminal.

RUSSELL: So we're on.

BUNK: We're gonna need help with surveillance. On the docks especially, since our faces are known down there.

FREAMON: I can reach out to Greggs and Prez, maybe. Bring them in on it.

RUSSELL: Should we tell the lieutenant?

FREAMON: Right now, the less the lieutenant knows he's involved in the murder investigation, the happier he'll feel.

[INT. VACANT ROWHOUSE - DAY]

(HERC and CARVER are on surveillance duty, listening to their new bug, concealed in a tennis ball on the street inside a coffee cup, and watching the street through the window and camera zoom lens. Outside, NICK pulls up in a new truck and rolls down the window. FROG approaches him.)

FROG: New truck, yo?

NICK: Ah, what the fuck, we're makin' money here, right?

FROG: Hell yeah, for real.

HERC: Hey, this guy's like some kinda supplier. Snap some shots of the truck tags.

FROG: You got more for me?

NICK: I got if you got for me, right?

FROG: Gots to say, your thing is tight. Best around here in a long while.

(Frog steps on the coffee cup, causing the tennis ball to roll out of the cup. Absently, he scoops the ball up and begins tossing it back and forth.)

HERC: Oh fuck.

FROG: Much as you can, homes, much as you can. For real.

NICK: I'm with ya on this man... *Feedback* I'm with ya on this man...

FROG: A-ight, dawg.

(To end the conversation, Frog throws the tennis ball away... into traffic.)

CARVER: Oh fuck me! Come on, what the fuck.

(Carver runs outside to save the bug. A car stops short, blocking him from getting to it.)

DRIVER: Asshole, what the fuck's wrong with you?

CARVER: Keep it fucking movin'. Jesus Christ!

(A truck comes down the street...)

CARVER (cont'd): No, no, no, no, no!

(...and runs over the tennis ball.)

CARVER (cont'd): Fuck you!

[INT. DETAIL OFFICE - MORNING]

FREAMON: I cleared it with K.G.A., We'll be workin' off of channel six. Prez, you got the eyeball on the outbound truck gate. Need you to set up so you can move in either direction on Broening Highway. Bunk, you set up on Newkirk and Broening. Me and Russell will be inside on the computer. That leaves the terminal itself to Kima.

GREGGS: They might not know my face, but I sure as shit can't hang down there. I'm thinkin' I should borrow that CG&E truck from Narcotics. Slap on a hard hat, pick up a clipboard.

PREZ: What if they're not sneaking anything off this time? What then?

FREAMON: Then, tragically, you will have wasted yet another day in a life you've already misspent in the service of the City of Baltimore.

[EXT. PATAPSCO - MORNING]

HORSEFACE: Nothing's alive in these, right?

SOBOTKA: If they don't go hot to a truck, you go back in the stacks and bang on 'em to make sure. I trust these Greek fucks with nothin'. How you hangin'?

NICK: Good. I'm good.

SOBOTKA: You ain't been workin' much. Stay close, Nick. Stay close. Don't do anything I wouldn't do.

[EXT. CEMETERY - D'ANGELO'S FUNERAL - DAY]

SINGER (singing): Jesus on the mainline, tell him what you want
Oh, Jesus on the mainline, tell him what you want
Jesus on the mainline, tell him what you want
Call him up and tell him what you want
If you want salvation, tell him what you want
Oh, if you want salvation, tell him what you want
If you want salvation, tell him what you want
Call him up and tell him what you want
Oh, call him up, call him up, tell him what you want
Oh, call him up, call him up
Tell him what you want
Call him up, call him up, tell him what you want
Jesus on the mainline now

POOT (to BODIE): You did the 2-2-1? Shit look tight, yo.

JOE (to STRINGER): Sorry for the loss. Y'all sent him off right, though. As good a homecoming as I been to.

STRINGER: And you been to your share, man, I know.

JOE: No doubt, no doubt. 'Course this is neither the time, nor the place, but I thought I might get at you for a moment. Got a proposition here.

STRINGER: Go 'head to the car, man.

JOE: Ain't exactly talkin' outta turn when I say that westside dope been weak for a while now. Every dope fiend in the city know Avon been puttin' out piss and callin' it shit. And the thing is, y'all sittin' on some of the best real estate in the city. The terrace, the low-rises, the avenue corners.

