Detail office. Polk staggers in, chewing probably quite inadequate gum, and recovers a liquor bottle from a corner where he'd previously hidden it. He starts at a sound, and turns around to see Prez, standing by the machine as he runs off some photocopies. Polk comes over, gasping, "What the hell are you doing?" "Copying," smirks Prez. "A telephone?" Sure enough, Prez has put the base of a telephone numbers-down on the glass and is making copies. He couldn't just use his own cell phone as a reference? Or...remember which letters correspond with which digits? Whatever, it's keeping him occupied in a way that doesn't involve causing teenagers grievous bodily harm. Polk wanders off, shaking his head and muttering. Not shown: Polk just plain falling over, drooling, to take a nap in a sunbeam.

Kima returns to the location of Omar's van, now joined by McNulty in the shotgun seat. She notes that it's after 3, and McNulty wonders where the boys are. Kima suggests that they might only come out at night. With nothing else to do, McNulty spins a yarn about a guy like Omar he used to have working for him, name of Reuben Terry: "Saw the street like we wish we could." Kima smiles: "Ain't nothing like a good CI." We get a long shot of the two police vehicles parked at the curb as a crossing guard waves on some kids on their way home from school, and as a couple of students shoot baleful looks at the cops, McNulty is reminded of something and asks to use Kima's phone. We watch the baleful kid run up and knock on a door, and then cut back to the SUV as McNulty has a testy conversation with, obviously, Elena, about something he got. She's saying she doesn't trust him, and McNulty spits, "For chrissakes, Elena, I'm their father! You think I'd let them sleep on the floor?" You...do live in a bachelor, dude. Kima chews her gum, trying not to eavesdrop. It becomes clear that they're arguing about whether McNulty got bed linens -- he actually has to enumerate each item he got. She asks what colour they are -- I guess because she loves bickering about stupid shit, since it's not like whatever he got needs to match her décor -- but when McNulty exasperatedly asks what the hell difference it makes what colour they are, Elena hangs up. Shut up, Elena. McNulty hangs up, huffing. "Lost her," he covers, to Kima. "I bet," she says curtly. "You know something?" says McNulty. "My ex-wife, the way she acts sometimes -- the way she deals with shit...." He takes a long pause, to work up the nerve for what he's about to say, and then goes on: "You would think a less enlightened man than myself, cruder man than myself -- a man less sensitized to the qualities and charms and value of women -- a man like that; not me, but a man like that: he just might call her a cunt." Kima, having sat through all the preamble, sets her jaw and points out, "You just called the mother of your children a cunt." Well, I mean. If the tight, ungenerous, snippy little shoe fits. I don't love the word either, but...Elena kind of deserves it. I know McNulty cheated on her and everything, but maybe it was because she was such a cooze all the time. I'm just saying. McNulty semantics that he didn't call her a cunt. Kima says that he did, and McNulty insists that he didn't, and not getting Kima's approval on his word choice, he gets out of the car, saying he has something to do. Buy a bunch of bed linens, I'm guessing.