"You know how that go, right?" "Gave myself all these little rules about what I wouldn't do." "Like, I told myself I'd do a lot of shit to get high, but I swore I wouldn't never trick." "So after I'm tricking'..." "I thought, "well, this ain't so bad." ""I'll do this for a while 'cept I'll make some more rules for myself." ""like I'm gonna use condoms," ""and I'm never gonna go with more than one guy at the same time," and," "let's just say there are certain things I told myself I wouldn't never do." "You know what my disease did to my rules, right?" "Whatever it is you tell yourself you won't do to get high, you're pretty much making a list of everything you will do as soon as your inner addict tells you to." "I mean, that bitch wants to kill me." "She does." "Even on my way here today, she was telling me not to come." "She was tellin' me that I was all right on the street, that it was all good." "I'm about done." "I want to thank you all for letting me share." "Amen." "Thanks for sharing, Dee-Dee." "Always lift us." "We got finished a little early." "Anybody else feel like sharing?" "How 'bout you, Bubs?" "Haven't heard from you in a while." "Bubbles." "Get up there!" "Come on, bubs." "All right, bubbles." "Hi, y'all." " You know who I am." " Hey, bubs." " Bubs." "Bubbles." " What's up, Bubbles?" "I'm a grateful addict." "Been clean 15 months thursday." "This is the longest I been off." "I..." "Hey, yo!" "Let's go!" "I used to get so high, you know." "I mean, I used to love to be high." "Y'all see me out there on Monroe and Fayette doin' the dope-fiend lean, right?" "Be like this here." "I come out of it, get a little more upright." "Come to realize people treating' me like a lamp post, hangin' fliers on me an' shit." "Come winter, little kids hangin' Christmas balls on me like a damn tree." "Summertime, they'd walk me over that garden, where the nine-oh-nine used to be." "Make me..." "Make me a scarecrow." "Yeah." "I used to love to get high." "Got to the point..." "You know, I'm not in the right place to talk about this right now." "Keep comin' back, Bubs." "Thanks, bubs." "Thanks for sharing." "Is there anybodylse with a burning desire to share?" "Marvin?" "It's quiet up in here." "You got the, Bank of America accounts?" "That pile there." "So he claims to be raising money for some basketball program or day-care center..." "And the money comes in, and the money goes out." "But no hoops, no day care." "Ok, so say we get Clay Davis," " and say he flips..." " Then he takes us up the ladder." "To who?" "I mean, if Clay is stealing from his own nonprofits..." "That's an easy case for us to make with all the paperwork we got here." "That's a straight-up theft, maybe a tax charge or two, but there's money that all this paperwork only hints at, money that doesn't show up on a campaign finance report." "My guess is that Clay Davis knows about that, too." "I don't know, man." "I like street work more." "You'd rather sit in a surveillance van days on end waiting to catch Tater handing Pee Wee a vial?" "This, detective, is what you're telling me?" "A case like this here, where you show who gets paid behind all the tragedy and the fraud," "where you show how the money routes itself, how we're all, all of us vested, all of us complicit?" "Career case, huh?" "Baby, I could die happy." "Still, man," "I wonder what Marlo is up to right fucking now." "Celebrating." "Yeah, but they still taking pictures?" "No." "I ain't feel nothing in a while we took care that thing over the eastside." "They ain't on me." "Snoop, she been rolling around all week." "Nothing, no cars, no vans, no helicopters." "Monk-- he checked after the re-up, no problem." "We wore 'em down." "What about cameras?" "Nothing since the camera we took out the wall back at the place." "My overnight man, he been watchin', he ain't seen nothing either." "'sides, I think we good as long as we move it around like this." "Back to bidness, I say." "She ain't had no work in a few months." "She somewhat eager." "Goddamn right." "Too much fuckin' talking' around here lately, man." "Niggas need to shut the fuck up." "For real." "A-ight, first thing." "We go hard at webster Franklin's crew." "Gave 'em the chance to get on our tit, passed." "Now we bang on his corners a couple of times 'til he fold." " Now you talkin'." " Yeah." "Next, we step to June bug for talkin' that