STRINGER: Now, respectin' the fact that you known to havin' a way with your words, man, when the fuck you gonna tell me somethin' I don't know?

JOE: A-ight. Let me put a point on it, my shit is right, String. I got dope comin' straight into Baltimore and the shit be raw. 85, 90%. And you know it's true. You got half the westside comin' over the causeway twice a day because eastside dope be kickin' the shit outta westside dope.

STRINGER: You connected, huh?

JOE: This shit is straight off the damn boat. I ain't even goin' to New York 'cept for my coke, String. Ain't no need. Thing is, y'all got the best territory and no kinda product. I got the best product, but could stand a little more territory. So you see where this thing need to go.

STRINGER: Now you know Avon fought real hard for them towers. We took down the Rayford brothers, Big Dennis Woodson, I mean-

JOE: Shit is just business, String. Buy for a dollar, sell for two. That's all it need be. You got the towers, I got what goes in 'em. Later for all that bullshit.

STRINGER: I'll talk to Avon.

JOE: You do that, homes. You do that.

[INT. - PATAPSCO - UNION OFFICE - DAY]

SOBOTKA: C'mon, Bruce, I can read a budget summary. There's nothing in there for dredging.

DIBIAGO: Shortfall in revenues. The governor's looking to limit bond issues. But the grain pier is still in there.

SOBOTKA: And the rest is just talk?

DIBIAGO: Talk is good, Frank. Talk is a start.

SOBOTKA: Talk is your fuckin' job description. Yak, yak, yak, blah, blah, blah.

DIBIAGO: That's like saying all the checkers do is punch numbers into a computer, Frank.

SOBOTKA: Your son... The oldest one, he goes to what school?
DIBIAGO: Jason's at Princeton.

SOBOTKA: Princeton. And after he graduates, he's gonna do, what?

DIBIAGO: Whatever he wants.

SOBOTKA: Right, you sent him to Princeton to do whatever the fuck he wants. You know, back when we was kids, Danny Hare's father stole a case of cognac off a ship. 'Cept when he gets it home, it ain't cognac, it's Tang.

DIBIAGO: Tang?

SOBOTKA: Just invented. TV was saying it's what the astronauts drank on their way to the moon. You drink it, well...

DIBIAGO: You could be an astronaut too.

SOBOTKA: All summer long, that shit was all the Hare kids drank, Tang with breakfast, Tang with lunch, Tang when they woke up scared in the middle of the night. What do you think they grew up to be? ... Stevedores. What the fuck you think? Something tells me Jason DiBiago will grow up and squeeze a buck the way his old man did.

DIBIAGO: You're outta line, Frank. My great-grandfather was a knife sharpener. Yeah. Pushed a grinding stone up Preston Street to Alice-Ann, one leg shorter than the other from pumping the wheel. And since he didn't want his sons to push the goddamn thing, he made sure my grandfather finished high school and my old man went to any college that would take him.

SOBOTKA: You're talking history, right? I'm talking now. Because down here, it's still "Who's your old man?" 'Til you got kids of your own and then it's, "Who's your son?" But after the horror movie I seen today... Robots! Piers full of robots! My kid'll be lucky if he's even punchin' numbers five years from now. And while it don't mean shit to me that I can't take my steak knives to Dibiago and Sons, it breaks my fucking heart that there's no future for the Sobotkas on the waterfront!

(SOBOTKA pulls a shoebox full of cash out of a drawer and throws it at DIBIAGO)

SOBOTKA (cont'd): Here, Brucie. I think they're your size.

(Sobotka advances on DiBiago, and menaces him with the tip of a dart.)

SOBOTKA: I'm operating under the assumption that because of your relentless diligence, the funding for the grain pier is gonna pass the Assembly. But I'm also talking about the canal, so you're gonna talk about the canal, so the Muldoons who run the old line state, they're gonna talk about the canal 'til someday, someway, that motherfucker gets dredged and we get some ships in here.

(Sobotka throws the dart at a dartboard with a picture hung on it of Robert Irsay, former owner of the Baltimore Colts who moved the team to Indianapolis).

