Bodie's car -- a nondescript dark red sedan -- emerges from the garage and pulls up beside the van; Shamrock pulls out to follow Bodie, and the SUV pulls out to follow him.

Pier. Bunk's come down to visit McNulty. Bunk makes a quasi-ribald joke, but when McNulty tries to get him to come aboard and check out McNulty's new office, Bunk flatly refuses: "The Bunk can't swim. I ain't too good at floatin', neither." McNulty, futzing around with ropes and shit, asks what brings Bunk down to the port, and Bunk tells him that Ilene Nathan called; the Gant case is coming up in four weeks. She wants to start "doin' preliminaries" with the witnesses in the case: Trolley, and "Omar, who's in the wind." McNulty offers nothing, forcing Bunk to ask whether McNulty's "got a line" on him. McNulty looks along one side of the boat, cracking, "He's not in the starboard." "That's port, fool," snaps Bunk. Hee. McNulty, fondly ball-breaking, asks how he'd know. Bunk urges McNulty to come out for lunch with him so that they can "think on it," but McNulty says that if he leaves, he has to tell his sergeant, but he goes with Bunk. That reminds Bunk to tell McNulty that Jay wants his $10, for having predicted that McNulty would end up on the boat. McNulty crabs that Jay won't get a dime, since he's probably the one who told Rawls where McNulty didn't want to go. Bunk tells McNulty that it's not the same up in Homicide without him. McNulty's like, "Yeah?" Bunk says it's better. Oh, McNulty. You look very craggy for someone who was apparently born yesterday.

Port of Baltimore. Frank Sobotka (Chris Bauer) is in a trailer, telling Nat Coxson (Luray Cooper) that if the canal gets dredged, it'll mean more work for everyone -- both Frank's guys and Nat's. Nat knows, but he's not thrilled about how much money Frank will have to spend just to get "them" to start talking about dredging. Frank says that if they don't try, they "might as well roll over and die right now." Nat says they should use their resources to get the grain pier rebuilt: "You got a hundred ships right there!" Er, can I just break in here and say that even by the end of this season, I only kind of understood how all this shipping/maritime/union jazz worked? And that was months ago, so it's all fallen out of my head, having been replaced with trivia about fucking Spencer, and I don't even watch that show. My point is that all of this is presented in an exposition-light manner, which I appreciate as a viewer, but which is kind of a pain as a recapper, so let's all just roll with what they're talking about and assume that some of the more obscure points of this particular plot will become more clear over time. So Frank goes, "That's break-bulk, Nat," like, YEAH, Nat, fucking duh! He says that'll just mean work for one or two extra gangs a week, at six or seven dudes per gang. Nat's point is that if they try for that, they could actually achieve it: "You go down to Annapolis asking for the goddamn canal, you gonna come back with nothing but your little shriveled-ass dick in your hand." Where would his dick be otherwise? "What's more, if the grain pier don't get fixed up soon, some asshole's gonna fuck us by building condominiums all over it." Yeah, I hate those assholes who live in condominiums. (Cough.) Frank starts to say what would be different if the canal were two feet deeper, but Nat barks, "Fuck the canal! I'm gonna go to the district council. I'm gonna tell them to push for the grain pier, you feel me?" "Nat, calm the fuck down," says Frank exasperatedly. Nat, stalking out of the trailer, starts ranting about how the members of the Checkers Local are always going around acting like they're the king of everything. When Nat's almost at the door, Frank calls to him, trying to jolly him along some more, but Nat's not having it: "You need to crawl back in them holds and remind yourself of who you is and where you come from." He stomps out.