shit." "He was a dead man when he opened his mouth." "He just walkin' around not knowing it." "You know, an' I want that dicksucker." "Took my money and the whole world know." "Naw." "He got to fall." "Omar rolled out in retirement and shit." "I'm hearin' somewheresSouth." "Bring his ass back out of retirement." " A-ight." " Yeah, a-ight." "We can step that shit up, but he's goin' to be comin' at us like we comin' at him." "I mean, Joe and them, they said let that be." "No crown ain't worth much if the nigga wearing' it always gettin' his shit took, and Joe ought to know that." "Let him come." "Yeah." "What up with that thing down at Jessup?" "Yeah, yeah." "You on the list." "Go on down there anytime you want." "No problem." "That's the dude right there." "A-right." "Time for y'all to earn your pay, niggas." "Funny how you started out." " What you mean?" " Dope-fiend lean and all." "Why didn't you keep going?" "You know, you hear a lot of funny shit in these rooms, people makin' fun of their mistakes, makin' people laugh," "but in between all the jokes, there's a lot of truth to be spoke." "Like that girl today." "She damn near bled out, didn't she?" "You know, for a second there," "I thought you might actually stand up and talk about Sherrod." ""a searching and fearless moral inventory."" " That's the step." " Don't tell me about that." "I live with that every fuckin' day, man." "You got to let it out to let it go." "I'm your sponsor, and I'm telling you, you got to get it out of your head," " outside yourself." " I never missed a meeting." "I'm not talking about the meetings." "I'm talking about where you go after." "I'm talking about what you do, what you think, what you feel." "I don't feel nothing." "That was never your problem." "Not even as a low-bottom dope fiend, that was never the problem." "It would be a fuckin' shame to make it the problem now." "So Carcetti threw us a bone, huh?" "Took the cap off secondary employment." "Yeah." "Even I may have to go out and find honest work." "There's no money to be made in this policing shit." "They made that clear enough." "What are you qualified to do?" "Aside from that, I mean." "You know I got an in on the eight-to-four gig over at Friedman's jewelry, you know, off of Reisterstown." "Yeah, 20 an hour." "Stand around with some shiny shit and get paid." "Work murders and starve." "Fuck kind of shit is that?" "Anything from overnight or this morning?" "Yeah, midnight shift caught one." "Solved?" "Open." "Bar cutting from Curtis bay." "Fahlteich's over at the morgue now." "Slow night." "Oh, I'm sure things will be picking up now we're no longer sitting on Marlo Stanfield." "It wasn't my call to suspend the investigation, Jimmy." "That decision came from your shop." "Yeah, but nobody from the S.A.'s office objected, did they?" "Just like nobody objected when Chris and Snoop got their gun charges postponed a couple of times." "A postponement or two is pro forma on Calvert Street." "You know that." ""Pro forma" from the Latin, meaning the lawyers jacking each other off." "Rules are the rules, Jimmy." "There are no fucking rules." "Fucking game's rigged." "Gentlemen." "Why the fuck chew on ronnie's arm, huh?" "She ain't the problem." "Tired of being jerked around." "I think I'm gonna get me a secondary job at that high-end cigar shop on Baltimore street." " As what?" " Homicide." "The Indian out front?" "I'd like to scalp your ass,motherfucker." "Got it." "Who's up?" "There you go, givin' a fuck when it ain't your turn to give a fuck." "He's a pissy little bitch today." "I'm worried for the boy." "Some good news for a change as the test scores for third-graders going up a good 15 points." " That's what I get for 54 million?" " You can run on that." "15 points is a nice, solid number." "Whatever bump in the test scores I get, I got to run on it." "I sure as hell can't campaign on the crime rate at this point." "Burrell already told us we don't have a double-digit decline." "A small drop, most likely." "Until we take back the statehouse, this city will starve." "I get to Annapolis, and whoever I leave behind as mayor, Bond, Campbell, or who knows..." " They gonna have a better time of it." " It's not gonna be Nerese if she's goin' like she has." "Sun papers made her look bad." "Yeah." "She tells me this real estate flip was a holdover from the last administration." "True