[EXT. PATAPSCO - DAY]

(Lots of cutting in this scene. RUSSELL and FREAMON are in the Detail Office on the computer, watching. GREGGS is disguised as CG&E, on the docks. PREZ is in a car, watching the gate. BUNK is in another car, farther down the road.)

DOCKER: Bring it down!

RUSSELL: Got one that disappeared.

FREAMON: Get the container number? 11-37 to 12-14.

GREGGS: Go ahead, Lester.

FREAMON: We've got one, you prepared to copy?

GREGGS: Send it.

FREAMON: Zulu-tango-golf-romeo-nine seven-three-two-six-five, check digit nine.

GREGGS: Copy that, I've got it in the yard.

FREAMON: 11-99.

PREZ: 11-99.

FREAMON: We got a live one, be up.

PREZ: What am I looking for?

FREAMON: Stand by on that.

GREGGS: Be advised I've got a white male, orange safety vest, blue overalls. He's hooking the truck onto the, ah... What you call it.

FREAMON: Copy that. What next?

RUSSELL: One of two things. The driver takes it through checkout. In which case it might be that Horseface just entered the wrong container number and they find it there. Or it goes out the bobtail lane. If it does that, they're doing the dirt.

FREAMON: 11-37 to 12-14. Kima keep the eyeball until it clears the yard. Advise if it stops at the checkout point or goes straight out.

GREGGS: Copy. 12-14. He went around the checkout, copy.

FREAMON: 11-37 to 11-99.

PREZ: 99.

FREAMON: Target's comin' at you, you see it?

PREZ: I got him on Browning heading west towards the city.

FREAMON: Copy, 11-37 to 11-34. Target approaching your 20.

BUNK: 11-34, copy that.

PREZ (on radio): I got him going straight on Newkirk. He's all yours, Bunk.

BUNK: Copy.

FREAMON: 11-34, you got the eyeball.

BUNK (on radio): Copy. 11-34.

FREAMON: Go ahead, 34.

BUNK: He went to ground off of Newkirk. Some kinda warehouse. Wait one... I'll swing back, get a 20. Be advised it is a warehouse. Pyramid, Inc. 56-0-5 Newkirk.

FREAMON: Copy that.

[INT. PRISON - VISITOR AREA - DAY]

(STRINGER is visiting AVON, talking through phones, separated by a glass partition)

AVON: Brianna, man...

STRINGER: She puttin' it on you, huh? Avon, you knew he was using?

AVON: I seen it, but I didn't see it. I mean, he came up off of that shit before we did our thing with the guard, and I thought... Fuck.

STRINGER: Well, we did our thing with the homegoing, man. I mean, it came off nice.

AVON: Yeah?

STRINGER: Yeah, everybody showed.

AVON: How'd Brianna do?

STRINGER: Rough.

AVON: You know, don't nobody want no shit like this to happen, man. If I'd would've know the boy was gon' be doin' shit like this, you know what I mean.

STRINGER: What are the prison people sayin'? That he just hung himself like that?

AVON: Just tied a rope around a knob and sat his ass down.

STRINGER: Yo, how the fuck you gonna stop a man from doin' some shit like that, huh? I mean, what are you gonna do? Stay with him every damn minute every day you can? I mean, he gonna find a way if he wants to. It ain't on you. It ain't... on you. I would tell you if it was.

AVON: What's up with that other thing, man?

STRINGER: Still shit, man. Your man in Atlanta, he don't know what raw is. I mean, we gonna discount it.

AVON: Do I look like K-Mart to you, man?

STRINGER: I'm sayin', I mean...

AVON: What are you sayin', man, that's ridiculous? Re-package it, man, and sell it off.

STRINGER: You know, Proposition Joe, he came to the funeral. Pulled me aside. I mean, he's got a smoker. Everybody knows he's got a smoker and he wants to share if we cut him a slice of the towers. You know, it's just a thought, I mean...

AVON: It's not even a thought, man. No. Let me tell you something. We're gonna get through all this, you hear me? We're gonna get through all of this.

STRINGER: I know.

AVON: All of it.

[EXT. PYRAMID WAREHOUSE - DAY]

[GREGGS pulls up in a car next to BUNK, in his car. They talk through the windows.]

