Anyhow, McNulty asks if maybe they could tap Templeton's phone, and Whitey McSuspenders says "no, no, a thousand times no." Templeton asks casually -- perhaps too casually -- if the police plan to wiretap the payphones. Because it would certainly be embarrassing if he's caught on tape faking the next call. "Don't print that either," McNulty insists. "Don't print anything about where the killer calls from." Because that would make it even harder for him and Freamon to pull a fast one on the top brass. The meeting breaks up, with McNulty musing about how this is probably a big story for the Sun. "Ten minutes ago, I would have said this whole thing was complete bullshit," Gus says. "Shows you what I know, I guess." Yes -- shows you should always go with your gut instinct.

It's nightfall, and Donnie and Omar still find themselves parked outside Monk's townhouse, passing the time by scanning the radio dial. They even stumble across Clay Davis giving another impassioned defense of himself -- wisely, Donnie turns the dial back to the R&B.

At police headquarters, Freamon and McNulty are setting up their wiretap and chortling over their good fortune. "I'm sitting there," McNulty says. "All this bullshit coming at me. I'm thinking, 'Christ, this is a waste of time.' Then I realized, this is the wiretap, right here. They're giving it to me. Never mind me making a crank call to someone. This right here is Lester Freamon's motherfucking wire." Anyhow, let's have Lester explain how this subterfuge will work: "They think they're up on your killer's cellphone, but they'll never catch a call because this" -- he holds up a detached wire -- "goes nowhere. Meanwhile, using the same court authorization, I'm up on the live wire down at the detail office listening to Marlo." McNulty will file reports that they haven't heard from the killer just yet; Freamon will use what he's listening to off the wire to make the case against Marlo. And they'll just pin any information they glean on a confidential informant. It's a masterful plan, except for the part where it spins out of control and wrecks the careers and lives of everyone in its path, but we'll worry about that part when we get to it. Pearlman brings in the court papers okaying the wiretap, and Landsman assigns Holley to monitor the wiretap overnight. "Don't look so pissy," Landsman says. "We're actually paying overtime for this." Well, that's something.