as far as it goes, but she got herself paid as well." "She looked bad enough that it'll cost you votes, people who don't want to make you governor if that means Nerese finishes your term as Mayor." "She makes you vulnerable." "What, can I ask, makes the governor vulnerable?" "He looked like a petulant little bitch with that diatribe on olesker." "He looked paranoid, too." "What about his failure on slots?" "With a democratic assembly, everyone expects a G.O.P." "Governor will take his lumps." "Besides, voters are split on legalizing slots." "It has to hit him directly." "Well, I'll see what's on the mind of the P.G. County boys tonight." "I got dinner with Stenny Miller, and Maloney down in upper Marlboro, which reminds me..." "You're late to meet jen." "Doesn't this seem a little thin to you, running for governor 2 years into a 4-year term?" "Everything's thin." "The whole world shines shit and calls it gold." "So Somerville, he keeps going back to ask Tommy the elder follow-ups?" "One question after another his editor wants him to ask him." "Somerville, knocking on big Tommy's door, blaming the city desk, saying, "I'm sorry to bother you, Mr.Mayor, but my desk wants to know."" " Shit, I see it coming." " So 3 or 4 times, right?" ""my desk is wondering-- I'm sorry to bother you," "Mr. Mayor, but my desk wants to know." So finally," "Tommy d'Alesandro, he puts his ear down to his desk like this, and he says..." ""my desk tells your desk to go fuck itself."" "That really happen?" "Too good a story to check out." "What's my favorite G.A. reporter have today for his favorite editor?" "Heartbreaker from eastside." "Salt-of-the-earth single mother of 4 dies from allergic reaction to blue crabs." "Ate them all her life but goes face down in a lump backfin pronounced an hour later at Hopkins, and sister is starting a scholarship fund for the kids." "Interviewed the whole family." " Photos, the works." "Attaboy." "Round it out with some, some medical stuff on seafood toxicity, huh?" "Growing incidence, all that good shit." "All right, cool." "You ever notice how mother of 4 is always catching hell?" "Murder, hit-and-run, burn up in row house fire," " swindled by bigamists." " Tough gig, mother of 4." "Innocent bystander is worse." "He's always getting the short end." "Not a lot of them around anymore." "Not a lot of innocence either, you ask me." "You know who there's less of?" "Statuesque blondes." "You don't read about statuesque blondes in the newspapers anymore." "Buxom ones, neither." "They're like a lost race." "What do you got next?" "School project meeting." "Mr. Whiting builds his Pulitzer." "Now I've seen everything." "Why not call a cab at least?" "If I thought these motherfuckers would reimburse me, I would have." "So homicide can't shop cars neither." "We're down to two working units." "One was at the morgue with Fahlteich, the other was on fresh call." "Jesus." "What a joke." "67-year-old female, mother of 4, grandmother to many, lived alone." "Not seen in two days, so the neighbor called." "No forced entry." " You the first officer?" " Had to kick in the back door." " You call for crime lab?" " We're on the list." "Today's list?" "Fucking crime lab, too, huh?" "They've cut everything to the bone." "Been here maybe a couple of days." "If it was warmer, she'd have bloated." "Yeah, it's probably natural." "I just didn't like the way she looked laying there with the pillow and all." "I bet she died in her sleep." "You ever wake up with a pillow over your face?" "There's mornings with a hangover I hold the pillow over my face just to keep the light out and the pain down." "Me, I just throw up once or twice and go to work." "Western district way." "The word I'm thinking about is "dickensian."" "We want to depict the dickensian lives of city children and then show clearly and concisely where the school system has failed them." "Not to defend the school system, but a lot of things have failed those kids." "They're marginalized long before they walk into class." "You wanna look at who these kids really are, you gotta look at parenting, or lack of it, in the city." "The drug culture, the economics of these neighborhoods." "Yet the schools are something that we can address." "Sure, we can beat up on city schools." "Lord knows they deserve to be beat on every once in a while, but then we're just as irrelevant to these