GREGGS: Anything come out?

BUNK: If there were girls in that can, they're still inside.

[INT. DETAIL OFFICE – DAY]

PEARLMAN: Your D.N.R.'S go where?

FREAMON: Phones for dockworkers local. Offices and personal phones for a couple of union officials.

PREZ: Lookit, 5-3-7-1-3-7-3-7 is listed to Thomas Pakusa.

FREAMON: On February the fourth and March 16th our Mr. Pakusa received a call from s cellphone.

RUSSELL: And both times, he works a Talco line ship the next day.

FREAMON: And both times, a can goes missing in the computer. Pretty good argument for a conspiracy case.

PEARLMAN: Conspiracy to do what?

RUSSELL: Smuggle shit.

PEARLMAN: Smuggle what?

PREZ: For starters, how about bringin' girls over here for purposes of prostitution? That one we know about.

PEARLMAN: You need to do better for a wiretap. Read your annotated code. Wiretap statute, subsection 10, 4-0-6, designates crimes where telephonic communication can be intercepted in the great state of Maryland. Prostitution? Uh-uh.

RUSSELL: You mean you can tap a guy's phone if he's selling drugs, but if he's selling women he's outta bounds?

PEARLMAN: That's the law.

[INT. NICK’S BASEMENT BEDROOM – DAY]

NICK: Honey, I'm home. Start looking at the two-bedroom joints. We can pay.

AIMEE: How?

NICK: Got a new job.

AIMEE: Off the docks?

NICK: Like three, four days a week. Warehouse foreman for this Greek guy. He owns an appliance store down the avenue in Highlandtown. I can work it around the hours that I pick up down at the docks.

AIMEE: How much, Nick?

NICK: Come here. Come here. Like 500 a week, maybe more. But steady. You know, we can count on it. Between what you make with them scissors and this, we can pay down the truck and still have enough left over for someplace nice out in the county.

[INT. HERC AND CARVER’S CAR – DAY]

CARVER: $1,500.00.

HERC: $1,250.00 with the police discount. It just couldn't stand up to the modern urban crime environment, man. Alright, slow up. This is it, it's listed to Nicholas Andrew Sobotka, 1485 Renolyd Street.

CARVER: Sobotka?

HERC: That's what it says here.

CARVER: That mean anything to you? Yo, Beavis. That's the name of the guy we're supposed to be working. Frank Sobotka.

HERC: But we got Nicholas.

CARVER: How many fucking Sobotkas can there be? Even down here in Polacktown.

HERC: You know what this means?

CARVER: What?

HERC: It means ole Fuzzy Dunlop here, somewhat worse for wear, I admit, is really gonna start paying off as a confidential informant.

CARVER: No fucking way.

HERC: Are you out $1,250.00? Because linking a street-level drug connect to our main target has to be worth a couple hundred for starters. Listen, if I try to register him, Daniels will smell a rat. But he trusts you, Carv. You got that trustworthy look.

[INT. DETAIL OFFICE – DAY]

BUNK: It's you, Lester. Got to be you.

FREAMON: Me, huh?

BUNK: We need to bring in the Lieutenant, his detail, and all the manpower and toys that go with it. And Daniels listens when you talk. You got the smell of wisdom on you, brother. (Chuckling) Now look, we all got roles to play.

FREAMON: What's your role?

BUNK: I'm just a humble motherfucker with a big-ass dick.

FREAMON: You give yourself too much credit.

BUNK: Okay, then. I ain't all that humble.

[EXT. PYRAMID WAREHOUSE – NIGHT]

GREGGS: I'll be goddamned.

[Camera shutter clicking]

[INT. DOLORES’S BAR – NIGHT]

ZIGGY: I swear to God. If he plays that goddamn song one more time, I'ma clock his ass good.

SHAVED HEAD DOCKER: You can take him, Zig.

DOCKER: He just looks big.

SHAVED HEAD DOCKER: Who the fuck is he, huh? All pussy.

DOCKER: You're a legend of the docks, Zig. A fuckin' legend.

ZIGGY: You think I can take him?

SHAVED HEAD DOCKER: You can take him.

(OTT runs into the bar.)

OTT: Man down, berth five!

MAU: Who?

OTT: New Charles.

[CUT TO: EXT – PATAPSCO – NIGHT – CONTINUOUS]

(The Dockworkers from the bar all run to where NEW CHARLES lays, leg crushed under a crate)

DOCKER#2: Ambo's on the way.

SOBOTKA: Jesus Christ.

GOATEE DOCKER: Nightwork with breakbulk, Frank. I hate this shit.

SOBOTKA: You guys gonna move this thing or what?

HORSEFACE: C'mon, Jesus fuck.

SPAMANATO: Ain't supposed to move a guy when he's hurt, Frank.

SOBOTKA: We'll remember that when you hit the fuckin' number.

NEW CHARLES: Christ, stop pullin' your dicks and get this thing off of me.

SOBOTKA: One, two, three.

(They lift the crate, and several men pull New Charles out from under.)

HORSEFACE: Charlie, here, take a drag.

[Sirens]

SOBOTKA: That's the ambo, Charlie. That's the ambo you're hearin'.

DOCKER#3: Right over there.

HORSEFACE: Don't worry, kid, you're still on the clock.

NEW CHARLES: Frank, how's the leg look?

SOBOTKA: Which leg is that now?

MEDIC: Sir, can you hear my voice? Squeeze my hand. Let's get him into the ambulance. We need you to clear the way for us, guys.

[INT. DETAIL OFFICE – NIGHT]

DANIELS: And you followed the can?

FREAMON: Right to the warehouse.

DANIELS: Surveillance set up?

FREAMON: Kima's on it tonight. This case needs to be worked, Lieutenant. I know it began for you as a bullshit detail, but this Sobotka's into some shit that needs to be worked by good police. The D.N.R.s, the cloned computer, we've got the pattern.

DANIELS: And Rawls came to me. Asked if I would take the homicides.

FREAMON: You should. Those girls in the can really suffocated, Lieutenant. They really died in that fuckin' box. You pick this case up, you might eat those open murders, but you let it pass, you gotta ask yourself how you want to live your day-to-day.

[INT. NEW CHARLES’S HOUSE – DAY]

(SOBOTKA gives an envelope of cash to New Charles’s wife.)

SOBOTKA: From the guys in 15-14. Should be alright.

NAT: You know how he got the name New Charles? First day of work was the same day the Paseco dropped a hatchcover on Charlie Bannion. Had to clean up Old Charlie with a shovel, ever since then, New Charles. He's gonna lose the leg. Frank. Where's the money from?

[INT. HOMICIDE UNIT – RAWLS’S OFFICE – DAY]
(DANIELS enters.)

DANIELS: I got your murders. But what I need from you, I get. No bullshit, no arguments.

RAWLS: No arguments.

[EXT. ELENA’S BACKYARD – NIGHT]

(SEAN and MICHAEL are in a tent, playing with a flashlight. ELENA and MCNULTY sit on the steps.)

SEAN: You're wasting all the batteries.

MICHAEL: So? Mom, he's wasting all the batteries!

ELENA: You two get along or I'm gonna take that tent down right now.

SEAN: Snitch.

MICHAEL: Punk.

SEAN: Squirrel.

MICHAEL: Mope.

SEAN: Shut up.

McNULTY: Who teaches them this stuff?

MICHAEL: My turn, you just had it.

McNULTY: Elena.

ELENA: No, no. No. I don't trust you. I can care about you. And I can want us to be friends and if you give me enough time, Jimmy, maybe I will actually want you to be happy. But how the hell am I supposed to trust you?

MICHAEL: Mom, quick, it's a spider. Ick, it's a big, hairy one.

SEAN: Oh my gosh. Mom!*Shouting*

[INT. THE DANIELS HOME – NIGHT]

DANIELS: But if the case does come together, I would at least have Rawls as a rabbi. It could still work for me.

MARLA: Listen to yourself.

DANIELS: I love the job, Marla. I can't help it.

MARLA: The job doesn't love you.

DANIELS: You know what I love? The mind that's always a step ahead of me, the person who never stops thinking it through. That's what I fell in love with first.

MARLA: Do you know what I fell with first? Do you? Your ambition. Where'd that man go?

[Door closing]