kids as the schools are." "It's like you're up on a corner of a roof you're showing some people how a couple of shingles came loose, and meanwhile, a hurricane wrecked the rest of the damn house." "you don't need a lot of context to examine what goes on in one classroom." " Really?" " I think you need a lot of context" " to seriously examine anything." " No." "I think Scott is on the right track." "We need to limit the scope, not get bogged down in details." "To do what?" "To dress the problem or to win a prize?" "I mean, what are we doing here?" "Look, Gus, I know the problems." "My wife volunteers at a city school, but what I want to look at is the tangible, where the problem and solution can be measured clearly." "There's more impediments to learning than a lack of materials or a dysfunctional bureaucracy." "But who's goingto read that?" "What is this series about in a sentence?" "What's the budget line?" "Johnny can't write 'cause Johnny have never a fucking pencil." "Augustus, I'm not as simple-minded as you might think." "Now what do you want, an educational project or a litany of excuses?" "I don't want some amorphous series detailing society's ills." "If you leave everything in, soon you've got nothin" "I think the schools are ripe for exploration, and I think Scott might be the man to lead the charge." "You ain't doin' nothin' but aggravating' me now." "Get up in this house before I beat the black off your ass." "Get up in here, fool." "Come on." "Treena." "Treena." "Wait for me." "I'm gonna come back out." " Stay right here." "Don't move." " Girl." "Wooton, you dump in the numbers from the port story yet?" " Oh, shit." "I forgot." "You want" " Give them to me." "I'll put them in." "Overall, cargo is down by 12 points, but roll-on, rll-off gained 6.4% last year." "A-ight." "Drop 12, ro-ro's up 6.4." " Thanks, got it." " Boss man on your 6." " Whiting?" " Worse." "Klebanow." "Augustus." "Who's the lead for opening day tomorrow?" "Not the game story but the color piece." "Luxenberg wanted to go with Mcguire." "I think Scott would do an excellent job with the color piece." "You know, I'd really like to find some chaw-chewing old-timer who'd die rather than miss the o's opener, someone who says, "baseball," you know?" "You're the boss." "Scott, put your special touch on it like you did with your preakness piece last year." " Good luck to you." " Thanks." "Fuck." "What's wrong?" "Sorry." "Go back to sleep, baby." " Metro desk." " Hey, Spry, it's me." "Is the night man still on the copy desk?" "Sure is." "You need to make a change?" "Yeah, I think I just want to check on the port story." "I think I might have transposed some numbers." "Andy, can I get port back?" "Yeah, sure." "We got time on the final." "Go ahead." "Yeah." "Somewhere down in the a-matter, a graph about the cargo trends with percentages." "Ro-ro, cargo." " Read that back to me." " Cargo down 12%, ro-ro up 6.4." "12-point decrease and a 6.4 bump on the ro-ro?" "Yep, that's it." "Shit." "I woke up in a sweat 'cause I thought I fucked that up." "You sure?" "Tonight, you had the usual deadline nightmare to no actual purpose." "I guess you're better at this than you thought." "Yeah, I guess." "Thanks, Jay." "Anytime." "Good night." "The husband's thinking, "gosh." I mean, the police show up at his door and say," ""the lady you married from the Uraine," ""A she's dead;" "b, she's got a 2005 gold Mrcedes."" "How long 'til my old lady?" "It's gonna be a while." " Got my hands full." " I'm across the street for breakfast." "At this point, there's only one way to rule." "Come on." "Bullshit." "This is not a murder." "He overdosed." "Look, we found his gear on the bathroom floor, and his girlfriend, who called 911, said the two of them were firing." "I don't have the tox results yet but even if they find heroin, right now, it'd be a secondary cause." "I've got petechials, bruising around the neck." "My preliminary is homicide by mechanical asphyxia." "Ok, fine." "I'll fucking bring the paramedic in here, and he'll fucking explain it to you himself." "That's right." "I'm going to go back to dundalk, drag his ass in here so you can hear it from him 'cause I ain't taking this as a murder." "Hey, Jimmy." "Nancy." "How's tricks?" "Heard you were working murders again." "How's life in the county?" "Worse every year." "You guys can't keep all the dirt on your side of the line." "What's Kevin so hot about?" "New cutter's dug her heels in, says it's a murder." "It's not, but I can see why she'd think strangulation." "Guy's got a fractured hyoid, petechia in both eyes, but it's a freak thing." "If we weren't there to see it, I wouldn't have believed it myself." "It's all post-mortem." "He fires up a speedball, then blacks out, falls between toilet and bathtub, manages to get himself wedged back pretty good." "I couldn't make this shit up." "Medics come, pronounce him right then and there, but get this-they can't pry the guy out without grabbing hold of his neck for leverage." "We watched them do it." "This dundalk medic and the morgue guy just grab his neck and start yanking." "Finally they get him out, he comes down here looking like a strangle job." "They can't tell that it's post-mort?" "On a fresh body, no one can." "Grab a guy too hard, and you can cause petechia, break a hyoid, even leave bruising," " all after death." " Fuck me." "So Infante's about to lose his mind if he can't talk this thing out of becoming a murder." "Either that or charge the paramedic." "Hey." "You goin' across the street for breakfast?" " Buy me some scrapple, sailor?" " Come on." "Number two." "Surprise." "My man Sergei thought we should talk first." " Talk about what?" " That's on you, youngun." "Whatever business you tryin' to do through the Russians, you got to go through me first." "'cause up in this bitch here," "I'm what you might consider an authority figure." "You know everybody got to get my help or ask my advice, like, on all kinds of shit." "Sergei step to me the other day sayin' this nigga Marlo, who he don't even know, just be sending him cash money to get on his visiting list." "So then he ask me if I knew Marlo." "I tell him, "hell, yeah, I know Marlo real well."" "You know?" "Over westside, everybody know everybody, right?" "Let me help you find your tongue." "You tryin' to get to the Russian so you can get a line to his people." "You tryin' to get to the Greek motherfuckers because if you can you want to cut Proposition Joe and all them other east side bitches out the connect." "I mean, you a natural businessman, right?" "But this is the thing, though, and I mean," "I'm with you on all that as far as it goes, you know?" "Westside definitely need to stick together, you know what I mean?" "And all the fuss about you comin' at me" "I say let bygones be bygones, but fuck all them eastside bitches." "That's just the way I feel about it." "I got nothin' but love in my heart for westside niggas, nothin' but love." "'course, I mean, you know," "I got to have my taste, too." "Figured that." "So send my sister a hundred large, and the next time you come down to Jessup, it won't be my grill talkin' at you." "My word on that." "A hundred large, huh?" "So what's up, man, what's up with you otherwise, you know?" "Ah, the game is the game." "Always." "They do not." " I'm looking for you, Jimmy." " Hey, what's up?" "You know Nancy Porter from the county?" " Lester Freamon." " Good to meet you." "Well, thanks for breakfast." "I'll see you downstairs." "I spent last night sitting on that same Mcculloh street lot." " They went back there?" " Twice." "Once in the early evening and once again after three." "They're getting sloppy, especially now they think we've backed away." "You know, a few good bugs, a couple of small surveillance cameras, some man hours, 2 weeks," "3 the most." "That's all this fucking case needs." "Daniels can't give us that." "He made that pretty fucking clear." "Then we go elsewhere." "In right field, number 21, Nick Markakis." "Going to the game?" "Long-time O's fan?" "I could care less about opening day at this point." "Between Bud Selig and Barry Bonds, they've ruined baseball for me." " You have a minute to talk?" " Late to meet somebody." "How can you commit to a sport where the commissioner justifies a labor lockout and cancels the world series?" "Ho you been an O's fan?" "Actually, I grew up with the cubs, but my son, he kind of likes them so..." "And then on steroids, which has destroyed what's left of baseball's credibility, he's nowhere to be found." "So, you an Orioles fan?" "Are you excited at least that it's opening day, that's kind of..." "Fuck, baseball!" "Peanuts!" "Get your peanuts!" "51, 52, 53." "Hey, Bubs, how you doin'?" "Have a seat all the way around the other side." "Obliged." "Stop crying." "Don't grab stuff off my plate." "Mommy's going to whip you." "Do you need some help here?" "Because we don't do that here." "In our house, there's no hitting anyone, especially children." "Do you understand me?" "Sorry I'm late." "Traffic's a nitmare." "Think you're funny, huh?" "Think I still don't have" "All right, I get the point, fuck holes." "Fuck you both, already." "A couple more years of this, you'll be ready for a radio car." "Why can't you come out to my office and do this like grownups?" "They still make you sign in at the front desk out Woodlawn?" "Who'd you knuckleheads piss on this time?" "We're still working the edges of something the bosses shut down." " What are we talking about?" " The bodies in the vacants." "They shut that down?" "Jesus Christ." " What, 22 murders doesn't rate?" " Not anymore." "You were on it more than a year?" "Where were you?" "Too close to quit." "You know Marlo Stanfield," "Chris Partlow, Snoop Pearson?" "Those names ring out." "We got nothing back from any lab work, there's no witnesses, nothing to make a murder prosecution, so we settled in, sat on them for about a year." " You got a pattern?" " A good one." "2 or 3 weeks with some good F.B.I. cameras and wires, maybe a half-dozen agents" "Like we told you boys when the case broke, we aren't much into ghetto drug shit anymore." "Most of our guys are counterterror and political stuff." "We already did all the long legwork." "2 or 3 weeks, and you guys come out of this with a big headline." "You federal fucks like headlines." "I'll run it up the flagpole." " I'm gonna drive away now." " All right." "If it's ok with you suckholes." "I got good stuff." "Hang on." "Come here." "Tell me so I can put it on the budget." "I got a kid in a wheelchair outside the stadium, wanting to go to the game but unable because he didn't have the money for a scalped ticket." " Sounds pretty good." " You got art?" "I tried, but photo said they were too booked with the game." "This is your main color piece." "You got to have a picture of the kid if he's your lede." " Can we send them out now?" " I guess." "He probably rolled out, but you can try." "Shit." " How old is this fella?" " 13." "What's with his parents?" "Why wasn't he in school?" "In this city?" "He just cut." " What about his parents?" " Both dead." "No shit." "He lives with his aunt in west Baltimore." "How' he get in the wheelchair?" "Something about a stray gunshot." "It was all pretty vague." "You got a date when it happened?" "He was a little hinky with telling me much." "Fact is, he would only let me go with his nickname." "Look." "I got to start writing if you want it for the e-dot." "Why don't you work in metro write so I can read over your shoulder." "What he go by, the nickname?" "E.J." "E.J." "Hey, jane, come here a minute." "Check clips for the last 3 years." "See if we got anything on a kid in the city wounded by a stray bullet." "He'd be 13 now." "Nickname of E.J. Could be his initials." " Who is he to us?" " The lede of our opening day piece." "If we find him, I'd love to get art on the kid." "Don't hold your breath." "It's a hell of a case, really." "And God knows they can use the help." " Sorry I'm late." " Anything up?" " Just the usual." " You all right?" "We do this right, it is like a spiral." "We start on the outside of the circle, and we work our way around the edges, pick up everything we can before we get to Clay and the people he keeps close." "You think Clay knows the indictment's coming?" "Clay Davis has been waiting for the other shoe to drop his whole life." "He knows." "And it's your people up in my shit." "Not no feds, not no state people from Annapolis." "It's motherfuckers from my own city." "My hands are tied here, Clayton." "It's a new Mayor, a new state's attorney." "I'm out there doing the Lord's work for you, Erv." "You know it." "Who got that pay raise through the council-- just enough for you to get that new patio but not enough for that guy from Pittsburgh to take your place?" "I wish I could." "You know I wish I could, but with Carcetti in, people are watching." "I got eyes on me now." "You the commissioner still, right?" "Yeah, but it ain't like it was." "If you don't control it, who does?" "On this, I got to reach around Daniels, and he's Carcetti's boy." "This is a grand jury instigation for God's sake." "We could both be charged with obstruction of justice." "Goddamn it, Erv." "I been there for you, carried water for you, and you do me like this?" "Clay, I can't." "Nobody could." "You think I'm goin' down, don't you?" "You think I'm done." "All y'all ungrateful bitches thinkin' you can throw me out the boat." " Clay." " A-ight!" "I'm gonna remember this moment, Erv." "I'm gonna hold onto this moment." "Clay crying to you?" "Like I can put brakes on this mess." "Is that" "Yeah." "Straight from p-and-r." "And that's with the numbers bent as far as we dare." "With city hall asking for clean stats," " there's only so much we can do." " The hell are we gonna tell the Mayor?" "I sat there for half an hour with him and his deputy." "He knows what he's saying no to." " Well, then how the fuck" " It's personal, Jimmy." "Somebody at City Hall really pissed off the U.S. Attorney." " You're kidding me." " No, and I got an earful." "You tell Lester that I'm still trying to figure out what the problem is, but for right now, you forget about shopping this case anywhere." "D.E.A., A.T.F., customs-- you guys are shut out across the bord." "Fish and fucking wildlife couldn't help you." "Sorry, brother." "The kid is nowhere to be found." "I sent photo down there to try and dig him up." "Nothing." "Probably left." "So we got a poor black kid in a wheelchair with no ticket." "He rolls himself from somewhere in west Baltimore to" "To "the shadow of the mighty brick-faced coliseum known as oriole park,"" "listening to "the cheers from the crowd, which told the whole tale."" "We're gonna give good play to a 13-year-old known only as E.J., who declines to give his name because he skipped school, he's got no parents, he lives with his aunt." "I'm not saying that this kid isn't everything you say he is, but damn, as an editor, I need a little more to go on if I'm gonna fly this thing." "I resent the implication." "I'm not implying anything." "I'm on your side." "But the standard for us has to be" "Just finished your story." "Good read." "I'm putting it out front." "I think you've really captured the disparity of the two worlds in this city in a highly readable narrative." "I wouldn't change a word." "Thanks, but I'm not sure everyone shares your enthusiasm." "Aren't you just a little bit concerned that we don't even have a last name for this kid?" "I thought we held ourselves up to a" "It's not an ideal situation, no, but the boy's reluctance to give his last name clearly stems from his fear of being discovered as a truant." " You have a problem with it?" " A little bit, kind of, yeah." " I'm just saying that" " I think we're on terra firma here." "Gotcha." "The man made the call." "You're good to go." "Thanks, Scott." "The nigga Webster's shop right there." "So look, I'm gonna roll up, and y'all gonna pop out and pop off." "Drop who you can." "Let's go all west coast with this." "Say what?" "Drive-by." "That's how they do." "Drop a motherfucker and not slow down." "Like Boys 'n' the Hood." "Shit was tight, remember?" "Man, I ain't even hit near one of them." "This nigga's wound." "Fuck them west coast niggas 'cause in B-more, we aim to hit a nigga, you heard." "Guy leaves two dozen bodies scattered all over the city, no one gives a fuck." "It's because who he dropped." "True that." "You can go a long way in this country killing black folk." "Young males especially." "Misdemeanor homicides." " If Marlo was killing white women." " White children." "Tourists." "One white ex-cheerleader tourist missing in Aruba." "Trouble is, this ain't Aruba, bitch." "You think that if 300 white people were killed in this city every year, they wouldn't send the 82nd airborne?" "Negro, please." "There's got to be someway to make them turn on the faucet." "Come on, Jimmy." "You're the smartest boy in the room." "You come up with something in this broke-ass city." "Isn't he married or some shit now?" "Did you edit this opening day piece?" "Whiting himself blessed it as written before I could take a meat ax to it." "Did it bother you that we don't have the boy's full name?" "Yes, Rebecca, it did." "Don't give me that "huh."" "Whiting wasn't buying any problem I had." "No art of the kid?" "None." "How long we been here?" "More than a hour." "Why you think we sitting here?" "See who home and who not, who on the block," " police and whatnot." " That's right." "You don't ever want to be the last man to a party." "You feel me?" "That's why I show up to a job an hour before." "Sometimes two." "I don't want nobody setting' up on me while I'm settin' up on them." "'Cause there ain't no good thing about motherfuckin' surprises in this line of work." "Why we doin' June Bug anyway?" "Heard he called Marlo a dicksuck." "Talkin' shit like that." "You heard." "You ain't sure?" "People say he said it." "Don't matter if he said it or not." "People think he said it." "Can't let that shit go." "Why not?" "I mean, Marlo ain't suck no dick, right?" "So if Marlo knows he ain't suck dick, then what the fuck he care what June Bug say?" "What anybody say?" "Why this boy got to get dead, just for talking shit?" "'cause he got a big motherfuckin' mouth, that's why, and you need to stop runnin' your own mouth, young 'un." "There it is." "And all the muscle he got." "See it?" "You ready?" "Now you handle that thing." "You give me a sign, meet me out front." "Michael, you go 'round the alley." "Body come bustin' out the back, you drop that shit." "Oh, shitfuck." "Bunk's usually the one throwing up." "You took aspirin?" "6." "How was that brunette?" "Must have been a decent ride 'cause he never went home." "Same shirt as yesterday, Jimmy." "You catchin' hell from Beadie?" "No." " Just asking." " Gentlemen." "D.O.A. Central and Baltimore." "I took a call two days ago." "The old lady?" "That wasn't a call." "That came back natural." "Look." "I'm hungover, Jay." "Both of you." "You're up." "Mommy." "Mommy!" "'Sup, Boris?" "You know who I am?" "I'm that rich uncle been putting all that money in your canteen account." "In my country, I was in jail 4 years." "In my country, this is not prison." "This is nothing." "I don't need money." "I don't need fucking canteen." "I don't need you." " Gangbanger." " A-ight." "I feel that." "I feel that, but Avon over there, he thinks you might be able to help get a message to the Greeks, to Vondas." "I mean, seeing as you don't need my money," "Vondas might be happy to have it." "If he don't want see me, he won't, but if he do," "it's you that made it happen." "Sonny Mays is running late." "Can you fill in as speaker?" "It's time to share, Bubs." "Nah, I don't think so." "I'm not feeling so great today." "Look, as your sponsor, I'm telling you, you got to step up for something." "I don't care what." "I don't care if it's in these rooms or not, but there ain't no laying in the cut on this shit." "You got to step up somewhere." "Detective, can I get a word?" "Anything?" "Anything on the suspects?" "Maybe on your way out then." "Backdoor was open." "Can't tell if he ran through and out the rear." "They." "Unless the shooter put a bullet in her head for good measure after the shotgun." "Also, two of our street cameras were disabled." " Wires ripped." " Fuck." "That's a whole lot of thinking for any motherfucker to do something like this." "How the fuck?" "How?" "He must have been in that closet the whole time." "no one heard shit." "Call D.S.S. Now." "Any media out back?" "Bring a cage car around." "Hey." "How you doing?" "look, I don't know what I can do to help." "I'm just tryin' to find my way." "seeing' how crowded it is, maybe I can help you hand out tickets." "That's fine, Bubs." "Really, but wouldn't you rather serve?" "Serve lunch." " You mean give the food to people?" " Isn't that the best part?" " Nah, I can't." "No." " All right." "Come on." "We can always use an extra set of hands." "He fell out." "Last bottle of smoke probably did him in." "Another drunk found him, pulled me off post." "Ten-seven when I arrived." "You call for a crime lab?" "The wait's 2 to 3 hours." "Shit gets worse every day." "You ok?" "Go get yourself a coffee," "Do your paperwork, get back on the street. we got it from here." "We're gonna wait on them anyway." " Go ahead." " Thanks." "Don't let this guy go anywhere." "I forgot something in the car." "Bring the paper in, will you?" "We're gonna be here awhile." "Little early for that, ain't it?" "What the fuck you doing?" "Just watch the door, Bunk." "Shit." "Come on, Jimmy." "Get a fuckin' grip." "Have you lost your fucking mind?" "Oh, goddamn it." "Oh, Jesus Christ, you sick fuck." "There's a serial killer in Baltimore." "He preys on the weakest among us." "He needs to be caught." "I'm gone." "I don't want a part of this."